The "Social Hygiene" War Against Women

his book is a brilliant study of the way social anxieties have historically congealed in state control over women’s bodies and behavior — at times with the complicity of medical authorities. It should come as no surprise, but appalls nonetheless, to learn that more than one government enforcer of the American Plan also played a key role in the notorious Tuskegee syphilis study, in which infected black men were deliberately denied treatment and left to sicken and die. Unchecked power over those who have little, Stern warns, is a peril that should keep us on high alert today.

Cynthia Gorney, a professor emerita at the School of Journalism at the University of California, Berkeley, is the author of “Articles of Faith: A Frontline History of the Abortion Wars.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/31/books/review/scott-stern-trials-of-nina-mccall.html