Felicia Kornbluh presents A Woman's Life is a Human Life, ft. Katha Pollitt

P&T Knitwear is pleased to welcome Felicia Kornbluh to celebrate her newest book, A Woman's Life is a Human Life, with a talk, audience Q&A, and book signing. Published to coincide with the fiftieth anniversary of Roe v. Wade, this urgent book from historian Felicia Kornbluh reveals two movement victories in New York that forever changed the politics of reproductive rights nationally.

Felicia will be joined in conversation by poet and essayist Katha Pollitt. After the talk, Felicia will sign copies of her books.

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Before there was a “Jane Roe,” the most important champions of reproductive rights were ordinary people working in their local communities. In A Woman’s Life Is a Human Life, historian Felicia Kornbluh delivers the untold story of everyday activists who defined those rights and achieved them, in the years immediately before and after Roe v. Wade made abortion legal under federal law.

A Woman’s Life Is a Human Life is the story of two movements in New York that transformed the politics of reproductive rights: the fight to decriminalize abortion and the fight against sterilization abuse, which happened disproportionately in communities of color and was central to an activism that was about the right to bear children, as well as not to. Each initiative won key victories that relied on people power and not on the federal courts. Their histories cast new light on Roe and constitutional rights, on the difficulty and importance of achieving a truly inclusive feminism, and on reproductive politics today.

This is a book full of drama. From dissident Democrats who were the first to try reforming abortion laws and members of a rising feminist movement who refashioned them, to the nation’s largest abortion referral service established by progressive Christian and Jewish clergy, to Puerto Rican activists who demanded community accountability in healthcare and introduced sterilization abuse to the movement’s agenda, and Black women who took the cause global, A Woman’s Life Is a Human Life documents the diverse ways activists changed the law and worked to create a world that would support all people’s reproductive choices.

The first in-depth study of a winning campaign against a state’s abortion law and the first to chronicle the sterilization abuse fight side-by-side with the one for abortion rights, A Woman’s Life Is a Human Life is rich with firsthand accounts and previously unseen sources—including those from Kornbluh’s mother, who wrote the first draft of New York’s law decriminalizing abortion, and their across-the-hall neighbor, Dr. Helen Rodríguez-Trías, a Puerto Rican doctor who cofounded the movement against sterilization abuse. In this dynamic, surprising, and highly readable history, Felicia Kornbluh corrects the record to show how grassroots action overcame the odds to create policy change—and how it might work today.

• This is a free in-store event with limited amphitheater-style seating
• We encourage all guests to wear masks.
• The talk will be followed by a book signing. Books signed at P&T Knitwear events must be purchased from P&T Knitwear. If you would like a signed copy and cannot attend the event, we're happy to take your pre-order. We ship most places!

“Eye-opening. . . Kornbluh makes public policy and legal history come alive by demonstrating the power of women’s collective action. The result is an inspiring study of how progress happens.” — Publishers Weekly

“Both timely and engaging, this insightful study reveals that the battle for abortion rights must be considered only one part of a much larger, more complex struggle that needs to address the protection of the sexual freedom and choices of all women. Necessary reading for anyone worried about this post-Dobbs world.” — Kirkus Reviews

“This long-needed essential history fills our gap of understanding of how the concept of reproductive rights, a recognition of the multiple issues that women need in order to have reproductive control over our lives, grew from grassroots movements [and] makes an important and enlightening contribution to the history of American radicalism and social movements.” — Sarah Schulman, author of Let the Record Show: A Political History of ACT UP, NY 1987-1993

“At a time when reproductive justice is once again elusive, Felicia Kornbluh shows us that the catalyst for change may lie in the unexplored stories of our past. Compelling and urgent, A Woman’s Life makes clear the power of women’s activism—then and now.” — Melissa Murray, Frederick I. and Grace Stokes Professor of Law, NYU

Felicia Kornbluh is a Professor of History with a secondary appointment in Gender, Sexuality and Women’s Studies, and an affiliated faculty member in Jewish Studies, at the University of Vermont. She is the author of The Battle for Welfare Rights: Politics and Poverty in Modern America and coauthor, with Gwendolyn Mink, of Ensuring Poverty: Welfare Reform in Feminist Perspective. She is a former board member of Planned Parenthood of Northern New England and current board vice president of the Planned Parenthood of Vermont Action Fund. Kornbluh lives in Williston, VT, with her spouse and two black cats.

Katha Pollitt the author of Virginity or Death!, is a poet, essayist, and columnist for The Nation. She has won many prizes and awards for her work, including the National Book Critics Circle Award for her first collection of poems, Antarctic Traveller, and two National Magazine Awards for essays and criticism. She lives in New York City.



Event Venue & Nearby Stays

P&T Knitwear Books & Podcasts, 180 Orchard Street, New York, United States