Reproductive Rites

The Real-Life Witches and Witch Hunts in the Centuries-Long Fight for Abortion

By: Sophie Saint Thomas

Narrated by: Hayden Bishop, Sophie Saint Thomas

A provocative pop history that explores the witches—and witch hunts—in the untold story of abortion, from the days of Socrates through the Salem Witch Trials and the 1980s Satanic Panic, all the way to our fraught post-Roe present.

For millennia, across cultures and continents, women and people who experience pregnancy, as well as midwives and those who assist them, have been persecuted as witches (whether they actually practiced the craft or not). In this dauntless, voice-driven reassessment of that history, journalist Sophie Saint Thomas follows the tangled threads of witches and reproductive rights through the ages.

Through it all, she maintains an intersectional eye toward the communities most affected by reproductive oppression (including Native Americans, enslaved Black women, and trans people) and a scathing look at the hypocrisy of anti-choice crusaders (from eugenicists in the Church of Satan to an astrology-following Republican First Lady). With heart, humor, and deeply researched insights, Reproductive Rites brings new context to the urgency of our present moment as we fight for our rights in a post-Roe v. Wade America.

Critic reviews

“An exciting, racy, angry, and well-informed survey, which ranges across a wide span of history in order to make points of tremendous relevance to the present.” —Ronald Hutton, author of The Witch: A History of Fear, from Ancient Times to the Present

“Through a cross-cultural lens, Saint Thomas offers us a fascinating exploration into the socio-psychological dynamics which underscore the practice of witch persecution and the ongoing oppression of women’s reproductive rights. Her work is an incisive critique of human prejudice and its historical consequences.” —Alan Kilpatrick, author of The Night Has a Naked Soul: Witchcraft and Sorcery among the Western Cherokee