Abortion is a woman's health concern and a complex moral dilemma everywhere. It is now also one of the most intractable social and political problems of our time. This book provides the first account of the abortion controversy globally. It examines how this issue is being played out beyond the established western liberal democracies and how the Catholic Church and other groups engage it worldwide. The questions addressed in this scholarly and readable work are of paramount significance for the future management of this dispute.

LIFE IS WINNING IN AMERICA! THE END OF ABORTION IS WITHIN REACH! "America is standing for life again. There has never been a more urgent moment for each and every American who cares about life to stand up. Life Is Winning proves that we don't have to compromise our pro- life principles or stay silent about the things that matter most." - Sarah Huckabee Sanders Ahead of the pivotal 2020 elections, momentum is building across America to revisit the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that struck down laws protecting unborn children and their mothers nationwide. Life is Winning: Inside the Fight for Unborn Children and Their Mothers tells the story of how the pro-life cause went from an orphaned political "problem" to a winning issue embraced at the highest levels of the Republican Party, thanks to a small-but-ambitious group of pro-life women. These women took on Washington's consultant class and in the process built a multimillion-dollar campaign and lobbying powerhouse with more than 900,000 grassroots members nationwide. Marjorie Dannenfelser, President of Susan B. Anthony List and leading architect of the pro-life strategy that helped propel then-candidate Donald Trump to his stunning victory in 2016, gives inside perspective on how her own pro-life conversion - and the President's - resembles the national sea change happening today, and why the end of abortion and restoration of life in America is closer than ever before. "Marjorie has precisely captured how far the pro-life movement has come and how much we stand to achieve at this pivotal moment. It has never been more critical for each of us to continue to stand up and speak out. I trust that this important book will encourage and inspire government to play an even greater role in restoring the sanctity of life to the center of American law and to encourage us never to doubt that the Author of Life is with us in these efforts." - Vice President Mike Pence

Reforming Sex constructs and analyses a remarkable mass movement of doctors and lay people that demanded women's right to abortion and public access to birth control and sex education. Their story sheds light on current controversies about abortion, the role of doctors and the state in controlling women's bodies, and the possibilities for reforming and transforming relations between women and men.

This compelling book uses 103 illustrations to argue that modes of visualizing science have profoundly determined "fetal politics" and the contemporary abortion debates. With its close interplay of visual and verbal texts, it traces both the history of fetal images from the sixteenth century onward (including the classic Life magazine photographs of Lennart Nilsson in 1965) and the consequences of how obstetrical and embryological knowledge was represented over time in Europe--to both specialists and the public--as medical knowledge came to be produced and understood through anatomical observation.
As the abortion debates witness, perhaps no flesh is more overdetermined with cultural meaning than the female reproductive body. Language and rhetoric have had an important role in framing the debates and shaping attitudes: "pro-choice" versus "abortion," "anti-abortion" rather than "pro-life," "fetus" rather than "baby" or "unborn child," "uterus" rather than "womb." How visual modes of representing obstetrical and embryological information, which have similar consequences in forming both public and professional opinion, shape the politics of the abortion debates has until recently received very little attention.

The ongoing debate over abortion serves as a clear indication that the Supreme Court decision of 1973 did little to settle the question of abortion's legitimacy. If anything, in fact, the debate has grown, with more strident voices and, in some cases, more violent dimensions than ever before. On both sides, the debate has been dominated by passionate but not always rational arguments. It seems as thought there are no tame opinions about abortion in this country, that public policy is the product of slogans, sound bites, and placards, instead of principled argument. By presenting the balanced, rational argument for the Catholic position on this highly charged subject, Abortion and Public Policy makes a major contribution to public policy discourse in our pluralistic society. R. Randall Rainey, S.J., LL.M., is Senior Fellow at the Woodstock Theological Center at Georgetown University. Gerard Magill Ph.D., is Chair of the Department of Health Care Ethics and Director of the interdisciplinary Ph.D. program in Health Care Ethics at Saint Louis University.

This compelling book uses 103 illustrations to argue that modes of visualizing science have profoundly determined "fetal politics" and the contemporary abortion debates. With its close interplay of visual and verbal texts, it traces both the history of fetal images from the sixteenth century onward (including the classic Life magazine photographs of Lennart Nilsson in 1965) and the consequences of how obstetrical and embryological knowledge was represented over time in Europe--to both specialists and the public--as medical knowledge came to be produced and understood through anatomical observation.
As the abortion debates witness, perhaps no flesh is more overdetermined with cultural meaning than the female reproductive body. Language and rhetoric have had an important role in framing the debates and shaping attitudes: "pro-choice" versus "abortion," "anti-abortion" rather than "pro-life," "fetus" rather than "baby" or "unborn child," "uterus" rather than "womb." How visual modes of representing obstetrical and embryological information, which have similar consequences in forming both public and professional opinion, shape the politics of the abortion debates has until recently received very little attention.

Civil Dialogue on Abortion provides a cutting-edge discussion between two philosophy scholars on each side of the abortion debate. Bertha Alvarez Manninen argues for her pro-choice view, but also urges respect for the life of the fetus, while Jack Mulder argues for his pro-life view, but recognizes that for the pro-life movement to be consistent, it must urge society to care more for the vulnerable. Coming together to discuss their views, but also to seek common ground, the two authors show how their differing positions nevertheless rest upon some common convictions. The book helps to provide a way forward for a divide that has only seemed to widen the aisle of public discourse in recent years. This engaging book will prove essential reading for students across multiple disciplines, including applied ethics, medical ethics, and bioethics, but will also be of interest to students of religious studies and women's studies.

No matter what influences a woman to end a pregnancy, the physical, psychological, and spiritual side effects are real and not always anticipated. Feelings of guilt, shame, and grief become a heavy burden, and many women feel that they will never be free, that no one understands, that God will never forgive them. But there is hope. Linda Cochrane has been there. With an understanding spirit and a gentle hand, she guides hurting women to bring their emotional scars "out of the dark past and into his holy light" where true and lasting healing can take place. Cochrane delves into the Scriptures to offer help with issues such as relief, denial, anger, forgiveness, depression, letting go, and acceptance. For every woman yearning for the peace of God's forgiveness, this study can be the first step to healing and wholeness.

Roe v. Wade came like a bolt from the blue, but support had been building for years. For many, the idea that life in the womb was not fully protected under the Constitution was simply not acceptable. Political campaigns were organized and protests launched, including the bombing of clinics and the killing of abortion providers. Questions about the protection and support of life continued after birth. This book is based on a hugely popular undergraduate course taught at the University of Texas, and is ideal for those interested in the social construction of social worth, social problems, and social movements. This book is part of a larger text, Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Decides?, http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415892476/

Vigorously demonstrating the relevance of reasoning to important moral problems, the participants in this dialogue resist the temptations of strident emotional appeal in an effort to present the most honorable and intellectually sophisticated sides of their arguments. This effort leads them to consideration of ante-bellum slavery, to a comparison of the notions of absolute truth in ethics versus mathematics, and to constructive discussions of genetics, artificial intelligence, euthanasia, personal identity, human sexuality, and Roe v. Wade.

In 1967, when abortion was either illegal or highly restricted in every U.S. state, a group of ministers and rabbis formed to counsel women with unwanted pregnancies-including referral to licensed physicians willing to perform the procedure. By 1973, when the Roe v. Wade court decision made abortion legal nationwide, the Clergy Consultation Service on Abortion (CCS) had spread from coast to coast, referred hundreds of thousands of women for safe abortions without a single fatality, become a medical consumer advocacy group, and opened its own clinic in New York City. As religious leaders spoke out on issues of civil rights, peace, or poverty, CCS members were also called to action by the suffering of women who had approached them for help. Overwhelmingly male, white, affluent, and middle-aged, these mainline Protestant and Jewish clergy were nonetheless outspoken advocates for the rights of women, particularly poor women. To Offer Compassion is a detailed history of this unique and largely forgotten movement, drawing on extensive interviews with original participants and on primary documents from the CCS's operations.

Birth control offers women the opportunity to prevent pregnancy, plan and space their births, or have no births at all. And yet, in the United States, half of all pregnancies remain unintended, and access to birth control is beset by inequities in education, access, and coverage. Research indicates that women are familiar with the range of contraceptive methods available today. But the persistently high rates of unintended pregnancy, combined with common dissatisfaction and discontinuation, suggest that women's contraceptive needs continue to be unmet. Birth Control: What Everyone Needs to Know will offer more than a user's guide to available means of contraception: it will examine how supported family-planning infrastructure impacts society as a whole. Through reviews of policy, scientific literature, and supplemental interviews with women, it will uncover women's concerns and apprehensions about contraception, as well as the ways birth control empowers women and increases access to educational and professional opportunities. It will provide an overview the history of birth control, the risks and benefits of contraception, the role of menstruation, and the future of birth control. The goal of this book is to provide accurate, unbiased scientific information about contraception in the context of women's lived experiences and the realities of how individuals make decisions about birth control.

In this hard-hitting timely book Judith Orr, leading pro-choice campaigner, argues that it's time women had the right to control their fertility without the practical, legal and ideological barriers they have faced for generations. Donald Trump's presidency threatens abortion rights within the US and his global gag affects women worldwide today - 47,000 women die annually from illegal abortions. In Britain, anti-abortion campaigners attack women's rights under existing law. Elsewhere, women cross borders or buy pills online. In the US, Ireland, Poland and Latin America restrictions on abortion have provoked mass resistance, Combining analysis of statistics, popular culture and social attitudes with powerful first-hand accounts of women's experiences and a history of women's attempts to control their bodies, the author shows that despite the 1967 Abortion Act full reproductive rights in Britain are yet to be won. The book also highlights current debates over decriminalisation and argues for abortion provision fit for the 21st century.

This book presents a collection of studies by top scholars on leading cases from twelve different jurisdictions defining the legal status of unborn human life. The cases under study pertain to three distinctive cultural and constitutional systems: Latin American Constitutional Courts and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, European Constitutional Courts and the European Court on Human Rights, as well as Common Law jurisdictions. With a special conclusion by Professor John Finnis, drawing together the many treads of the individual chapters into a comprehensive whole, this book lays the basis for further comparative study of the legal and moral reasoning underlying judicial decisions which either recognize or deny legal personhood and/or equal dignity to unborn human beings. Robert P. George McCormick, Professor of Jurisprudence and Director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions, Princeton University: "Pilar Zambrano and William L. Saunders have done a great service by giving us a thorough compilation of the law of various jurisdictions concerning the status and rights of the unborn. They have brought together an impressive group of scholars and obtained from them work of the highest intellectual caliber." Prof. Carlos Massini-Correas, University of Mendoza and University of Buenos Aires: "In undertaking the very unusual task of analyzing both the legal and the moral horizon of interpretation underlying leading judicial decisions, this book represents an exceptional shortcut to the bulk of constitutional and philosophical arguments in favor of the enhancement of the value of unborn human life to the status of a right. This mixed perspective of study allows us to avoid the usual fallacy of both sides of the abortion debate, to overlook either its moral or its legal framework."

With the Supreme Court likely to reverse Roe v. Wade, the landmark abortion decision, American debate appears fixated on clashing rights. The first comprehensive legal history of a vital period, Abortion and the Law in America illuminates an entirely different and unexpected shift in the terms of debate. Rather than simply championing rights, those on opposing sides battled about the policy costs and benefits of abortion and laws restricting it. This mostly unknown turn deepened polarization in ways many have missed. Never abandoning their constitutional demands, pro-choice and pro-life advocates increasingly disagreed about the basic facts. Drawing on unexplored records and interviews with key participants, Ziegler complicates the view that the Supreme Court is responsible for the escalation of the conflict. A gripping account of social-movement divides and crucial legal strategies, this book delivers a definitive recent history of an issue that transforms American law and politics to this day.

First full-length study of attitudes to abortion in the early medieval west. When a Spanish monk struggled to find the right words to convey his unjust expulsion from a monastery in a desperate petition to a sixth-century king, he likened himself to an aborted fetus. Centuries later, a ninth-century queenfound herself accused of abortion in an altogether more fleshly sense. Abortion haunts the written record across the early middle ages. Yet, the centuries after the fall of Rome remain very much the "dark ages" in the broader history of abortion. This book, the first to treat the subject in this period, tells the story of how individuals and communities, ecclesiastical and secular authorities, construed abortion as a social and moral problem across anumber of post-Roman societies, including Visigothic Spain, Merovingian Gaul, early Ireland, Anglo-Saxon England and the Carolingian empire. It argues early medieval authors and readers actively deliberated on abortion and a cluster of related questions, and that church tradition on abortion was an evolving practice. It sheds light on the neglected variety of responses to abortion generated by different social and intellectual practices, including church discipline, dispute settlement and strategies of political legitimation, and brings the history of abortion into conversation with key questions about gender, sexuality, Christianization, penance and law. Ranging across abortion miracles in hagiography, polemical letters in which churchmen likened rivals to fetuses flung from the womb of the church and uncomfortable imaginings of resurrected fetuses in theological speculation, this volume also illuminates the complex cultural significance of abortion in early medieval societies. Zubin Mistry is Lecturer in Early Medieval European History at the University of Edinburgh.

The term "reproductive politics" was coined by feminists in the 1970s to describe contemporary Roe v. Wade-era power struggles over contraception and abortion, adoption and surrogacy, and other satellite issues. Forty years later, questions about reproductive rights are just as complex--and controversial--as they were then. Focusing mainly on the United States, Reproductive Politics: What Everyone Needs to Know(r) explores the legal, political, religious, social, ethical, and medical dimensions of this hotly contested arena.
Tracing the historical roots of reproductive politics up through the present, Rickie Solinger considers a range of topics from abortion and contraception to health care reform and assisted reproductive technologies. Solinger tackles some of the most contentious questions up for debate today, including the definition of "fetal personhood," and the roles poverty and welfare policy play in shaping reproductive rights. The answers she provides are informative, balanced, and sometimes quite surprising.
Offering a wide range of information in an accessible and engaging manner, Reproductive Politics: What Everyone Needs to Know(r) orients readers and provides the knowledge necessary to follow the debates in this important and continually evolving field.
What Everyone Needs to Know(r) is a registered trademark of Oxford University Pres

The right to life is a core human right which has not yet received the detailed legal analysis that it requires. This book provides detailed, critical analysis of the controversial human right to life and, in particular, assesses the weight of conflicting interests which could and/or should serve to override the right. This contemporary study of the right to life focuses on the legal, as well as ethical, issues raised by the value of life in modern day society. It seeks to analyze the development, meaning and value of the fundamental human right to life in the context of its conflicts with other competing interests. The book begins with an overview of the right to life in which the concept of life itself is first analyzed, before both the right and its legal protection and enforcement are subjected to historical, philosophical and comparative analysis. The remainder of the book identifies, and assesses the merits of, various competing interests. These comprise armed conflict; prevention of crime; rights of others; autonomy; quality of life; and finite resources.
The right to life is unusual in having potential application to so many of today's ethically controversial questions. This new work investigates specific topics of current political, legal and ethical concern such as the right to life during international conflicts, the role of lethal force in law enforcement, the death penalty, the right to life of a foetus in the context of legalized abortion, and the significance of quality of life and autonomy issues in respect of euthanasia and assisted suicide.

When addressing the factors shaping HIV prevention programs in sub-Saharan Africa, it is important to consider the role of family planning programs that preceded the epidemic. In this book, Rachel Sullivan Robinson argues that both globally and locally, those working to prevent HIV borrowed and adapted resources, discourses, and strategies used for family planning. By combining statistical analysis of all sub-Saharan African countries with comparative case studies of Malawi, Nigeria, and Senegal, Robinson also shows that the nature of countries' interactions with the international community, the strength and composition of civil society, and the existence of technocratic leaders influenced variation in responses to HIV. Specifically, historical and existing relationships with outside actors, the nature of nongovernmental organizations, and perceptions of previous interventions strongly structured later health interventions through processes of path dependence and policy feedback. This book will be of great use to scholars and practitioners interested in global health, international development, African studies and political science.

Fifteen years ago, New Jersey became the first of over twenty states to introduce the family cap, a welfare reform policy that reduces or eliminates cash benefits for unmarried women on public assistance who become pregnant. The caps have lowered extra-marital birth rates, as intended but as Michael J. Camasso shows convincingly in this provocative book, they did so in a manner that few of the policys architects are willing to acknowledge publicly, namely by increasing the abortion rate disproportionately among black and Hispanic women. In Family Caps, Abortion, and Women of Color, Camasso (who headed up the evaluation of the nations first cap) presents the caps history from inception through implementation to his investigation and the dramatic attempts to squelch his unpleasant findings. The book is filled with devastatingly clear-cut evidence and hard-nosed data analyses, yet Camasso also pays close attention to the reactions his findings provoked in policymakers, both conservative and liberal, who were unprepared for the effects of their crude social engineering and did not want their success scrutinized too closely. Camasso argues that absent any successful rehabilitation or marriage strategies, abortion provides a viable third way for policymakers to help black and Hispanic women accumulate the social and human capital they need to escape welfare, while simultaneously appealing to liberals passion for reproductive freedom and the neoconservatives sense of social pragmatism. Camasso's conclusions will please no one along the political spectrum, making it all the more essential for them to be studied widely. A classic example of what can happen to research and the researcher when research findings become misaligned with political goals and strategies, Family Caps, Abortion and Women of Color is sure to foment a contentious but vital discussion among all who read it.

The routinization of non-invasive prenatal genetic testing (NIPT) raises urgent questions about disability rights and reproductive justice. Supporters defend NIPT on the grounds that genetic information about the fetus helps would-be parents make better family planning choices. Prenatal Genetic Testing, Abortion, and Disability Justice challenges that assessment by exploring how NIPT can actually constrain pregnant women's options. Prospective parents must balance a complicated array of factors, including the familial, social, and financial support they can reasonably expect to receive if they choose to carry a disabled fetus to term and raise after birth, causing many pregnant women to "choose" termination. Focusing on the US, the book explores the intent and effects of prenatal screening in connection to women's bodily autonomy and disability rights, addressing themes at the intersection of genetic medicine, policymaking, critical disabilities studies, and political theory. Knight and Miller shift debates about reprogenetics from bioethics to political practice, as well as thoroughly critiquing the neoliberal state and the eugenic technologies that support it. Providing concrete suggestions for reforming medical practice, welfare policy, and cultural norms surrounding disability, this book highlights sites of necessary reform to envision how prospective parents can make truly free choices about prenatal genetic testing and selection abortion.

The Ethics of Pregnancy, Abortion and Childbirth addresses the unique moral questions raised by pregnancy and its intimate bodily nature. From assisted reproduction to abortion and 'vital conflict' resolution to more everyday concerns of the pregnant woman, this book argues for pregnancy as a close human relationship with the woman as guardian or custodian. Four approaches to pregnancy are explored: 'uni-personal', 'neighborly', 'maternal' and 'spousal'. The author challenges not only the view that there is only one moral subject to consider in pregnancy, but also the idea that the location of the fetus lacks all inherent, unique significance. It is argued that the pregnant woman is not a mere 'neighbor' or helpful stranger to the fetus but is rather already in a real familial relationship bringing real familial rights and obligations. If the status of the fetus is conclusive for at least some moral questions raised by pregnancy, so too are facts about its bodily relationship with, and presence in, the woman who supports it. This lucid, accessible and original book explores fundamental ethical issues in a rich and often neglected area of philosophy in ways of interest also to those from other disciplines.

This book examines how legislators have juggled their passions over abortion with standard congressional procedures, looking at how both external factors (such as public opinion) and internal factors (such as the ideological composition of committees and party systems) shape the development of abortion policy. Driven by both theoretical and empirical concerns, Scott H. Ainsworth and Thad E. Hall present a simple, formal model of strategic incrementalism, illustrating that legislators often have incentives to alter policy incrementally. They then examine the sponsorship of abortion-related proposals as well as their committee referral and find that a wide range of Democratic and Republican legislators repeatedly offer abortion-related proposals designed to alter abortion policy incrementally. Abortion Politics in Congress reveals that abortion debates have permeated a wide range of issues and that a wide range of legislators and a large number of committees address abortion.