CSUSB History Professor Alicia Gutierrez-Romine Publishes Work in the American Historical Association's News Magazine "Perspectives"
CSUSB History Professor Alicia Gutierrez-Romine published her work in the January 2025 issue of the American Historical Association's flagship news magazine Perspectives. The article, "Her 'Health and Thus Her Life': Abortion Exceptions in Legal History," places recent developments in abortion rights into a longer context, considering the history of abortion access in California before Roe V. Wade and beyond Dobbs V. Jackson.
Dr. Gutierrez-Romine brings precision and rigor to her historical analysis of a topic that polarizes the American public, concluding, "Bans don’t prevent abortions. They dehumanize those seeking the procedure by forcing them to procure them illicitly, in less-than-safe-or-ideal conditions, or they subject these persons to the indignity of begging for medical care at their most vulnerable moments. Nevertheless, when it comes to abortion, it seems like we continuously refuse to learn from lessons of the past."
Dr. Gutierrez-Romine's work has been featured in a number of news outlets, as well as in her recent monograph, From Back Alley to the Border: Criminal Abortion in California, 1920– 1969 (Univ. of Nebraska Press, 2023).