¹ The Therapeutic Abortion Act is discussed in Williams, Daniel K., “Reagan's Religious Right,” in Hudson, Cheryl and Davies, Gareth eds., Ronald Reagan and the 1980s: Perceptions, Policies, Legacies (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), 135–49CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 135; and the Briggs Initiative in Collins, Robert M., Transforming America: Politics and Culture in the Reagan Years (New York: Columbia University Press, 2009), 137Google Scholar. See also Sutton, Matthew Avery, “Reagan, Religion and the Culture Wars of the 1980s,” in Johns, Andrew L., ed., A Companion to Ronald Reagan (Hoboken: John Wiley and Sons, 2014), 204–20Google Scholar, 205.

² As seen in “Letter from Ronald Reagan to Robert L. Mauro, 11 Oct. 1979,” in Skinner, Kiron K., Anderson, Annelise, and Anderson, Martin eds., Reagan: A Life in Letters (New York: Free Press, 2003), 197–98Google Scholar. This rhetorical support is also discussed in Williams, 142.

³ The most notable attempts were the Hatch Amendment, drafted by Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT), a proposed constitutional amendment to mitigate the federal power of Roe v. Wade, and the Human Life Bill, a statute advanced by Senator Jesse Helms (R-NC) that declared that life started at conception, both of which were put forward to Congress in 1981. See Young, Neil J., We Gather Together: The Religious Right and the Problem of Interfaith Politics (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016), 212–13Google Scholar; and Moen, Matthew C., The Christian Right and Congress (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1989), 97–98 Google Scholar.

⁴ The disappointment of the Christian right with Reagan's lack of focus on socio-moral issues has been documented by many historians, including Young, 175 and 212; Williams, 135; and Robert Mason, “Ronald Reagan and the Republican Party,” in Hudson and Davies, 151–72, 153; Troy, Gil, Morning in America: How Ronald Reagan Invented the 1980s (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2007), 17Google Scholar; and Mason, Robert, The Republican Party and American Politics from Hoover to Reagan (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 259Google Scholar.

⁵ For more on Reagan's priorities as President see Sutton, 213; Williams, 141–42; Troy, 8, 14; and Mason, The Republican Party, 260.

⁶ Diamond, Sara, Roads to Dominion: Right-Wing Movements and Political Power in the United States (New York: The Guildford Press, 1995), 229Google Scholar.

⁷ Argued in Fried, Marlene Gerber, “Abortion in the United States: Legal but Inaccessible ,” in Solinger, Rickie, ed., Abortion Wars: A Half Century of Struggle, 1950–2000 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998), 208–26Google Scholar, 215; Diamond, 235; and Williams, 143. For a wider history of the inception of the “culture wars” in the 1980s see Collins; Sutton; and Critchlow, Donald T., “Mobilizing Women: The ‘Social Issues’,” in Bronwlee, W. E. and Graham, H. D., eds., The Reagan Presidency: Pragmatic Conservatism and Its Legacies (Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 2003)Google Scholar.

⁸ For a longer discussion of the impact of these social movements on young women's increased social and sexual freedoms see Brumberg, Joan Jacobs, The Body Project: An Intimate History of Teenage Girls (New York: Random House, 1997)Google Scholar; Herzog, Dagmar, Sex in Crisis: The New Sexual Revolution and the Future of American Politics (New York: Basic Books, 2008)Google Scholar; and Dyhouse, Carol, Girl Trouble: Panic and Progress in the History of Young Women (New York: Zed Books, 2013)Google Scholar.

⁹ Gil Troy, “A Historiography of Reagan and the 1980s,” in Hudson and Davies, 229–47, 237; and Young, 214.

¹⁰ Fields, Jessica, “‘Children Having Children’: Race, Innocence, and Sexuality Education,” Social Problems , 52 (Nov. 2005), 549–71CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 551.

¹¹ See Loretta J. Ross writing on the black family in “African-American Women and Abortion,” in Solinger, 161–207, 194; and the antiabortion movement's minor successes in limiting teenage girls’ access to abortion in Fried, 215; Reagan, Leslie J., When Abortion Was a Crime: Women, Medicine, and Law in the United States, 1867–1973 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997), 248Google Scholar, for a discussion of the particular potency of teenage female sexuality to the Christian Right; and Gordon, Linda, The Moral Property of Women: A History of Birth Control Politics in America (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2002), 336–50Google Scholar, wherein she explores the implications of Title X Family Planning funding and the Adolescent Family Life Act for teenage women.

¹² See Collins, Patricia Hill, Black Sexual Politics: African Americans, Gender, and the New Racism (New York: Routledge, 2004), 78CrossRefGoogle Scholar, on young black women and welfare; and Roberts, Dorothy, Killing the Black Body: Race, Reproduction, and the Meaning of Liberty (New York: Vintage Books, 1999), 118Google Scholar, on the new “chastity” provisions in the 1980s.

¹³ Troy, Morning in America, 8.

¹⁴ Williams, 141–42.

¹⁵ Young, 209.

¹⁶ Quoted in ibid., 209–10.

¹⁷ The actual teenage pregnancy rates behind what was called an epidemic are discussed in Vinovskis, Maris A., An “Epidemic” of Adolescent Pregnancy? Some Historical and Policy Perspectives (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988), 76Google Scholar.

¹⁸ “More Teenagers are Pregnant Despite Rise in Contraception,” New York Times, 12 March 1981, 1.

¹⁹ Vinovskis, 77.

²⁰ “New Battle at Family Planning Office,” New York Times, 13 July 1985, 6.

²¹ Moen, The Christian Right and Congress, 106. It is worth noting that Koop, despite his outspoken Christian conservatism, would slightly alter his approach to socio-moral issues after the discovery of AIDS, which led him to advocate for sex education for teenagers, albeit a morally conservative sex education. For this story in his own words see Koop, C. Everett, Koop: The Memoirs of America's Family Doctor (New York: Random House, 1991), 195–224 Google Scholar.

²² Vinovskis, 78–79.

²³ Irvine, Janice, Talk about Sex: The Battle over Sex Education in the United States (Berkeley, CA and London: University of California Press, 2002), 91Google Scholar. The success that Senators Denton and Hatch had in introducing the Adolescent Family Life Act is discussed in “Court Backs Plan to Limit Abortion Counseling,” New York Times, 26 Oct. 1985, 10. Denton's role specifically is mentioned in Moen, 106. Other, less successful, antiabortion measures they were involved in putting forward included the Hatch Amendment, proposed by Senator Hatch, which was a bold push for a constitutional amendment that would have given states and Congress the power to form their own abortion laws, circumventing Roe. For a discussion of this see Young, 212. Another major antiabortion measure at the federal level was put forward by Senator Jesse Helms (R-NC). Named the Human Life Bill, it would write into law that life began at conception. Reagan refused to take sides and back either of these suggested measures, angering conservatives both inside and outside federal government. He finally agreed to sign whichever was agreed upon by members of the antiabortion movement within Congress to pursue, and thus whichever measure came to the vote first. This ended up being Helms's bill, though it failed to pass in the Senate and Reagan did not rally behind it (Young, 214). The other major push for abortion reform in this period was by Congressman Henry Hyde (R-IL), who believed Hatch's proposal was too extreme as it stripped the Supreme Court of its power. His amendment, entitled the Hyde Amendment, would instead prohibit the use of taxpayer dollars to pay for abortion services (Moen, 87). Reagan did sign this into law, though it had become clear by this point to antiabortion campaigners that the issue was not a priority for the President (Young, 239).

²⁴ See Young, 212.

²⁵ Collins, Transforming America, 129–30.

²⁶ See Mason, The Republican Party, 249, for a discussion of the widespread unpopularity of welfare in this period. For an exploration of the panic around an “epidemic” level of teenage pregnancy levels in the 1980s see Vinovskis, 76. Finally, for more on the emerging idea among conservatives of an “underclass” in American society see Stephen Tuck, “African American Protest,” in Hudson and Davies, Ronald Reagan and the 1980s, 119–34, 122; and Collins, Transforming America, 124.

²⁷ Peter G. Bourne, “Drug Abuse Policy,” in Hudson and Davies, 41–56, 49.

²⁸ Collins, Transforming America,130. For details of Reagan's campaign speech see “‘Welfare Queen’ Becomes Issue in Reagan Campaign,” New York Times, 15 Feb. 1976, 51.

²⁹ This is discussed in Fields, “Children Having Children,” 549–50.

³⁰ Irvine, Janice, Talk about Sex: The Battles over Sex Education in the United States (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002), 91Google Scholar. See also Williams, “Reagan's Religious Right,” 143; and Moen, 106.

³¹ Irvine, 91.

³² The Adolescent Family Life Act, Title XX of the Public Health Service Act, 1981 (hereafter AFLA), 580.

³³ Lawson, Annette, The Politics of Pregnancy: Adolescent Sexuality and Public Policy (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1993), 285Google Scholar.

³⁴ Williams, 143; and Hayward, Steven F., The Age of Reagan: The Conservative Counterrevolution 1980–1989 (New York: Crown Forum, 2009), 278Google Scholar.

³⁵ Reagan, Ronald, “Abortion and the Conscience of a Nation” (1983), reprinted in the Human Life Review , 30, 3 (Summer 2004), 58–65 Google Scholar, 65.

³⁶ For a discussion of how the Christian right celebrated “Abortion and the Conscience of a Nation” see Williams, 143; and Hayward, 278. The description of Reagan's propensity for “phoning in” his support for the pro-life movement can be found in Troy, Morning in America, 159.

³⁷ “US Expands Fight on Teenage Pregnancy,” New York Times, 19 Oct. 1982, 15.

³⁸ Ibid.

³⁹ Vinovskis, An “Epidemic” of Adolescent Pregnancy?, 81.

⁴⁰ AFLA, 580.

⁴¹ A number of sources reveal the varied sites of opposition to AFLA. On sexual health advocates see Moran, Jeffrey, Teaching Sex: The Shaping of Adolescence in the 20th Century (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000), 215Google Scholar; on the clergy see Gordon, The Moral Property of Women, 350; and on Congress see Doan, Alesha E. and Williams, Jean Calterone, The Politics of Virginity: Abstinence in Sex Education (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2008), 28Google Scholar.

⁴² Robert Pear, “Planned Parenthood Groups Investigated on Use of U. S. Funds,” New York Times, 6 Dec. 1981, 30.

⁴³ Ibid.

⁴⁴ Bowen v. Kendrick, 487 U. S. 589, 1988.

⁴⁵ Elliot, Sinikka, Not My Kid: What Parents Believe about the Sex Lives of Teenagers (New York: New York University Press, 2012), 11Google Scholar. For other historical accounts of the development of federal abstinence-education funding see Irvine, Talk about Sex, Doan and Williams; Herzog, Sex in Crisis; Luker, Kristen, When Sex Goes to School: Warring Views on Sex – and Sex Education – since the Sixties (New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 2006)Google Scholar; Gardner, Christine J., Making Chastity Sexy: The Rhetoric of Evangelical Abstinence Campaigns (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2011)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Zimmerman, Jonathan, Too Hot to Handle: A Global History of Sex Education (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2015)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Trudell, Bonnie Nelson, Doing Sex Education: Gender Politics and Schooling (New York: Routledge, 1993)Google Scholar.

⁴⁶ “About Us: History,” Project Reality: Leader in Abstinence Education since 1985, at www.comriva.com, accessed 13 Jan. 2014.

⁴⁷ Written by Marcela Howell, updated by Marilyn O'Keefe, 2007, “The History of Federal Abstinence-Only Funding,” Advocates for Youth, July 2007, at www.advocatesforyouth.org/publications/publications-a-z/429-the-history-of-federal-abstinence-only-funding.

⁴⁸ Furstenberg, Frank F. Jr., Lincoln, Richard, and Menken, Jane, “Overview,” in Furstenberg, Lincoln, and Menken, eds., Teenage Sexuality, Pregnancy, and Childbearing (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1981), 1–17 Google Scholar, 5, emphasis added.

⁴⁹ Ibid.

⁵⁰ Cited in Critchlow, Donald, Phyllis Schlafly and Grassroots Conservatism: A Woman's Crusade (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2009), 300Google Scholar.

⁵¹ Schlafly's pro-marriage stance can be seen across innumerable issues of her long-running newsletter for the Eagle Forum, The Phyllis Schlafly Report, available at www.eagleforum.org/publications/psr.html. She also elaborates on her belief in the institution of marriage as an answer to many social issues in her book Feminist Fantasies (Dallas: Spence Publishing Company, 2003).

⁵² This critique is put forward in Gordon, The Moral Property of Women, 348.

⁵³ AFLA, 579.

⁵⁴ Most recently, this is being researched by Sam Klug, a Harvard graduate student, who explored this idea in “The Moynihan Report Resurrected,” Dissent, Winter 2016, 48–55. Klug's work follows in a long tradition of American welfare historians, including Gordon, Linda, Women, the State, and Welfare (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1990)Google Scholar; Skocpol, Theda, Protecting Soldiers and Mothers: The Politics Origins of Social Policy in the United States (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 1992)Google Scholar; Katz, Michael B., In the Shadow of the Poorhouse: A Social History of Welfare in America (New York: Basic Books, 1996)Google Scholar; and Patterson, James T., America's Struggle against Poverty in the Twentieth Century (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000)Google Scholar.

⁵⁵ There are a number of important scholarly works on the ways that adolescent African American women have been blamed and punished through federal policy for bearing children out of wedlock. See Roberts, Killing the Black Body; Hill Collins, Black Sexual Politics, Fields, “Children Having Children?”; Doan and Williams, The Politics of Virginity; Lawson, Annette and Rhode, Deborah L., The Politics of Pregnancy: Adolescent Sexuality and Public Policy (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2003)Google Scholar; Kendall, Nancy, The Sex Education Debates (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2013)Google Scholar; Mayo, Cris, “Gagged and Bound: Sex Education, Secondary Virginity, and the Welfare Reform Act,” Philosophy of Education (1998), 309–17Google Scholar; and Williams, Rhonda Y., The Politics of Public Housing: Black Women's Struggles against Urban Inequality (New York: Oxford Unviersity Press, 2004)Google Scholar.

⁵⁶ For more on the Moynihan Report and its legacy see Klug, “The Moynihan Report,” Rainwater, Lee, The Moynihan Report and the Politics of Controversy (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1967)Google Scholar; Ginsburg, Carl, Race and Media: The Enduring Life of the Moynihan Report (New York: Institute for Media Analysis, 1989)Google Scholar; Patterson, James T., Freedom Is Not Enough: The Moynihan Report and America's Struggle over Black Family Life from LBJ to Obama (New York: Basic Books, 2010)Google Scholar; Geary, Daniel, Beyond Civil Rights: The Moynihan Report and Its Legacy (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania press, 2015)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Greenbaum, Susan D., Blaming the Poor: The Long Shadow of the Moynihan Report on Cruel Images about Poverty (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2015)Google Scholar.

⁵⁷ AFLA, 578.

⁵⁸ Anchell, Melvin, What's Wrong with Sex Education? (Selma, AL: Hoffman Center for the Family, 1991)Google Scholar.

⁵⁹ “New Battle at Family Planning Office,” New York Times, 13 July 1985, 59.

⁶⁰ For more on the responsibility of the parental role that the Moynihan Report emphasized see the texts listed under footnotes 54–56, notably Gordon, Women, the State, and Welfare; Skocpol, Protecting Soldiers and Mothers; and Patterson, Freedom Is Not Enough.

⁶¹ Gordon, Moral Property, 310; and Vinovskis, An “Epidemic” of Adolescent Pregnancy?, 87.

⁶² Bellotti v. Baird, 443 U. S. 622, 1979.

⁶³ H. L. v. Matheson, 450 U. S. 398, 1981.

⁶⁴ Ibid.

⁶⁵ Ibid.

⁶⁶ Planned Parenthood v. Ashcroft, 462 U. S. 476, 1983.

⁶⁷ Planned Parenthood v. Casey, 505 U. S. 833, 1992.

⁶⁸ Moore, Kristin A. and Burt, Martha R., Private Crisis, Public Cost (Washington, DC: The Urban Institute Press, 1982), 130Google Scholar.

⁶⁹ Ibid., 139.

⁷⁰ “Family Planning Programs,” New York Times, 4 April 1984, 15.

⁷¹ Gil Troy examines these widespread societal fears in Morning in America, 17: “In many ways, Bill Clinton's rollicking, hedonistic 1990s became what many social critics feared Ronald Reagan's 1980s would be.”

⁷² Lewis, Howard R. and Lewis, Martha E., The Parents Guide to Teenage Sex and Pregnancy (New York: St. Martin Press, 1980), ixGoogle Scholar.

⁷³ Ibid., x.

⁷⁴ Ooms, Theadora, “Introduction,” in Ooms, ed., Teenage Pregnancy in a Family Context (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1981), 9–48 Google Scholar, 10.

⁷⁵ Ibid., 14.

⁷⁶ Nadine Brozan, “Adolescents, Parents, and Birth Control,” New York Times, 8 March 1982, 6.

⁷⁷ Demonstrated in Vinovskis, An “Epidemic” of Adolescent Pregnancy?, 118.

⁷⁸ From Ronald Reagan, “Remarks at the Annual Convention of the National Association of the Evangelicals,” 8 March 1983, cited in “Administration Presses Court on Teen-age Contraceptive Rule,” New York Times, 10 May 1983, 21; and explored further in Critchlow, Donald T. and Maclean, Nancy, Debating the American Conservative Movement: 1945 to the Present (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2009)Google Scholar.

⁷⁹ Argued in Reagan, When Abortion Was a Crime, 248.

⁸⁰ The limited successes of the antiabortion movement in the realm of restricting adolescent access to abortion is discussed in Williams, “Reagan's Religious Right,” 143; and Hayward, The Age of Reagan, 277.

⁸¹ State of New York v. Heckler, 719 F. 2d 1191, 1983.

⁸² Discussed in Nadine Brozan, “Birth Control Rule: Clinics Ponder Effects,” New York Times, 29 Jan. 1983. Opposition to the “squeal rule” is also discussed in Brumberg, The Body Project, 172; and Rollin, Lucy, Twentieth-Century Teen Culture by the Decades (Westport: Greenwood Press, 1999), 290Google Scholar.

⁸³ First quotation from Brozan, “Adolescents, Parents”; the second from Brozan, “Birth Control Rule.”

⁸⁴ Brozan, “Birth Control Rule.”

⁸⁵ Brumberg, 172.

⁸⁶ Koop, Koop, 195–224.

⁸⁷ See Williams, “Reagan's Religious Right,” 143; and Hayward, 277.