Alice Bunker Stockham, MD

Alice Bunker Stockham, MD was one of the first women ever to graduate from medical school in the United States. Through her work as a doctor, she frequently treated patients who were forced into maternity which she found to be particularly distressing.

In 1903 she published Karezza: Ethics of Marriage, in which she discusses the importance of a woman's right to choose. In Chapter 7: FREE MOTHERHOOD, Stockham describes her experience visiting the Naiars, a society in India located on the Malabar Coast. She describes them as "intelligent and educated, have good schools and their houses average better than those in other parts of India..the women are the lords of creation...they are called the free women of India."

In this society, women take control of their own lives choosing their husbands who will ultimately be the father of the children they bear. If a Naiar woman deems a man to be unfit or he demonstrates after time that he isn't cut out for the responsibility of a husband and/or father, the woman's wish to sever the ties of matrimony is granted without any infiltration by religion or the government.

Karezza is "a mutual relation and it removes all vestiges of the old idea of man's dominion over woman. All the pleasure and benefits to be derived are hers as much as his."

There are a few chapters that are applicable from her book to women's reproductive rights which I will probably include as I delve into history more over the next few weeks. However, I found the following quote to be extremely compelling:

Women have demanded and received recognition in every profession
and vocation; they have eloquently appealed for the duties and
privileges of citizenship. In many states they have been allowed
through the ballot, a voice in adjusting disputed policies of city and country;
they have been given positions of responsibility and emolument;
but alas, how seldom are they accorded the freedom of choice for the
fulfillment of the inherent andnatural function of child-bearing.

Amen,  Dr. Stockham. Amen.



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