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Books > Social sciences > Sociology, social studies > Social issues > Ethical issues & debates > Abortion
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.
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.
Since the 1970s, alarming discourses about declining fertility and the difficulties of balancing work and family have flourished in Western countries. Captured by the notion of the 'biological clock', they put women's reproductive age and the fertility decline to the centre of public and medical attention. Reproductive biomedicine constitutes a specific domain invested with hopes for technological and medical answers and a new market for fertility extension technologies, such as egg donation and social egg freezing. Addressing long-standing questions about the articulation of the biological and the social in the making of bodies and identities, this book questions the nature of reproductive ageing, a taken for granted 'fact of life' at the core of reproductive biomedicine. What is the biology of the 'biological clock' made of and how can we account for its embodied reality from a feminist perspective? Opening the black box of the biological, the book makes a way between essentialism and constructivism with the aim of accounting for its materiality, while also illuminating its political implications. By following the ontological choreographies of age-related infertility in the science and medicine of reproduction, this study explores how age materializes and documents what happens when reproduction meets ageing. Deeply transdisciplinary, it questions what is fixed about the biology of the fertility decline in a way which adds complexity to debates about the biomedicalization of reproductive ageing.
The U.S. has the worst rate of maternal deaths in the developed world, a rate that is increasing, even as infant mortality rates decrease. Meanwhile, the right-wing assault on reproductive rights and bodily autonomy has also escalated. We can already glimpse a reality where embryos and fetuses have more rights than the people gestating them, and even women who aren't pregnant are seen first and foremost as potential incubators. In Belabored, journalist Lyz Lenz lays bare the misogynistic logic of U.S. cultural narratives about pregnancy, tracing them back to our murky, potent cultural soup of myths, from the religious to the historical. In the present she details, with her trademark blend of wit, snark, and raw intimacy, how sexist assumptions inform our expectations for pregnant people, whether we're policing them, asking them to make sacrifices with dubious or disproven benefits, or putting them up on a pedestal in an "Earth mother" role. Throughout, she reflects on her own experiences of being seen as alternately a vessel or a goddess--but hardly ever as herself--while carrying each of her two children. Belabored is an urgent call for us to embrace new narratives around pregnancy and the choice whether or not to have children, emphasising wholeness and agency, and to reflect those values in our laws, medicine, and interactions with each other.
This completely revised and updated edition of "Why Pro-Life?" offers factual answers to the central issues of the abortion debate in a concise, non-abrasive way. Infused with grace and compassion, and grounded in medical science and psychological studies, Randy Alcorn presents a solid case for defending both unborn children and their mothers. Chapters such as, "What Makes a Human Life 'Meaningful, '" "Is Abortion Really a Women's Rights Issue," and "How Can I Help Unborn Babies and Their Mothers" help readers to look at the many sides of this polarizing issue. For those on the fence in the midst of the abortion debate, this book will be a great resource as it clearly and thoroughly examines the pro-life position. For those who are pro-life already, this book is an encouragement to be intelligently and graciously informed.
Abortion in Latin America and the Caribbean is the first major book to analyze the abortion laws of the Latin American and Caribbean nations that are parties to the American Convention on Human Rights. Making use of a broad range of materials relating to human rights and abortion law not yet available in English, the first part of this book analyzes how Inter-American human rights bodies have interpreted the American Convention's prenatal right to life. The second part examines Article 4(1) of the American Convention, comparing and analyzing the laws regarding prenatal rights and abortion in all twenty-three nations that are parties to this treaty. Castaldi questions how Inter-American human rights bodies currently interpret Article 4(1). Against the predominant view, she argues that the purpose of this treaty is to grant legal protection of the unborn child from elective abortion that is broad and general, not merely exceptional. Abortion in Latin America and the Caribbean offers an objective analysis of national and international laws on abortion, proposing a new interpretation of the American Convention's right-to-life provision that is nonrestrictive and provides general protection for the unborn. The book will appeal not only to students and scholars in the field of international human rights but also to human rights advocates more generally.
Few Supreme Court decisions have stirred up as much controversy, vitriolic debate, and even violence as Roe v. Wade in 1973. Four decades later, it remains a touchstone for the culture wars in the United States and a pivot upon which much of our politics turns. With that in mind, N. E. H. Hull and Peter Charles Hoffer have taken stock of the abortion debates, controversies, and cases that have emerged during the past decade in order to update their best-selling book on this landmark case. As with the first two editions, this book details the case's historical background; highlights Roe v. Wade's core issues, essential personalities, and key precedents; tracks the case's path through the courts; clarifies the jurisprudence behind the Court's ruling in Roe; assesses the impact of the presidential elections of George W. Bush and Barack Obama along with the confirmations of Chief Justice John Roberts, Justice Samuel Alito, Justice Sonia Sotomayor; and gauges the case's impact on American society and subsequent challenges to it in Webster v. Reproductive Health Services (1989), Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992), and Gonzales v. Carhart (2007). This third updated edition also adds two completely new chapters covering abortion politics and legal battles in Obama's second term and Donald J. Trump's first term. The new material covers two important cases in detail: Whole Woman's Health v. Hellerstedt (2016) and June Medical Services, LLC v. Russo (2020). The cases dealt with state laws-Texas and Louisiana, respectively-designed to limit access to abortion by requiring doctors performing abortions to have admission privileges at a state-authorized hospital within thirty miles of the abortion clinic. In both cases the Court ruled the laws unconstitutional, thus handing abortion rights' activists key victories in the face of an increasingly conservative Court. The new chapters also cover the confirmations of Justices Elena Kagan, Neil Gorsuch, and Brett Kavanaugh as well as the heated political environment surrounding the Court in the age of Trump.
This revised and updated edition of the 2016 bestselling work sets out the moral arguments for a woman's right to decide the future of her pregnancy. Drawing on traditions of philosophical and sociological thinking, it presents the case for recognizing autonomy in personal, private decision-making about reproductive intentions. Further, it argues that to prevent a woman making this decision according to her own values is to undermine the essence of her humanity. The author explores how true respect for human life and regard for individual conscience demands that we support a woman's right to decide, and that support for her right to terminate her pregnancy has moral foundations and ethical integrity. This second edition features a foreword by US abortion provider and reproductive justice advocate Dr. Willie Parker, as well as additional chapters that consider the rights of doctors and nurses to withdraw from abortion provision on grounds of conscience. Furedi also surveys the rapidly changing landscape of the abortion debate, including the rights of women in the aftermath of Trump's presidency; debates, politics and religion in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland; and the differing levels of provision across Europe.
THE PILL Changes your brain Alters your stress response Can increase your risk of depression Affects your choice of mate selection Hormonal birth control is taken by millions of women around the world every day. Yet until recently we knew very little about how the Pill affects the non-reproductive systems of the female body, because research on these other systems was conducted almost exclusively on men. In her trailblazing book, Dr Sarah Hill uses the latest science to reveal how the Pill is changing women and the world, for better and worse. She puts the power back in your hands to make smarter, more informed choices about your health and your hormones. IT'S EVERYTHING YOUR DOCTOR NEVER TOLD YOU
This book looks at a family of views involving the pro-life view of abortion and Christianity. These issues are important because major religious branches (for example, Catholicism and some large branches of Evangelicalism) and leading politicians assert, or are committed to, the following: (a) it is permissible to prevent some people from going to hell, (b) abortion prevents some people from going to hell, and (c) abortion is wrong. They also assert, or are committed to, the following: (d) it is permissible to use defensive violence to prevent people from killing innocents, (e) doctors who perform abortions kill innocents, and (f) it is wrong to use defensive violence against doctors who perform abortions. Stephen Kershnar argues that these and other principles are inconsistent. Along the way, he explores the ways in which theories of hell, right forfeiture, and good consequences relate to each other and the above inconsistencies.
The 2014 Supreme Court ruling on McCullen v. Coakley striking down a Massachusetts law regulating anti-abortion activism marked the reengagement of the Supreme Court in abortion politics. A throwback to the days of clinic-front protests, the decision seemed a means to reinvigorate the old street politics of abortion. The Court's ruling also highlights the success of a decades' long effort by anti-abortion activists to transform the very politics of abortion. The New States of Abortion Politics, written by leading scholar Joshua C. Wilson, tells the story of this movement, from streets to legislative halls to courtrooms. With the end of clinic-front activism, lawyers and politicians took on the fight. Anti-abortion activists moved away from a doomed frontal assault on Roe v. Wade and adopted an incremental strategy-putting anti-abortion causes on the offensive in friendly state forums and placing reproductive rights advocates on the defense in the courts. The Supreme Court ruling on Whole Woman's Health v. Hellerstedt in 2016 makes the stakes for abortion politics higher than ever. This book elucidates how-and why.
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.
Using a wide range of prosecution and trial records, along with more recent newspaper coverage of court proceedings, this book furnishes a fascinating insight into the relationship between the law, sex, and society in modern Scotland. Case studies of sex-related offences, including abortion, bestiality, brothel-keeping, child sexual assault, and wilful HIV transmission, reveal how far the legal process both reflected and reinforced contemporary moral panics and how far it was shaped by the interplay between law officers and forensic experts, by the prejudices of the local community and civic leaders, and by Scotland's distinctive legal and moral identity. The law in practice is seen to have sustained important norms of sexual behaviour and masculinity along with an enduring double moral standard with respect to female sexuality. This volume thus affords a remarkable new perspective on the sexual behaviours and ideologies of Scottish society across the twentieth century and into the new millennium.
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.
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/
View the Table of Contents. Read Chapter One. aDoes a terrific job of laying out how the courts have conspired
to limit the abortion access of teenaged girls. The results are
clear, convincing, and enraging. How we- and the lawmakers who
represent us- respond will indicate whether the pro-choice
community has the wherewithal to fight back and defend Roe. Helena
Silverstein has broken the silence on judicial bypass. It is now up
to the rest of us to take action.a aSilverstein implements a tremendous research design that yields a very well-written book, and the resulting evidence backs up a powerful indictment of street level justice at work.a--"Law and Politics Book Review" aDoes a terrific job of laying out how the courts have conspired
to limit the abortion access of teenage girls. The results are
clear, convincing and enraging. . . . Silverstein has broken the
silence on judicial bypass. It is now up to the rest of us to take
action.a aSilversteinas book is a welcome addition because, rather than
focusing on normative debates about abortion that almost anyone
interested in the question is already familiar with, she focuses on
how parental notification laws actually work on the ground. The
book is judicious and moderate in tone. . . . A first-rate work of
social science.a aThatas the law; whatas the practice? Helena Silverstein, a
political scientist, surveyed the courts charged with implementing
the parental bypass in Alabama, Tennessee and
Pennsylvaniaa]Silversteinas findings, which range from disturbing
to appalling, are set out in Girls on the Stand: How Courts Fail
Pregnant Minors.a In the wake of the Supreme Court's 1973 "Roe v. Wade" decision,
many states tested "Roe" by placing restrictions on abortion
rights. Most states now have parental consent laws for women under
age eighteen. For minors who have reason to avoid parental
involvement, the Supreme Court has instituted a generally welcomed
compromise that allows minors to seek authorization by a third
party, usually a judge. In this groundbreaking study, Silverstein
demonstrates that this compromise is fatally flawed. . . .
Silverstein does an excellent job of explicating the serious
problems with this compromise, concluding that it is rooted in the
myth that judges can be relied on to be unbiased. . . . Silverstein
has produced an important contribution to women's studies and legal
practice and theory.a aHelena Silverstein's important research reveals a court system
that all too often fails the most vulnerable teenagers.a aTaking on the emotionally charged issue of mandatory parental
involvement in the abortion decisions of minors and judicial bypass
provisions in three states, Silverstein carefully lays out and
skillfully dismantles myths that sustain support for these
policies. Her prose is lucid and engaging, her argument powerful
and persuasive. This book is one of the best examples of a new
generation of scholarship on law and legal processes.a aSilverstein develops an incisive, empirically rich, and tightly
reasoned case about how the beguiling amyth ofrightsa props up a
fatally flawed public policy for pregnant minors. This is a
veryoriginal, powerful, and important book that deserves to be read
by a wide audience.a aSilverstein's research on the by-pass protections written into
parental notification legislation reveals how and why these
protections provided for pregnant minors are subverted by clumsy
bureaucratic procedures and by politically driven judicial
decisions. In so doing, she brings empirical evidence, conceptual
sophistication and extraordinary good sense to divisive
controversies over reproductive rights, legality and
democracy.a The U.S. Supreme Court has decided that states may require parental involvement in the abortion decisions of pregnant minors as long as minors have the opportunity to petition for a "bypass" of parental involvement. To date, virtually all of the 34 states that mandate parental involvement have put judges in charge of the bypass process. Individual judges are thereby responsible for deciding whether or not the minor has a legitimate basis to seek an abortion absent parental participation. In this revealing and disturbing book, Helena Silverstein presents a detailed picture of how the bypass process actually functions. Silverstein led a team of researchers who surveyed more than 200 courts designated to handle bypass cases in three states. Her research shows indisputably that laws are being routinely ignored and, when enforced, interpreted by judges in widely divergent ways. In fact, she finds audaciousacts of judicial discretion, in which judges structure bypass proceedings in a shameless and calculated effort to communicate their religious and political views and to persuade minors to carry their pregnancies to term. Her investigations uncover judicial mandates that minors receive pro-life counseling from evangelical Christian ministries, as well as the practice of appointing attorneys to represent the interests of unborn children at bypass hearings. Girls on the Stand convincingly demonstrates that safeguards promised by parental involvement laws do not exist in practice and that a legal process designed to help young women make informed decisions instead victimizes them. In making this case, the book casts doubt not only on the structure of parental involvement mandates but also on the naAve faith in law that sustains them. It consciously contributes to a growing body of books aimed at debunking the popular myth that, in the land of the free, there is equal justice for all.
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.
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.
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.
Simultaneously examining four significant, never-before-combined case studies, this unique feminist analysis offers troubling revelations about the private-public interaction in U.S. policy affecting birth control drugs. Reproductive Rights and the State: Getting the Birth Control, RU-486, and Morning-After Pills and the Gardasil Vaccine to the U.S. Market tackles a subject that remains controversial more than 60 years after "the pill" was approved for use in the United States. The first book to examine the politicization of the FDA approval process for reproductive drugs, this study maps the hard-fought battles over the four major drugs currently on the U.S. market. To make her case, Melissa Haussman scrutinizes the history of the FDA and the statutes that have governed it, as well as interactions between the U.S. government, American pharmaceutical companies, and the medical community. The analysis centers on explaining how three reproductive drugs were kept off the U.S. market well after their efficacy had been proven, while the availability of the fourth, Gardasil, has less to do with helping girls than with preserving the financial wellbeing of Merck. Readers will come away understanding how, when it comes to reproductive drugs, women's health concerns have consistently taken a backseat to political agendas and corporate profits.
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.
A new look at the last four decades of the abortion law and its effects from a young conservative. Abortion was legalized with the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court case in 1973. Since that time, there have been more than sixty-one million abortions. In the 1990s, President Bill Clinton told the country that abortion should be "safe, legal, and rare," but growing numbers and new laws regarding late term abortion distress conservatives and those in the right-to-life movement. As a pro-life activist and speaker, Danielle D-Souza makes the case against abortion while providing commentary on various court cases, and the movement since the 1970s. Her goal with this book is to provide a fresh look at this divisive issue. |
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