"The issues she takes on are crucial not solely the subject areas of reproductive rights and law, or public policy lenses and judicial impact in women s and children s lives, but also the more difficult and fundamental questions of how these hot topics can be approached so as to make the most of the good will of all and the force of free discussion for social learning.... she brings a strong, evolving and distinctive perspective to the discussion." Emily Fowler Hartigan

In Abortion and Dialogue, Ruth Colker argues that the state falsely views the woman and the fetus as having conflicting needs when it intervenes in decisions regarding preganancies. Colker's feminist-theological perspective on reproductive health issues encourages both pro-choice and pro-life advocates to consider how the value of life is implicated in discussions of reproduction.

Colker argues that theology can contribute to our understanding if we apply the concepts of love, compassion, and wisdom to problems identified by feminist theory and to actual concrete situations: the impact of abortion regulations on poor female adolescents; the judicial treatment of abortion regulations; state intervention into women s decision-making during pregnancies carried to term. Colker concludes by examining effective and respectful family-planning strategies that truly help women in making reproductive choices."

Most people, scholars and laypeople alike, view the judiciary as the ultimate authority in constitutional questions. Political scientist Susan Burgess sees things differently.

In "Contest for Constitutional Authority," Burgess shows how such single-branch supremacy diminishes public understanding of and participation in constitutional democracy.

Instead, Burgess argues that each branch of government has the right to interpret the Constitution, and that no branch has the final authority theory known as "departmental review." In a system based on departmental review, constitutional interpretation is not solely a judicial function, but rather a shared dialogue among all the branches of government as they articulate their positions on important constitutional issues and respond to opposing arguments. Through close study of the war powers and abortion debates, Burgess demonstrates that the practice of departmental review improves the quality of constitutional debate, deepens "constitutional consciousness," and enhances respect for the rule of law.

Burgess could hardly have chosen two more dramatic case studies for this exploration. First, she investigates the constitutional issues relating to the debates over Roe v. Wade and, in its wake, the 1981 Human Life Bill, 1985 Abortion Funding Restriction Act, and contemporaneous court cases. She follows with a comparative analysis of the constitutional debates that focused on the infamous 1964 Gulf of Tonkin Resolution and the Persian Gulf crisis of the late 1980sone prior to and the other after the passage of the 1973 War Powers Act, which requires congressional authorization before waging war.

In Contest for Constitutional Authority Brugess demonstrates the considerable potential (and possible drawbacks) of departmental review for creating a common constitutional language that transcends the polemical impasses characterizing much current debate, for recapturing active and thoughtful citizen participation, and for renewing our faith in the authority of the constitutional text.

"The author has made a significant contribution to our understanding of constitutional law.--"Robert Lowry Clinton, author of "Marbury v. Madison and Judicial Review."

"Focuses the profession's attention on the need to foster continuing, substantive constitutional debate, which is essential to a constitutional democracy. This book is free of the 'polemic' that characterizes much of the abortion and war-powers controversies. In fact, Burgess's approach to the substantive issues is very balanced. Her presentation of the war-powers controversy during the Vietnam era is both interesting and incisive.--"Edward Keynes, author of "Undeclared War: Twilight Zone of Constitutional Power and The Court vs. Congress: Prayer, Busing, and Abortion."

'The history of how abortion came to be banned and how women lost--for the century between approximately 1870 and 1970--rights previously thought to be natural and inherent over their own bodies is a fascinating and infuriating one.

A star debater at school, Norman Haire had always wanted to be an actor. Forced to study medicine, he followed his other passion: saving the world from sexual misery. When he arrived in London in 1919 he was a poor Jewish outsider from Australia. By 1930 he had a flourishing gynaecology practice in Harley Street, a chauffeur-driven Rolls Royce and a country house. His parties were attended by the medical, intellectual and cultural elite. As a prominent sexologist and a campaigner for birth control, Haire took a leading role in the world's first international conference on birth control in 1922 and organised, with Dora Russell, the World League for Sexual Reform's highly successful 1929 Congress in London. He lectured in America, Germany, France and Spain, and wrote and edited many accessible books on sex education. In 1940 Haire returned to Australia where he attracted a loyal following, but was also hounded by the security service. The ABC Board was censured in parliament for choosing him as the key speaker in a population debate, and his weekly advice column in the magazine Woman was strongly opposed by the Catholic Church. Peter Coleman called Haire 'one of Australia's most famous freethinkers and sex reformers'. This biography pays a tribute to this tenacious, humane, witty, innovative and brave man's contribution to birth control, sexology and human rights history.

This text provides a careful examination of "mizuko kuyo", a Japanese religious ritual for aborted foetuses. Popularized during the 1970s, when religious entrepreneurs published frightening accounts of foetal wrath and spirit attacks, mizuko kuyo offers ritual attonement for women who, sometimes decades previously, chose to have abortions.;In its exploration of the complex issues that surround this practice, the text takes into account the history of Japanese attitudes towards abortion, the development of abortion rituals, the marketing of religion and the nature of power relations in intercourse, contraception and abortion. Although abortion in Japan is accepted and legal and was commonly used as birth control in the early postwar period, entrepreneurs used images from foetal photography to mount a surprisingly successful tabloid campaign to promote mizuko kuyo. Adopted by some religionists as an economic strategy, it was rejected by others on doctrinal, humanistic and feminist grounds.

In 1973, the U.S. Supreme Court concluded in Roe v. Wade that the U.S. Constitution protects a woman's decision to terminate her pregnancy. In Doe v. Bolton, a companion decision, the Court found that a state may not unduly burden the exercise of that fundamental right with regulations that prohibit or substantially limit access to the means of effectuating the decision to have an abortion. Rather than settle the issue, the Court's rulings since Roe and Doe have continued to generate debate and have precipitated a variety of governmental actions at the national, state, and local levels designed either to nullify the rulings or limit their effect. These governmental regulations have, in turn, spawned further litigation in which resulting judicial refinements in the law have been no more successful in dampening the controversy. Although the primary focus of this book is legislative action with respect to abortion, discussion of the various legislative proposals necessarily involves an examination of the leading Supreme Court decisions concerning a woman's right to choose. This book also summarizes laws on abortion in selected European countries which shows diverse approaches to the regulation of abortion in Europe. A majority of the surveyed countries allow abortion upon the woman's request in the early weeks of pregnancy, and allow abortion under specified circumstances in later periods.

Reproductive politics is a term 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 of reproductive rights are just as complex-and controversial-as they were then. Focusing mainly on the United States, Reproductive Politics 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 adopts a question-and-answer format to shed light on such questions as: are sex and reproduction "private" or "public" matters? When was abortion criminalized in the United States-and why? What is "abstinence only" sex education? And how is "reproductive politics" a men's issue as well as a women's issue? Covering a substantial range of information in an accessible and lively manner, Solinger orients readers and provides the knowledge necessary to enter into dialogue with this important and continually evolving field.

In Roe v. Wade, the U.S. Supreme Court determined that the Constitution protects a woman's decision whether or not to terminate her pregnancy. In a companion case, Doe v. Bolton, the Court held further that a state may not unduly burden a woman's fundamental right to abortion by prohibiting or substantially limiting access to the means of effectuating her decision. Instead of settling the issue, the Court's decisions kindled heated debate and precipitated a variety of governmental actions at the national, state and local levels designed either to nullify the rulings or hinder their effectuation. These governmental regulations have, in turn, spawned further litigation in which resulting judicial refinements in the law have been no more successful in dampening the controversy. This book offers an overview of the development of abortion law from 1973 to the present. Beginning with a brief discussion of the historical background, the book analyses the leading Supreme Court decisions over the past 34 years, emphasising particularly the landmark decisions of Roe v. Wade and others. This book consists of public documents which have been located, gathered, combined, reformatted, and enhanced with a subject index, selectively edited and bound to provide easy access.

In this important study of the abortion controversy in the United States, Kristin Luker examines the issues, people, and beliefs on both sides of the abortion conflict. She draws data from twenty years of public documents and newspaper accounts, as well as over two hundred interviews with both pro-life and pro-choice activists. She argues that moral positions on abortion are intimately tied to views on sexual behavior, the care of children, family life, technology, and the importance of the individual.

A heartbreaking, soul-baring novel about the repercussions of choice from the award-winning author of The Welsh Girl and The Fortunes.

When does sorrow turn to shame? When does love become labour? When does chance become choice? And when does fact become fiction?

A Lie Someone Told You About Yourself traces the complex consequences of one of the most personal yet public, intimate yet political, experiences a family can have: to have a child, and conversely, the decision not to have a child. A woman's first pregnancy is interrupted by test results at once catastrophic and uncertain, leaving her and her husband, a writer, reeling. A second pregnancy ends in a fraught birth, a beloved child, the purgatory of further tests - and questions that reverberate down the years.

This spare, supple narrative chronicles the flux of parenthood, marriage, and the day-to-day practice of loving someone. As challenging as it is vulnerable, as furious as it is tender, as touching as it is darkly comic, Peter Ho Davies's new novel is an unprecedented depiction of fatherhood.

With Latin America home to some of the most draconian bans on abortion in the world, abortion rights is one of the most controversial and hotly contested topics in Latin American politics today. The author explores the ways in which key actors-from politicians to grassroots activists to the global community-participate and shape strategies in the ongoing debate. The author sheds new light on the dire situation of Latin American women facing unwanted pregnancies, and on the interactions between the state and its most vulnerable members of society.

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.

John Riddle uncovers the obscure history of contraception and abortifacients from ancient Egypt to the seventeenth century with forays into Victorian England--a topic that until now has evaded the pens of able historians.

Riddle's thesis is, quite simply, that the ancient world did indeed possess effective (and safe) contraceptives and abortifacients. The author maintains that this rich body of knowledge about fertility control--widely held in the ancient world--was gradually lost over the course of the Middle Ages, becoming nearly extinct by the early modern period. The reasons for this he suggests, stemmed from changes in the organization of medicine. As university medical training became increasingly important, physicians' ties with folk traditions were broken. The study of birth control methods was just not part of the curriculum.

In an especially telling passage, Riddle reveals how Renaissance humanists were ill equipped to provide accurate translations of ancient texts concerning abortifacients due to their limited experience with women's ailments. Much of the knowledge about contraception belonged to an oral culture--a distinctively female-centered culture. From ancient times until the seventeenth century, women held a monopoly on birthing and the treatment of related matters; information passed from midwife to mother, from mother to daughter. Riddle reflects on the difficulty of finding traces of oral culture and the fact that the little existing evidence is drawn from male writers who knew that culture only from a distance. Nevertheless, through extraordinary scholarly sleuthing, the author pieces together the clues and evaluates the scientific merit of theseancient remedies in language that is easily understood by the general reader. His findings will be useful to anyone interested in learning whether it was possible for premodern people to regulate their reproduction without resorting to the extremities of dangerous surgical abortions, the killing of infants, or the denial of biological urges.

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.

Winner of the 2010 Keller-Sierra Book Prize, Western Association of Women Historians "In Fit to Be Tied, Rebecca Kluchin impressively navigates a critical period in the history of reproductive health in America. The book is very innovative in a subtle and understated way: Kluchin is one of the first historians of gender and medicine to provide a sophisticated framework for mapping the sterilization practices of the pre-World War II period into the post-Roe V. Wade culture." -Bulletin of the History of Medicine "A welcome addition to the history of sexuality, birth control, medicine, and politics in the U.S. The writing is compelling, and the story Kluchin tells, particularly of forced sterilizations, is harrowing. Highly recommended." -Choice "In Fit to be Tied, historian Rebecca Kluchin offers a thoroughly researched, nuanced analysis of sterilization, reproductive rights, and what she calls 'neo-eugenics.' An important and powerful book that fills a critical gap in the literature on postwar reproductive rights." -American Journal of Human Biology "Kluchin has added an important contribution to the history of sterilization." -Journal of American History "Kluchin should be congratulated for her highly readable, well-researched study of this important, but largely neglected aspect of postwar women's health history. This book makes a valuable contribution to the literature on women's studies, social policy, and the history of medicine and public health." -Molly Ladd-Taylor, York University Rebecca M. Kluchin is an assistant professor of history at California State University, Sacramento.

It seems unthinkable that citizens of one of the most powerful nations in the world must risk their lives and livelihoods in the search for access to necessary health care. And yet it is no surprise that in many places throughout the United States, getting an abortion can be a monumental challenge. Anti-choice politicians and activists have worked tirelessly to impose needless restrictions on this straightforward medical procedure that, at best, delay it and, at worst, create medical risks and deny women their constitutionally protected right to choose. Obstacle Course tells the story of abortion in America, capturing a disturbing reality of insurmountable barriers people face when trying to exercise their legal rights to medical services. Authors David S. Cohen and Carole Joffe lay bare the often arduous and unnecessarily burdensome process of terminating a pregnancy: the sabotaged decision-making, clinics in remote locations, insurance bans, harassing protesters, forced ultrasounds and dishonest medical information, arbitrary waiting periods, and unjustified procedure limitations. Based on patients' stories as well as interviews with abortion providers and allies from every state in the country, Obstacle Course reveals the unstoppable determination required of women in the pursuit of reproductive autonomy as well as the incredible commitment of abortion providers. Without the efforts of an unheralded army of medical professionals, clinic administrators, counselors, activists, and volunteers, what is a legal right would be meaningless for the almost one million people per year who get abortions. There is a better way-treating abortion like any other form of health care-but the United States is a long way from that ideal.

Where do you turn when you are wrestling with a painful decision& #63; You turn to your spouse, trusted friends and relatives, to professionals, to religious advisers. But sometimes you want accurate information and suggestions all in one place, in a form you can use on your own.

The decision to have an abortion is not an easy one, and it is not the right decision for every pregnant woman, even in difficult circumstances. Every situation is different. Women considering abortion range in age from nine to fifty-five years. They are rich and poor; married and unmarried; white, black, brown, yellow, and red; members of every religious group and ethnic origin; heterosexual and homosexual. Some have no one to talk to and others have too many people talking to them. Some are in danger from physical, sexual, and emotional abuse.

"Abortion: Facts and Feelings" is for women who are considering whether to have an abortion, women who have had an abortion and want to do more thinking about it, and relatives, mates, lovers, friends, and health professionals who want to help the women they care for make the best possible choices for themselves. Partners in relationships, families, and friends, and, of course, pregnant women themselves, deserve to have accurate information about this common, but controversial, procedure& mdash;information they can use to make both personal and policy decisions.

This book contains that information. It discusses The practice of abortion in other times and places, and practical information about how it is practiced now How to find out about abortion laws where you live, and laws in other places where you might go if necessary The attitudes of major NorthAmerican religious groups about abortion, and how to obtain more specific information about the approaches of your religion to your situation The medical and psychological outcomes of abortion Alternatives to abortion& mdash;delivering the baby and either caring for it yourself or allowing someone else to provide the parenting The needs and concerns of women in special circumstances, and of women& rsquo;s loved ones

Most important, it will help you think through and carry out your own decision, whatever it is.

Does the morality of abortion depend on the moral status of the human fetus? Must the law of abortion presume an answer to the question of when personhood begins? Can a law which permits late abortion but not infanticide be morally justified? These are just some of the questions this book sets out to address. With an extended analysis of the moral and legal status of abortion, Kate Greasley offers an alternative account to the reputable arguments of Ronald Dworkin and Judith Jarvis Thomson and instead brings the philosophical notion of 'personhood' to the foreground of this debate. Structured in three parts, the book will (I) consider the relevance of prenatal personhood for the moral and legal evaluation of abortion; (II) trace the key features of the conventional debate about when personhood begins and explore the most prominent issues in abortion ethics literature: the human equality problem and the difference between abortion and infanticide; and (III) examine abortion law and regulation as well as the differing attitudes to selective abortion. The book concludes with a snapshot into the current controversy surrounding the scope of the right to conscientiously object to participation in abortion provision.

"Liberty and Sexuality" is a definitive account of the legal and political struggles that created the right to privacy and won constitutional protection for a woman's right to choose abortion. Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that established that right, grew out of not only efforts to legalize abortion but also out of earlier battles against statutes that criminalized birth control. When the U.S. Supreme Court in 1965, in Griswold v. Connecticut, voided such a prohibition as an outrageous intrusion upon marital privacy, it opened a previously unimagined constitutional door: the opportunity to argue that a woman's access to a safe, legal abortion was also a fundamental constitutional right. Garrow's essential history details both the unheralded contributions of the young lawyers who filed America's first abortion rights cases and also the inside-the-Supreme Court deliberations that produced Roe v. Wade. In this updated and expanded paperback edition, Garrow also traces the post-Roe evolution of abortion rights battles and the wider struggle for sexual privacy up through the 25th anniversary of Roe in early 1998.

The abortion debate has returned. More than forty years have passed since the landmark decision Roe v. Wade, which legalized abortion in the United States. But the abortion debate continues to rage among ethicists and the influencers of society in politics, government, and the arts. Dave Sterrett's Aborting Aristotle examines these essential differences philosophically, while investigating the naturalistic worldview about humanity that is frequently held by many of the scholarly defenders of abortion. Each year 44 million babies are killed from intentional abortion around the world. 1.29 million babies are aborted right here in the United States. These are not just merely cold statistics: These are human beings . . . real babies. Sterrett reveals the unreasonableness of abortion and argues against abortion even in the difficult circumstances. In the ancient world, infanticide was defended by Plato and Aristotle. Christians who believed in the sacredness of human life stopped infanticide and intellectually argued against the practice. Peter Singer, professor of ethics at Princeton, hopes the time has come for atheists to reassess the morality of infanticide "without assuming the Christian moral framework that has, for so long, prevented any fundamental reassessment" [Peter Singer, Practical Ethics (Cambridge University Press, UK; 1993), 173.] Dave Sterrett takes on Peter Singer, along with other scholarly defenders of abortion, including David Boonin, Michael Tooley, and Judith Jarvis Thomson. Although he is against Aristotle's teaching in favor of abortion, Sterrett argues that Aristotle had much good in his metaphysical and logical teachings that Western education has forgotten. Sterrett draws upon current scientific knowledge of the human embryo to provide reasons for a restoration of the Aristotelian scholastic philosophical tradition that could help ethicists become more open-minded about the dignity and personhood of unborn human beings.

"I just always had this vision of me being ...well, Donna Reed, you know. (Laughter) Donna Reed, only I never had the pearls." This comment is one of the many recorded in this book, a study of how women's views of television and the media relate to their personal stance on abortion. Over four years, Andrea Press and Elizabeth Cole watched television with women, visiting city houses, suburban subdivisions, modern condominiums, and public housing projects. They found that television depicts abortion as a problem for the poor and the working classes, and that viewers invariably referred to class when discussing abortion. Pro-life women from various classes were unified in their rejection of materialist values. Like the woman who identified with Donna Reed minus the pearls, this group strongly believed that a reduced family income was worth the sacrifice in order to stay home with children. Pro-life women also shared a general suspicion of the media as a source of information, turning to science instead to validate their biblically derived worldview. Pro-choice women's beliefs, however, were divided along class lines. Working-class women defended choice because they viewed themselves as a group whose interests are continually threatened by legal authorities. In contrast, middle-class women argued for individual rights and thought abortion necessary for those who aren't financially ready. Many middle-class pro-choice women, the authors argue, share the same point of view as displayed on television. This book seeks to clarify the rhetoric surrounding the abortion debate and allows the reader to hear how ordinary women discuss one of America's most volatile issues.