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Books > Social sciences > Sociology, social studies > Social issues > Ethical issues & debates > Abortion
Caroline Bancroft History Prize 2021, Denver Public Library
Armitage-Jameson Prize 2021, Coalition of Western Women's History
David J. Weber Prize 2021, Western History Association W.
Turrentine Jackson Prize 2021, Western History Association Tiny You
tells the story of one of the most successful political movements
of the twentieth century: the grassroots campaign against legalized
abortion. While Americans have rapidly changed their minds about
sex education, pornography, arts funding, gay teachers, and
ultimately gay marriage, opposition to legalized abortion has only
grown. As other socially conservative movements have lost young
activists, the pro-life movement has successfully recruited more
young people to its cause. Jennifer L. Holland explores why
abortion dominates conservative politics like no other cultural
issue. Looking at anti-abortion movements in four western states
since the 1960s-turning to the fetal pins passed around church
services, the graphic images exchanged between friends, and the
fetus dolls given to children in school-she argues that activists
made fetal life feel personal to many Americans. Pro-life activists
persuaded people to see themselves in the pins, images, and dolls
they held in their hands and made the fight against abortion the
primary bread-and-butter issue for social conservatives. Holland
ultimately demonstrates that the success of the pro-life movement
lies in the borrowed logic and emotional power of leftist activism.
Why would a country strongly influenced by Buddhism's reverence
for life allow legalized, widely used abortion? Equally puzzling to
many Westerners is the Japanese practice of "mizuko" rites, in
which the parents of aborted fetuses pray for the well-being of
these rejected "lives." In this provocative investigation, William
LaFleur examines abortion as a window on the culture and ethics of
Japan. At the same time he contributes to the Western debate on
abortion, exploring how the Japanese resolve their conflicting
emotions privately and avoid the pro-life/pro-choice politics that
sharply divide Americans on the issue.
At the heart of the current debate over abortion is the question of
what is at stake: for the liberal feminist group it is the woman's
autonomy over her own body; for the conservative/ pro-life" group
it is the life of the fetus itself. Rejecting both of these views
as extremes, L W. Sumner opts for a moderate position for which he
provides a moral foundation. Originally published in 1981. The
Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology
to again make available previously out-of-print books from the
distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These
editions preserve the original texts of these important books while
presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The
goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access
to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books
published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.
At the heart of the current debate over abortion is the question
of what is at stake: for the liberal feminist group it is the
woman's autonomy over her own body; for the conservative/ pro-life"
group it is the life of the fetus itself. Rejecting both of these
views as extremes, L W. Sumner opts for a moderate position for
which he provides a moral foundation.
Originally published in 1981.
The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand
technology to again make available previously out-of-print books
from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press.
These paperback editions preserve the original texts of these
important books while presenting them in durable paperback
editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly
increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the
thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since
its founding in 1905.
"Dangerous Pregnancies" tells the largely forgotten story of the
German measles epidemic of the early 1960s and how it created
national anxiety about dying, disabled, and "dangerous" babies.
This epidemic would ultimately transform abortion politics, produce
new science, and help build two of the most enduring social
movements of the late twentieth century - the reproductive rights
and the disability rights movements. At most a minor rash and fever
for women, German measles (also known as rubella), if contracted
during pregnancy, could result in miscarriages, infant deaths, and
serious birth defects in the newborn. Award-winning writer Leslie
J. Reagan chronicles for the first time the discoveries and
dilemmas of this disease in a book full of intimate stories
-including riveting courtroom testimony, secret investigations of
women and doctors for abortion, and startling media portraits of
children with disabilities. In exploring a disease that changed
America, Dangerous Pregnancies powerfully illuminates social
movements that still shape individual lives, pregnancy, medicine,
law, and politics.
Conservative and progressive religious groups fiercely disagree
about issues of sex and gender. But how did we get here? Melissa J.
Wilde shows how today's modern divisions began in the 1930s in the
public battles over birth control and not for the reasons we might
expect. By examining thirty of America's most prominent religious
groups-from Mormons to Methodists, Southern Baptists to Seventh Day
Adventists, and many others-Wilde contends that fights over birth
control had little do with sex, women's rights, or privacy. Using a
veritable treasure trove of data, including census and archival
materials and more than 10,000 articles, statements, and sermons
from religious and secular periodicals, Wilde demonstrates that the
push to liberalize positions on contraception was tied to complex
views of race, immigration, and manifest destiny among America's
most prominent religious groups. Taking us from the Depression era,
when support for the eugenics movement saw birth control as an act
of duty for less desirable groups, to the 1960s, by which time most
groups had forgotten the reasons behind their stances on
contraception (but not the concerns driving them), Birth Control
Battles explains how reproductive politics divided American
religion. In doing so, this book shows the enduring importance of
race and class for American religion as it rewrites our
understanding of what it has meant to be progressive or
conservative in America.
*A SUNDAY TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR 2021* 'Raw, tender and urgent'
Jessica Andrews, author of Saltwater 'Irreducible. Once read, it
will never be forgotten' Helen Mort, author of Division Street This
is the story of an abortion. The days and hours before the first
visit to the clinic and the weeks and months after. The pregnancy
was a mistake and the narrator immediately arranges a termination.
But a gulf yawns between politics and personal experience. The
polarised public debate and the broader cultural silence did not
prepare her for the physical event or the emotional aftermath. She
finds herself compulsively telling people about the abortion (and
counting those who know), struggling at work and researching the
procedure. She feels alone in her pain and confusion. Part diary,
part prose poem, part literary collage, Larger than an Orange is an
uncompromising, intimate and original memoir. With raw precision
and determined honesty, Lucy Burns carves out a new space for
complexity, ambivalence and individual experience. 'Lucy Burns'
writing on choice and its aftermath is boldly innovative, achingly
human, and powerfully vulnerable' Dr Elinor Cleghorn, author of
Unwell Women 'Rapturous, engrossing and beautifully impossible'
Holly Pester, author of Comic Timing
What are the contemporary issues in abortion politics globally?
What factors explain variations in access to abortion between and
within different countries? This text provides a
transnationally-focused, interdisciplinary analysis of trends in
abortion politics using case studies from around the Global North
and South. It considers how societal influences, such as religion,
nationalism and culture, impact abortion law and access. It
explores the impact of international human rights norms, the
increasing displacement of people due to conflict and crisis and
the role of activists on law reform and access. The book concludes
by considering the future of abortion politics through the more
holistic lens of reproductive justice. Utilising a unique
interdisciplinary approach, this book provides a major contribution
to the knowledge base on abortion politics globally. It provides an
accessible, informative and engaging text for academics, policy
makers and readers interested in abortion politics.
Why has postwar Japanese abortion policy been relatively
progressive, while contraception policy has been relatively
conservative? The Japanese government legalized abortion in 1948
but did not approve the pill until 1999. In this carefully
researched study, Tiana Norgren argues that these contradictory
policies flowed from very different historical circumstances and
interest group configurations. Doctors and family planners used a
small window of opportunity during the Occupation to legalize
abortion, and afterwards, doctors and women battled religious
groups to uphold the law. The pill, on the other hand, first
appeared at an inauspicious moment in history. Until circumstances
began to change in the mid-1980s, the pharmaceutical industry was
the pill's lone champion: doctors, midwives, family planners, and
women all opposed the pill as a potential threat to their
livelihoods, abortion rights, and women's health.
Clearly written and interwoven with often surprising facts about
Japanese history and politics, Norgren's book fills vital gaps in
the cross-national literature on the politics of reproduction, a
subject that has received more attention in the European and
American contexts. "Abortion Before Birth Control" will be a
valuable resource for those interested in abortion and
contraception policies, gender studies, modern Japanese history,
political science, and public policy. This is a major contribution
to the literature on reproductive rights and the role of civil
society in a country usually discussed in the context of its
industrial might.
Understanding the social history and urgent social implications of
gendered compulsory birth control, an unbalanced and unjust
approach to pregnancy prevention. The average person concerned
about becoming pregnant spends approximately thirty years trying to
prevent conception. People largely do so alone using prescription
birth control, a situation often taken for granted in the United
States as natural and beneficial. In Just Get on the Pill, a keenly
researched and incisive examination, Krystale Littlejohn
investigates how birth control becomes a fundamentally unbalanced
and gendered responsibility. She uncovers how parents, peers,
partners, and providers draw on narratives of male and female birth
control methods to socialize cisgender women into sex and
ultimately into shouldering the burden for preventing pregnancy.
Littlejohn draws on extensive interviews to document this gendered
compulsory birth control-a phenomenon in which people who give
birth are held accountable for preventing and resolving pregnancies
in gender-constrained ways. She shows how this gendered approach
encroaches on reproductive autonomy and poses obstacles for
preventing disease. While diverse cisgender women are the focus,
Littlejohn shows that they are not the only ones harmed by this
dynamic. Indeed, gendered approaches to birth control also
negatively impact trans, intersex, and gender nonconforming people
in overlooked ways. In tracing the divisive politics of pregnancy
prevention, Littlejohn demonstrates that the gendered division of
labor in birth control is not natural. It is unjust.
Mark Graber looks at the history of abortion law in action to argue
that the only defensible, constitutional approach to the issue is
to afford all women equal choice - abortion should remain legal or
bans should be strictly enforced. Steering away from metaphysical
critiques of privacy, Graber compares the philosophical,
constitutional, and democratic merits of the two systems of
abortion regulation witnessed in the twentieth-century: pre-Roe v.
Wade statutory prohibitions on abortion and Roe's ban on
significant state interference with the market for safe abortion
services. He demonstrates that before Roe, pro-life measures were
selectively and erratically administered, thereby subverting our
constitutional commitment to equal justice. Claiming that these
measures would be similarly administered if reinstated, the author
seeks to increase support for keeping abortion legal, even among
those who have reservations about its morality. Abortion should
remain legal, Graber argues, because statutory bans on abortion
have a history of being enforced in ways that intentionally
discriminate against poor persons and persons of color. In the
years before Roe, the same law enforcement officials who routinely
ignored and sometimes assisted those physicians seeking to
terminate pregnancies for their private patients too often
prevented competent abortionists from offering the same services to
the general public. This double standard violated the fundamental
human and constitutional right of equal justice under law, a right
that has powerful roots in the American political tradition and
that remains a major concern of the equal protection clause of the
Fourteenth Amendment.
Winner of the NCTE George Orwell Award for Distinguished
Contribution to Honesty and Clarity in Public Language Although Roe
v. Wade identified abortion as a constitutional right in1973, it
still bears stigma-a proverbial scarlet A. Millions of Americans
have participated in or benefited from an abortion, but few want to
reveal that they have done so. Approximately one in five
pregnancies in the US ends in abortion. Why is something so common,
which has been legal so long, still a source of shame and secrecy?
Why is it so regularly debated by politicians, and so seldom
divulged from friend to friend? This book explores the personal
stigma that prevents many from sharing their abortion experiences
with friends and family in private conversation, and the structural
stigma that keeps it that way. In public discussion, both
proponents and opponents of abortion's legality tend to focus on
extraordinary cases. This tendency keeps the national debate
polarized and contentious, and keeps our focus on the cases that
occur the least. Professor Katie Watson focuses instead on the
cases that happen the most, which she calls "ordinary abortion."
Scarlet A gives the reflective reader a more accurate impression of
what the majority of American abortion practice really looks like.
It explains how our silence around private experience has distorted
public opinion, and how including both ordinary abortion and
abortion ethics could make our public exchanges more fruitful. In
Scarlet A, Watson wisely and respectfully navigates one of the most
divisive topics in contemporary life. This book explains the law of
abortion, challenges the toxic politics that make it a public
football and private secret, offers tools for more productive
private exchanges, and leads the way to a more robust public
discussion of abortion ethics. Scarlet A combines storytelling and
statistics to bring the story of ordinary abortion out of the
shadows, painting a rich, rarely seen picture of how patients and
doctors currently think and act, and ultimately inviting readers to
tell their own stories and draw their own conclusions. The
paperback edition includes a new preface by the author addressing
recent cultural developments in abortion discourse and new legal
threats to reproductive rights, and updated statistics throughout.
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