On this podcast, we explore fantastical thinking, moral panics, conspiracy theories, and urban

legends, examine the forces that shape our culture, and tell the stories that create the

realities we share, and sometimes the realities we don't.

I'm your host, Chelsea Weber-Smith, and this is American History.

Upon their loins depends the future destiny of the nation.

Well, it's made up of special herbs, and the formula has been carefully

God and handed down upon generation to another.

Two days ago, a baby delivered by a midwife, God.

If you're not feeling well, go see Dr. Evans. He's a licensed MD.

You can trust you.

When we think of the battle over abortion rights,

it's easy to picture a fiery feud between feminists and Christians.

One side cruel and inhumane, the other heroic and righteous.

Who's who depends on who you ask?

But the thing about history, the thing I love about history,

is that it easily defies all our simple stories and inherited assumptions,

and gives us, instead, an impossible tangle of complicated forces,

influential individuals, muddled mass movements, sinister vested interests, and covert agendas.

And it inevitably shows us an America as complicated as the one we know today.

For this series, we're going back in time to, before the historic

Roe vs. Wade case, made abortions federally legal,

and protected the autonomy of people who can get pregnant.

...