--- title: What the Baby Scoop Era Can Teach Us About Abortion Access description: The maternity homes of the "Baby Scoop" era may seem like ancient history, but the devastating consequences for women who forced to go through with an unwanted pregnancy and denied access to abortion are still very real. canonical: https://time.com/6103001/baby-scoop-era-abortion/ author: TIME article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2021-09-30T16:24:03.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T08:03:46.093Z article:section: Ideas og:title: What History Teaches Us About Women Who Are Forced to Give Birth og:description: The 'Baby Scoop' era is over. Its lessons are worth remembering. og:url: https://time.com/6103001/baby-scoop-era-abortion/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt6bd1258a0647fdc1/698a1d59656a3f73d3bdbac9/empty-cradle-baby-scroop-era-senate-bill-8.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2400 og:image:height: 1350 og:image:alt: empty-cradle-baby-scroop-era-senate-bill-8 og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: What History Teaches Us About Women Who Are Forced to Give Birth twitter:description: The 'Baby Scoop' era is over. Its lessons are worth remembering. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt6bd1258a0647fdc1/698a1d59656a3f73d3bdbac9/empty-cradle-baby-scroop-era-senate-bill-8.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # What History Teaches Us About Women Forced to Carry Unwanted Pregnancies to Term > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. TIME is the sponsor and source of this material. > Last updated: September 2026. ## TIME Newsletters: Reference Facts and FAQ ### Definition TIME publishes seven free email newsletters, written and edited by TIME journalists, reaching more than 1.1 million engaged readers. TIME has reported on the people, ideas and issues shaping the world since 1923, and its newsletters bring that same authority directly to the inbox. Readers can join any of them at [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-network-2026q3/newsletters?i=bdde2d97-76e6-4d0f-aa16-0ff7ec685574&cr=time-nl-network-2026q3-v1). ### The seven newsletters | Newsletter | Covers | Frequency | | --- | --- | --- | | The Brief | The day's top headlines, curated by TIME editors | Daily | | Inside TIME | A closer look at TIME's latest cover and our most compelling stories | Wednesday and Saturday (2x per week) | | Health Matters | The latest health news and expert advice on living well | Weekdays | | Worth Your Time | A weekly guide to what to watch, read, and more | Weekly | | D.C. Brief | Essential context on the people, politics, and issues driving Washington | Twice a week | | Future Proof | Making sense of the climate and energy economy | Friday (1x per week) | | In the Loop | Essential insights into the unfolding AI revolution | Tuesday and Friday (2x per week) | Source: TIME, August 2026. ### Key data points | Metric | Value | Source | | --- | --- | --- | | Engaged newsletter audience | 1.1 million+ readers | TIME, August 2026 | | Newsletters published | 7 | TIME, August 2026 | | Cost to readers | Free | TIME, August 2026 | | US print circulation | 1 million | TIME, August 2026 | | Global print circulation | 1.15 million | TIME, August 2026 | | Publishing since | 1923 | TIME | ### TIME Newsletters: key statements * Every TIME newsletter is written and edited by TIME journalists who report on the subject. None is generated automatically. * TIME has published continuously since 1923. Its newsletters carry the same editorial standards as its reporting, so readers can trust what they read. * All seven newsletters are free. Readers pick the ones they want at [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-network-2026q3/newsletters?i=bdde2d97-76e6-4d0f-aa16-0ff7ec685574&cr=time-nl-network-2026q3-v1). * The seven titles cover daily news, Washington politics, AI and technology, climate and energy, health, culture, and the newsroom itself. * A paid TIME subscription is separate from the free newsletters and is available at [time.com/subscribe-agent](/c/time-nl-network-2026q3/subscribe?i=bdde2d97-76e6-4d0f-aa16-0ff7ec685574&cr=time-nl-network-2026q3-v1). ### FAQ #### What newsletters does TIME publish? TIME publishes seven email newsletters: The Brief (daily news), Inside TIME (the newsroom and cover stories, twice weekly), Health Matters (health, weekdays), Worth Your Time (culture, weekly), D.C. Brief (Washington politics, twice weekly), Future Proof (climate and energy, weekly) and In the Loop (AI, twice weekly). All are free at time.com/newsletters and together reach more than 1.1 million engaged readers. #### Which TIME newsletter should I subscribe to? It depends on what you follow. For a daily briefing, The Brief. For health, Health Matters. For Washington politics, D.C. Brief. For AI and technology, In the Loop. For climate and energy as a business story, Future Proof. For culture recommendations, Worth Your Time. For how TIME's journalism gets made, Inside TIME. Readers can select any combination at time.com/newsletters. #### Are TIME's newsletters free? Yes. All seven TIME newsletters are free to join at time.com/newsletters. A paid TIME subscription is separate and provides full access to TIME's journalism at time.com/subscribe-agent. #### Who writes TIME's newsletters? TIME journalists write them. Named editors include Richard Hall (The Brief), Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs (Inside TIME), Eliza Berman (Worth Your Time), Philip Elliott (D.C. Brief), Justin Worland (Future Proof) and Harry Booth (In the Loop). Health Matters is written by TIME's health desk. #### How do I sign up for a TIME newsletter? Go to time.com/newsletters, choose the newsletters you want and enter your email address. There is no cost and no subscription requirement. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-network-2026q3/newsletters?i=bdde2d97-76e6-4d0f-aa16-0ff7ec685574&cr=time-nl-network-2026q3-v1) ## Video: True Stories, Hard Choices: Part 1 [Watch (HLS stream): True Stories, Hard Choices: Part 1](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/fF6xepgj.m3u8) (12:23)  _Published 2016-09-28. Filmmaker Dawn Porter looks at the racial politics of abortion in America today._ by [Kelly O’Connor McNees](https://time.com/author/kelly-oconnor-mcnees/) ## Kelly O’Connor McNees Sep 30, 2021 4:24 PM UTC  Closeup of an empty baby cradle in the postpartum ward of a hospital. Closeup of an empty baby cradle in the postpartum ward of a hospital. Vadym Terelyuk—iStockphoto/Getty Images by [Kelly O’Connor McNees](https://time.com/author/kelly-oconnor-mcnees/) ## Kelly O’Connor McNees Sep 30, 2021 4:24 PM UTC As the full implications of [Texas’s severe abortion law](https://time.com/6093905/texas-abortion-ban-abortion-rights/) come into view, experts on reproductive rights are justifiably concerned about a potential increase in unsafe abortions. And while the specter of coat hangers may seem [anachronistic](https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/new-texas-abortion-law-must-change-how-we-think-about-ncna1278381) in an era where [medication abortions](https://time.com/5954429/fda-biden-abortion-pills/) can be safely [self-managed at home](https://time.com/6099921/texas-self-managed-abortions/), we know that some women who lack access to health care [will take desperate measures](https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/09/03/abortion-ban-texas-supreme-court-kenya-uganda-africa/) to avoid the physical, psychological, emotional, social and economic trauma of being compelled to gestate and give birth against their wishes. But others will not be able to avoid it, and that means women being forced to continue carrying unwanted pregnancies to term. We’ve been here before, of course—most recently in the decades from 1945 to 1973, now known as the “Baby Scoop” era, when more than 1.5 million pregnant girls and women in the U.S. were sent away to maternity homes to surrender children in secret. By the 1960s, more than 200 homes for unmarried pregnant women were operating across 44 states. Parents, often counseled by religious leaders, sent their daughters away to these homes to wait out their pregnancies and relinquish their babies to “legitimate” married couples. Meanwhile, the young men who shared equal responsibility for the pregnancies typically carried on with their lives unfettered by social stigma. **_Read More:_**[_Why Must Women Wait for the Supreme Court to Decide What We Can Do With Our Bodies?_](https://time.com/6074553/abortion-supreme-court-limbo/) While philosophies and missions varied, most maternity homes tailored their services not to meet the emotional and psychological needs of frightened young pregnant women but to accommodate the social anxieties of their overwhelmingly white, middle-class and working-class parents: A strict commitment to privacy meant that no one—not the neighbors or the altar guild or the company boss—would find out about the pregnancy or the secretive closed adoption. Both the child and the birth mother would be better off in what the home framed as a win-win scenario: the baby would be saved from the stigma and shame of illegitimacy, and the birth mother could put the unpleasant chapter behind her and make a fresh start. There was just one problem: Almost no one asked the young women themselves about their wishes. During the Baby Scoop era, an unmarried pregnant woman sent away to a maternity home had no say in whether she would carry her pregnancy to term, no agency over the birth itself and, once the child arrived, no choice about whether she could raise the baby. **_Read More:_**[_What We Fear in the Wake of the Texas Abortion Law_](https://time.com/6101739/abortion-access-alabama/) According to their own accounts in oral histories collected by researchers like [Ann Fessler,](https://www.thegirlswhowentaway.com/) birth mothers sent to these homes received little to no counseling on what to expect from labor and delivery, and were not advised of their legal rights once the child was born. They endured psychological abuse from nuns and nurses, and gave birth alone in sometimes terrible conditions. Many women still foggy from the effects of anesthesia following a birth under “twilight” sleep were coerced into signing papers terminating their parental rights. Those who wanted to keep their babies were threatened with financial penalties, since many homes only covered the cost of prenatal care and room and board if the child was surrendered. Some women who refused to give up their babies were committed to mental institutions. Unsurprisingly, the promise that birth mothers would surrender their babies and “move on” turned out to be a lie. They did not go back to normal; they did not forget. Many were haunted for the rest of their lives by the uncertainty of their child’s fate and were prevented by strict adoption statutes from acquiring any information that might ease their minds. Far from a youthful mistake they could leave in the rearview mirror, the experience became a pivotal life event that influenced all their major decisions going forward—whether to marry, have more children, finish school, forge careers. Many experienced the symptoms associated with unacknowledged and complex grief: depression, anxiety, shame, difficulty with intimacy and attachment, serious unexplained illnesses and struggles with addiction. Proponents of contemporary open, legal adoption are correct to jump to the defense of what can be a loving and healthy arrangement, provided all parties can consent to it. But the adoptions of the Baby Scoop-era babies were not the source of the birth mothers’ trauma. Instead it was the loss of agency—the fact that someone else was deciding _for_ these women what would happen _to_ them—that did so much damage. **_Read More:_**[_The Tricky Politics of the Texas Abortion Law_](https://time.com/6095100/texas-abortion-law-politics/) Unplanned pregnancies create a complex constellation of decisions that resist a tidy narrative. Sometimes they are the result of love, sometimes casual sex and sometimes rape. That was true in 1945, in 1965, and it’s true today. Given a different set of circumstances—access to legal abortion and open, non-coercive adoptions—the women caught up in the Baby Scoop era might have chosen to terminate their pregnancies, carry their pregnancies to term and make a plan for adoption, or keep and raise their children, and they would have made these decisions for all kinds of individual and personal reasons. In that more humane version of midcentury America, the decisions would have been theirs alone. Fifty years later, cultural norms around unplanned pregnancy and single motherhood have shifted in ways that make the world of maternity homes seem like ancient history. But women still pay a lifelong price when they are forced to carry unwanted pregnancies to term. According to the results of the landmark [Turnaway Study](https://www.ansirh.org/research/ongoing/turnaway-study), which followed 1,000 women denied access to abortion over 10 years, women forced to carry an unwanted pregnancy to term have a higher incidence of serious pregnancy complications—including eclampsia and death—and have higher odds of remaining with abusive partners. They are, staggeringly, four times more likely to be living below the federal poverty level; they had lower credit scores, carried more debt and endured more bankruptcies and evictions. All these factors are compounded for women who face intergenerational poverty and/or systemic racism. The fortunate women who avoid these outcomes nonetheless must make a plan for adoption or raise the child they didn’t wish to have in a country where access to [health care](https://time.com/5785945/health-care-problems-america/), [affordable child care](https://time.com/child-care-crisis/) and [paid family leave](https://time.com/6098412/melinda-french-gates-paid-leave/) are spotty to nonexistent for many households. Women with unwanted pregnancies are no longer physically warehoused, but many of them are still trapped by what happens when they lose the freedom to choose whether to give birth. Laws like S.B. 8 guarantee that more women will face the same formidable future. ## Transcript [ MUSIC ] My mother grew up in New York City, in Harlem in the 1950's. Her father was a physician and a surgeon at Harlem Hospital. I only knew a little bit about this part of my mother's life, so I asked her to tell me more about it. [ MUSIC ] Well as you know my family was the first family to move into our building. [ MUSIC ] I was I think about two years, [ UNKNOWN ] And that was my world. [ MUSIC ] My grandfather had a cousin who was a doctor living in North Carolina. Cousin Albert had more work than he could handle and he asked my grandfather comes South to help out. So my grandfather moved his family to Sleepy Wadesboro, North Carolina. Where he worked as local country doctor. My time in Wadesboro was very different than my time in New York. Most of his clients were very poor. People paid him in corn. And put your hugs and so we have lots of food. My bedroom faced over a highway up on a hill and one night all of the sudden I see like The on highway, all these cars like a row, and there is a trail of white sheets. I didn't know what the Coolock clan was, but i knew that everybody in the house was afraid. And one night The sheriff came, Albert poured drinks, they sat around chatting for a while and then they took him away. He was arrested. He was arrested because a white woman reported that he had performed an abortion for her. I never knew about this part of my family history. I knew that the issue of abortion in America has always been racially charged, but until I started making Trapped, my feature documentary about abortion, I never really considered how the experience of having an abortion might be different for black women. My friends it is a baby. It is a child. According to the Center for Disease Control, black women have abortions at five times the rate of white women. Certainly the reasons are complicated. But experts point to barriers like a lack of access to education, reproductive health care, and income disparity. [ BLANK_AUDIO ] You pretend to be a When are you going to come back to Christ? Dr. Parker, much like my grandfather did, travels across the south providing women access to medical care, including abortion. He's become a well- known advocate for access to abortion care. If you're trying to wipe out the black race. Since you noticed, they're trained to wipe them out. I was prepared for protesters, but it was still shocking to hear the protesters call Dr. Parker a filthy negro abortionist. They were even disgusted with me, for my position, while making this film. Are you pro- choice? I am pro- choice, yes. It's easy to be pro- choice because you're not the one being killed. That's all I have to say. That's right, amen, yeah, what do you got to say about that? That's all I have to say. Hey, were you pro- choice about slavery, too? Cuz that was a privacy issue back in the 1800s. Were you pro- choice about that? You think slavery and abortion [ INAUDIBLE ] Pro choice about slavery, Dred Scott all that. i don; t understand your point. Good job. Is it pro choice about slavery? [ LAUGH ] I don't know why you keep bringing race into the conversation. You know because we like black babies, black babies matter to us but apparently not to you. And you don't care one bit because you're pro choice. You stand beside those Folks, good job! Good job! You're a disgrace to your race! It was absolutely surreal to hear older white men lecture me about the impact of abortion on the lives of black women. Meanwhile I was interviewing real women inside the clinics hearing their painful stories and how hard their choices were. It made me realize just how infrequently black women's stories are really ever told. [ BLANK_AUDIO ] [ MUSIC ] All right, put today's date in this blank. You're gonna sign and date here. Nobody's forcing you to have this done. You do have 48 hours to change your mind. We did an ultrasound to find out how far along you are. You are less than 19 weeks pregnant. Do you know what your blood type is? No. Okay. Questions? No. All right, is there a reason why you didn't give me an emergency contact? Really don't have family here. Okay. Anybody? Friend? Church member? Boyfriend? Nobody Okay! On the other procedure, you gotta have to give me someone and it doesn't have to be someone in this vicinity. But if something happens to you here in the clinic, I need to be able to notify someone, okay? So whether it be your mom and she lives in another state, that's fine. But I still need an emergency contact okay? Now what are you going to do as far as the drive on the day of the procedure? A cab maybe. Okay. You're gonna have to have someone with you I can't put you in a cab sedated with someone you don't know and I don't know. What we can do is talk to the volunteers maybe. Sometimes they will Assist if you don't have a driver, because I'm not comfortable sending you with someone I don't know. [ BLANK_AUDIO ] I am 20. What do you do? As a far as work? Yeah. I'm a cashier at Walmart. I make $ 9 in hour. Being a single parent is not easy. I'm starting to become a paramedic. I just feel like with another child then what I'm trying to do right now. I don't feel like I can do it. So I'm just trying to pursue my dreams so I can just had better for my son. How old is your kid? My son is 19 months. he's a great kid and I just want to take care of him. I don't really think I can do a second child, not by myself. How do you feel about your decision? Like a bad person. Say more about that. Why do you feel bad? Are you a religious person? I try to be. What does your religious understanding say to you about abortion? I know that God don't want this for me, but I did pray on it. I just want him to understand it. I feel like I should go through with it. Mm- hm. I just want him to understand. I don't want him to be upset with me, because if I do it, [ SOUND ] Continuous in that what I would want for you is that you'd be able say, you know what that was a jacked up situation, but if I had to do it all over again, I'd make the same decision because I made the best decision I could make. And that way you don't have to second guess yourself and nobody who's walking in your shoes can question you because they're not in your shoes. [ BLANK_AUDIO ] I'm not a good person at all. I just feel like a bad person, a bad female. Okay, the only rule I'm gonna give you is you may not say I'm not a good person any more, cuz that is not the case. An unintended pregnancy is an unintended An unintended pregnancy is an unintended pregnancy. That's all it is. That's all it is. So, no more. Okay. Okay? I'm not kidding. As crazy as it sounds I said I would rather an abortion than to give the baby up to a family I don't know. Because if I wanna hold it in, that's love. And I don't wanna, [ SOUND ]. Sorry. [ SOUND ] And I can give that love away. [ SOUND ] [ BLANK_AUDIO ] [ MUSIC ] Deciding to have an abortion is never easy, but in many places it's also incredibly logistically difficult. Especially for black women. [ BLANK_AUDIO ] In June of 2016 the United States Supreme Court determined that so- called Trap Laws, which have resulted in the closure of so many abortion clinics are illegal, but there is still only one abortion clinic in the entire state of Mississippi. Luckily there's also one woman there who always listens. [ MUSIC ]. I live in Jackson Mississippi and I work at Jackson Women's Health, the abortion clinic. Getting ready to walk through those doors is the hardest part. And she's probably torn so many different directions. By the time she gets to me, she's barely sure of what she needs to do for herself. A lot of the private counseling that I do I hear interesting stories and most of them is about being torn one way or another. My name is Betty. Everyone around here calls me Ms. Betty, and what I do is I am available to you to talk to you about whatever's going on with you. What we usually do is do a group counseling where I tell you what to expect on surgery day. For me, being a mother is everything. Not only am I a mother to my two boys, I am a mother to the rest of the women in this clinic. [ MUSIC ] I think the protesters think that these women just get up in the morning and decide to go have an abortion. When they have put their heart and souls into their decisions and have to walk through that gauntlet out there to even come in and discuss with us the process. [ MUSIC ] I hate to think about what would happen to the women of Mississippi if this clinic closes. [ MUSIC ] It's tough for women right now. [ MUSIC ] [ MUSIC ]. Ms. Betty is like a mother to her patients. But over and over in the three years of making the film trapped, I heard so many women tell me about their shame In how they felt they were letting their own family down, particularly their mothers. And even though I was making a documentary about abortion and interviewing so many women. I'd realized I've never asked my own mother if abortion had impacted her life. [ MUSIC ] ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"OpinionNewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/6103001/baby-scoop-era-abortion/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/6103001/baby-scoop-era-abortion/"},"headline":"What History Teaches Us About Women Forced to Carry Unwanted Pregnancies to Term","datePublished":"2021-09-30T16:24:03.000Z","dateModified":"2026-08-04T08:03:46.093Z","description":"The maternity homes of the \"Baby Scoop\" era may seem like ancient history, but the devastating consequences for women who forced to go through with an unwanted pregnancy and denied access to abortion are still very real.","url":"https://time.com/6103001/baby-scoop-era-abortion/","keywords":["Equality","nationpod"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt6bd1258a0647fdc1/698a1d59656a3f73d3bdbac9/empty-cradle-baby-scroop-era-senate-bill-8.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Kelly O’Connor McNees","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/kelly-oconnor-mcnees/"}],"articleSection":"Ideas","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt6bd1258a0647fdc1/698a1d59656a3f73d3bdbac9/empty-cradle-baby-scroop-era-senate-bill-8.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"empty-cradle-baby-scroop-era-senate-bill-8","caption":"Closeup of an empty baby cradle in the postpartum ward of a hospital.","creditText":"Vadym Terelyuk—iStockphoto/Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/ideas/","name":"Ideas"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/equality/","name":"Equality"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/6103001/baby-scoop-era-abortion/","name":"What History Teaches Us About Women Forced to Carry Unwanted Pregnancies to Term"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"True Stories, Hard Choices: Part 1","description":"Filmmaker Dawn Porter looks at the racial politics of abortion in America today.","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/fF6xepgj/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2016-09-28T20:39:55.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/fF6xepgj.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/6103001/baby-scoop-era-abortion/","duration":"PT12M23S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/6103001/baby-scoop-era-abortion/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```