Emily Winderman, "Back-Alley Abortion: A Rhetorical History (JHU Press, 2025)

Nov 19, 2025

Emily Winderman, an assistant professor and expert in reproductive justice, dives deep into the evolution of the phrase "back-alley abortion" in her new book. She explores its complex origins tied to urban reform, sanitation, and morality debates. Winderman links this rhetoric to significant moments in abortion history, including its weaponization by anti-abortion advocates after Roe v. Wade. She highlights the phrase's adaptability in current discussions following the Dobbs decision, revealing how it perpetuates misconceptions about care and obscures systemic issues.

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INSIGHT

Alleys Had Their Own Rhetorical Life

Urban alleys carried sanitation, morality, and criminality discourses long before abortion was linked to them.
Those affective residues (bad smells, filth, immorality) later attached to abortion rhetoric.

ANECDOTE

Concrete Alley Poem Foreshadowed Rhetoric

Winderman found a progressive-era poem praising concrete alleys that condemned muddy, disease-ridden alleys.
The poem's sanitation rhetoric mirrored later 'back-alley abortion' descriptions despite not mentioning abortion.

INSIGHT

Abortion Framed By Industrial Metaphors

Criminalized abortion was framed through metaphors like mills, rackets, and rings that shaped perceived provider ethics and techniques.
Those metaphors helped spatialize and moralize abortion providers differently across contexts.

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How did three words come to carry the weight of America's abortion debates? In Back-Alley Abortion: A Rhetorical History (JHU Press, 2025), Dr. Emily Winderman examines how this phrase shaped American reproductive politics and health care standards across generations. Drawing on extensive archival research, the book traces the unexpected origins of this rhetoric in urban reform movements, showing how early associations of alleys with sanitation, morality, and criminality created lasting impressions that would later influence abortion discourse.

Dr. Winderman demonstrates how "back-alley abortion" was always more than just descriptive language—it has shaped perceptions of medical legitimacy and clinical spaces. The book reveals how this phrase emerged from racialized and gendered intersections of urban planning, public health, and social reform movements before becoming a rhetoric that anticipated pre–Roe v. Wade criminalized medical encounters. After Roe, back-alley abortion molded public memory through high-profile cases and later became a weaponized tool of anti-abortion activists to restrict access under the guise of sanitary clinical care.

From nineteenth-century urban reformers to contemporary Supreme Court decisions, this study illuminates how three words came to carry the weight of America's most contentious health care debate. In our post-Dobbs era, as states grapple with new restrictions on reproductive rights, understanding the complex history and rhetorical power of "back-alley abortion" has never been more crucial. Drawing on rhetorical theory, reproductive justice theory, and the history of medicine, Back-Alley Abortion offers vital insights into how rhetoric shapes our understanding of medical legitimacy, clinical standards, and health care justice in the United States.

This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find Miranda’s interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts.

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