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Books > Social sciences > Sociology, social studies > Social issues > Ethical issues & debates > Abortion
After the granting of the vote to women in 1918, the struggle for women's rights intensified with a nationwide campaign for the right to birth control. This campaign was met with a great deal of hostility; it threatened to overturn Victorian ideas about female sexuality, female empowerment and the traditional roles within the family. The most well known of the campaigners, scientist and early feminist Marie Stopes, opened clinics across England which fitted 'contraception caps' to women for free. The first history of this grassroots social movement, After the Suffragettes offers a window into the social and cultural history of the period, and features new archival material in the forms of memoirs, personal papers and press cuttings. This is an essential contribution to the influential field of women's history and a vital addition to the history of feminism.
The landmark decision R. v. Morgentaler (1988) struck down Canada's abortion law and is widely believed to have established a right to abortion, but its actual impact is much less decisive. In After Morgentaler, Rachael Johnstone examines the state of abortion access in Canada today and argues that substantive access is essential to full citizenship for women. Using case studies, Johnstone assesses the role of both state and non-state actors in shaping access. This book affirms the need to recognize abortion as an issue fundamentally tied to women's equality, while stressing the utility of rights claims to improve access.
'A provocative and important book that every pro-choice advocate should read.' Sinead Kennedy, Coalition to Repeal the 8th Amendment When it comes to abortion, today's liberal climate has produced a common sense that is both pro-choice and anti-abortion. The public are fed an unchanging version of what the abortion choice entails and how women experience it. While it would prove highly unpopular to insist that all pregnant women should carry their pregnancy to term, the idea that abortion could or should be a happy experience for women is virtually unspeakable. In this careful and intelligent work, Erica Millar shows how the emotions of abortion are constructed in sharp contrast to the emotional position occupied by motherhood - the unassailable placeholder for women's happiness. Through an exposition of the cultural and political forces that continue to influence the decisions women make about their pregnancies - forces that are synonymous with the rhetoric of choice - Millar argues for a radical reinterpretation of women's freedom.
Abortion is - and always has been - an arena for contesting power relations between women and men. When in 1973 the Supreme Court made the procedure legal throughout the United States, it seemed that women were at last able to make decisions about their own bodies. In the four decades that followed, however, abortion became ever more politicized and stigmatized. Abortion after Roe chronicles and analyzes what the new legal status and changing political environment have meant for abortion providers and their patients. Johanna Schoen sheds light on the little-studied experience of performing and receiving abortion care from the 1970s - a period of optimism - to the rise of the antiabortion movement and the escalation of antiabortion tactics in the 1980s to the 1990s and beyond, when violent attacks on clinics and abortion providers led to a new articulation of abortion care as moral work. As Schoen demonstrates, more than four decades after the legalization of abortion, the abortion provider community has powerfully asserted that abortion care is a moral good.
'A provocative and important book that every pro-choice advocate should read.' Sinead Kennedy, Coalition to Repeal the 8th Amendment When it comes to abortion, today's liberal climate has produced a common sense that is both pro-choice and anti-abortion. The public are fed an unchanging version of what the abortion choice entails and how women experience it. While it would prove highly unpopular to insist that all pregnant women should carry their pregnancy to term, the idea that abortion could or should be a happy experience for women is virtually unspeakable. In this careful and intelligent work, Erica Millar shows how the emotions of abortion are constructed in sharp contrast to the emotional position occupied by motherhood - the unassailable placeholder for women's happiness. Through an exposition of the cultural and political forces that continue to influence the decisions women make about their pregnancies - forces that are synonymous with the rhetoric of choice - Millar argues for a radical reinterpretation of women's freedom.
"Abortion 101, an accessible account of abortion practices and ethical issues around the globe, for students, activists, and policymakers"
The Catholic Church has always opposed abortion, but--contrary to popular belief--not always for the same reasons. This tightly argued, historically grounded study sets out to demonstrate that a "pro-choice" stance, now held by a significant minority of Catholics, is as fully justified by Catholic thought as an antiabortion view. A Brief, Liberal, Catholic Defense of Abortion argues that the current Catholic antiabortion stance is justified neither by modern embryology nor by ancient church teachings. Combining up-to-date information on fetal development with a thorough grasp of the works of the church's early thinkers (such as Sts. Augustine and Thomas Aquinas), Daniel A. Dombrowski and Robert Deltete expose crucial contradictions between the early and the modern Church's views of abortion.
During the 1990s, Greece had a very high rate of abortion at the same time that its low birth rate was considered a national crisis. The Empty Cradle of Democracy explores this paradox. Alexandra Halkias shows that despite Greek Orthodox beliefs that abortion is murder, many Greek women view it as "natural" and consider birth control methods invasive. The formal public-sphere view is that women destroy the body of the nation by aborting future citizens. Scrutiny of these conflicting cultural beliefs enables Halkias's incisive critique of the cornerstones of modern liberal democracy, including the autonomous "individual" subject and a polity external to the private sphere. The Empty Cradle of Democracy examines the complex relationship between nationalism and gender and re-theorizes late modernity and violence by exploring Greek representations of human agency, the fetus, national identity, eroticism, and the divine.Halkias's analysis combines telling fragments of contemporary Athenian culture, Greek history, media coverage of abortion and the declining birth rate, and fieldwork in Athens at an obstetrics/gynecology clinic and a family-planning center. Halkias conducted in-depth interviews with one hundred and twenty women who had had two or more abortions and observed more than four hundred gynecological exams at a state family-planning center. She reveals how intimate decisions and the public preoccupation with the low birth rate connect to nationalist ideas of race, religion, freedom, resistance, and the fraught encounter between modernity and tradition. The Empty Cradle of Democracy is a startling examination of how assumptions underlying liberal democracy are betrayed while the nation permeates the body and understandings of gender and sexuality complicate the nation-building projects of late modernity.
This book is meant to provide an overview of and gather the literature on abortion -- one of the most divisive issues of our times. Honest women and men the world over must deal with this issue in their hearts and minds whether or not they ever face the issue personally. It is hard to conceive of a single thinking person who doesn't have an opinion on abortion -- usually strongly held. The arguments are cogent on both sides of the issue. We hope that this collection will bring to the attention of readers the publications which shed light on the fundamental issues involved.
Twenty million unsafe abortions are performed each year, 90% of which occur in the developing world. In many countries, abortion is still illegal; in others a variety of cultural barriers force women to seek out underground abortions. Even in countries, such as China, where abortion is fully accessible in practice as well as in theory, our understanding of the phenomenon is very partial. In discussing issues that are of the utmost important for understanding abortion, this book furthers our knowledge of this one of the most important elements of reproductive health. The result of a global research project, commissioned by the World Health Organization, the book provides new information on abortion, vital for both policy debate and strategies for intervention. The contributors explain the extent of abortion, why it happens and what happens when it does. A section on women's perspectives explains how women across the world feel when they find they must abort, the processes by which they go about it, how the underground networks operate and the obstacles these women must face. The book addresses providers? views on abortion, highlighting how their personal values and opinions influence the total experience that women undergo. Several contributions discuss the relationship between contraception and abortion while a section on adolescents addresses a newly emerging concern for programme managers around the world. With more information that has ever been previously available, this book is the most comprehensive and up-to-date picture of abortion globally; it also demonstrates that true reproductive freedom comes only with women's empowerment and with an acceptable quality of health care. It will be necessary reading for students and academics of women's studies and population studies, as well as for practitioners in the health sector.
Based on the struggle over a Fargo, North Dakota, abortion clinic, this text explores one of the central social conflicts of the late 20th century. It speaks not simply to the abortion issue but also to the critical role of women's political activism.;A new introduction addresses the events of the 1990s, which saw the emergence of Operation Rescue and a shift toward more violent, even deadly, forms of anti-abortion protest. Responses to this trend included government legislation, a decline in clinics and doctors offering abortion services, and also the formation of Common Ground, an alliance bringing together activists from both sides to address shared concerns. Ginsburg shows that what may have seemed an ephemeral artifact of "Midwestern feminism" of the 1980s actually foreshadowed unprecedented possibilities for reconciliation in one of the most entrenched conflicts of our times.
In the past half century, we have moved from criminalization of abortion to legalization, although unequal access to services and violent protests continue to tear American society apart. In this provocative volume, a passionate and diverse group of abortion rights proponents - journalists, scholars, activists, lawyers, physicians, and philosophers - chronicles the evolution of one of the most intensely debated issues of our time. Unique in its attention to so many aspects of the debate, "Abortion Wars" places key issues such as medical practice, activism, legal strategies, and the meaning of choice in the deeply complex historical context of the past half-century. Taking the reader into the trenches of the battle over abortion rights, the contributors zero in on the key moments and turning points of this ongoing war. Rickie Solinger and Laura Kaplan discuss the covert history of abortion before Roe v. Wade, including the activities of the abortion providers called Jane. Faye Ginsburg examines the recent rise of anti-abortion militancy and its ties to the religious right. Jane Hodgson reflects on her career as a physician and abortion practitioner before abortion was legal, and Alison Jaggar explores the changing theoretical underpinnings of abortion rights activism. Other essays stress the need to redefine the reproductive rights movement so that race and class as well as gender considerations are at its core and raise questions regarding abortion rights for poor women and women of color. Taken together, the historical and interdisciplinary perspectives collected here yield a complex picture of what has been at stake in abortion politics during the past fifty years. The essays clarify why so many women consider abortion crucial to their lives and why opposition to abortion rights has become so violent today. The essays illuminate a fundamental lesson about the nature of social change in the United States: that judicial decisions that overturn restrictive laws and establish new rights do not settle social policy and, in fact, are likely to spark severe and long-lasting resistance.
How the deeply divisive abortion controversy has played out on state and national levels during the past two decades provides an illustrative portrait, even if in some ways a disappointing reflection, of the operation of American government and politics. In Abortion and American Politics, Barbara H. Craig and David M. O'Brien tell the story of this explosive social issue, from the Supreme Court's landmark 1973 ruling in Roe v. Wade, through the years of grass-roots activism and public debate that led to the de-turning 1989 decision in Webster v. Reproductive Health Services and to the no less controversial 1992 ruling in Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey. Against the background of ambiguities of public opinion polls, the authors trace the strategic maneuvering of interest groups in bringing litigation and in pushing for legislation and executive action. And they underscore the prospects for further changes in the national debate over abortion with the Clinton administration's policies and its judicial appointees. Without attempting to resolve the abortion controversy or to advocate one or another position, Craig and O'Brien present a comprehensive analysis of the complex interaction of interest groups, the states, the courts, Congress, and the president and the executive branch. As a case study of institutional conflict over public policy, Abortion and American Politics demonstrates the enduring vitality of the Founders' vision of a system of constitutional politics that allows for incremental change as a means to ensure stability in the face of unyielding social controversy.
Scientific breakthroughs have led us to a point where soon we will be able to make specific choices about the genetic makeup of our offspring. In fact, this reality has arrived - and it is only a matter of time before the technology becomes widespread. Much like past arguments about stem-cell research, the coming debate over these reproductive genetic technologies (RGTs) will be both political and, for many people, religious. In order to understand how the debate will play out in the United States, John H. Evans conducted the first in-depth study of the claims made about RGTs by religious people from across the political spectrum, and "Contested Reproduction" is the stimulating result. Some of the opinions Evans documents are familiar, but others - such as the idea that certain genetic conditions produce a 'meaningful suffering' that is, ultimately, desirable - provide a fascinating glimpse of religious reactions to cutting-edge science. Not surprisingly, Evans discovers that for many people opinion on the issue closely relates to their feelings about abortion, but he also finds a shared moral language that offers a way around the unproductive polarization of the abortion debate and other culture-war concerns. "Contested Reproduction" is a prescient, profound look into the future of a hot-button issue.
A groundbreaking new work on the global battle over reproductive
rights by the author of "The New York Times" bestseller "Kingdom
Coming"
This book contains a foreword by Ann Thompson, Professor of Midwifery, University of Manchester. This illuminating book describes young people's thoughts and feelings before and after an abortion, and includes their experiences in the long term. It increases understanding and stimulates discussion of abortion issues without bias, and incorporates political, religious, social, physical and mental considerations in its wide-ranging approach. The personal narratives from both women and men make the issues particularly powerful. "Memories After Abortion" offers thought provoking ideas for all health and social care professionals involved in pregnancy issues. Undergraduate and postgraduate health and social care students, counsellors, therapists, teachers and youth/religious leaders will also find it invaluable. 'Consideration of abortion causes a lot of distress, anxiety and debate within society. This book should be read by women and men so that they can debate and understand each others' views and experiences in their relationships. It should also be read by nurses, midwives, doctors, health-service administrators and those providing social care.' - Ann M Thomson, in the Foreword.
The Supreme Court's 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade legalized abortion. Yet while the medical procedure is legal--and safe--many women across the country do not have the ability to exercise this reproductive right. Melody Rose examines abortion as a social regulatory policy, thoughtfully and thoroughly chronicling the erosion of abortion rights and availability since Roe. Paying respect to all views of this controversial topic in her engaging new book, Rose explores the success of the right-to-life movement in accumulating local and national policies that restrict access to abortion while enhancing fetal protections. In addition to a basic and brief primer on the practice and history of abortion, Rose considers the roles played by the courts, political parties, and interest groups in constructing barriers to abortion. With an examination of public opinion poll data and a look at both state and national statutory prohibitions on abortion, Rose also shows how powerful language wars have resulted in material policy alterations. Chapter-opening vignettes and vivid storytelling make this brief and topical supplement a good read that is sure to get your students thinking critically about this highly charged topic. As well, the author has augmented chapters with further reading suggestions and provocative discussion questions that invite insightful discussion and analysis.
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What can abortion and divorce laws in other countries teach Americans about these thorny issues? In this incisive new book, noted legal scholar Mary Ann Glendon looks at the experiences of twenty Western nations, including the United States, and shows how they differ, subtly but profoundly, from one another. Her findings challenge many widely held American beliefs. She reveals, for example, that a compromise on the abortion question is not only possible but typical, even in societies that are deeply divided on the matter. Regarding divorce, the extensive reliance on judicial discretion in the United States is not the best way to achieve fairness in arranging child support, spousal maintenance, or division of property-to judge by the experience of other countries. Glendon's analysis, by searching out alternatives to current U.S. practice, identities new possibilities of reform in these areas. After the late 1960s abortion and divorce became more readily available throughout the West-and most readily in this country-but the approach of American law has been anomalous. Compared with other Western nations, the United States permits less regulation of abortion in the interest of the fetus, provides less public support for maternity and child-rearing, and does less to mitigate the economic hardships of divorce through public assistance or enforcement of private obligations of support. Glendon looks at these and more profound differences in the light of a powerful new method of legal interpretation. She sees each country's laws as part of a symbol-creating system that yields a distinctive portrait of individuals, human life, and relations between men and women, parents and children, families and larger communities. American law, more than that of other countries, employs a rhetoric of rights, individual liberty, and tolerance for diversity that, unchecked, contributes to the fragmentation of community and its values. Contemporary U.S. family law embodies a narrative about divorce, abortion, and dependency that is probably not the story most Americans would want to tell about these sad and complex matters but that is recognizably related to many of their most cherished ideals.
This twenty-fifth anniversary edition places abortion politics in the context of reproductive justice today and explains why abortion has been--and remains--a political flashpoint in the United States. Before Roe v. Wade, hundreds of thousands of illegal abortions occurred in the United States every year. Rickie Solinger tells the story of Ruth Barnett, an abortionist in Portland, Oregon, from 1918 to 1968, to demonstrate how the law, not back-alley practitioners, endangered women's lives in the years before legalized abortion. Women from all walks of life came to Barnett, who worked in a proper office, undisturbed by legal authorities, and never lost a patient. But in the illegal era following World War II, Barnett and other practitioners were hounded by police and became targets for politicians; women seeking abortions were forced to turn to syndicates run by racketeers or to use self-induced methods that often ended in injury or death. This new edition places abortion politics in the context of reproductive justice today. Despite the change in women's status since Barnett's time, key cultural and political meanings of abortion have endured. Opponents of Roe v. Wade continue their efforts to recriminalize abortion and reestablish an inexorable relationship between biology and destiny. The Abortionist is an instructive reminder that legal abortion facilitated women's status as full members of society. Barnett's story clarifies the relationship of legal abortion to human dignity and shows why preserving and extending Roe v. Wade ensures women's freedom to decide for themselves what is best for their health.
Winner of the Rhodes University Vice-Chancellor's Book Award 2012 Winner of the 2011 Distinguished Publication Award of the Association for Women in Psychology Why, despite evidence to the contrary, does the narrative of the negative consequences of teenage pregnancy, abortion and childbearing persist? This book argues that the negativity surrounding early reproduction is underpinned by a particular understanding of adolescence. It traces the invention of "adolescence" and the imaginary wall that the notion constructs between young people and adults. Macleod examines the entrenched status of "adolescence" within a colonialist discourse that equates development of the individual with the development of civilisation, and the consequent threat of degeneration that "adolescence" implies. Many important issues are explored, such as the invention of teenage pregnancy and abortion as a social problem; issues of race, culture and tradition in relation to teenage pregnancy; and health service provider practices, specifically in relation to managing risk. In the final chapter, an argument is made for a shift from the signifier "teenage pregnancy" to "unwanted pregnancy." Using data gathered from studies worldwide, this book highlights central issues in the global debate concerning teenage pregnancy. It is ideal for academics, and students of health psychology, women s studies, nursing and sociology, as well as practitioners in the fields of youth and social work, medicine and counselling." |
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