A review by socraticgadfly
Sex and the Constitution: Sex, Religion, and Law from America's Origins to the Twenty-First Century by Geoffrey R. Stone

5.0

Great overview of how sexuality issues, religious beliefs and law (primarily federal law discussed in the book) have intersected over the decades and centuries, with the focus being on how the intersection of the first and second have shaped the third. The obvious cases are here, like Roe and others on reproductive choice, as well as various gay rights ones, but the book goes well beyond that.

And, starts well before that. Stone notes that before the Second Great Awakening, many sexual matters were considered private and not subject to legal purview. That includes women getting reproductive counseling, including for abortion, from midwives. (American Medical Association bluenoses seeking to expand professionalism went hand in hand with the likes of Anthony Comstock on one hand, and early Progressive-type reformers on the other, to undercut this and to criminalize abortion.)