How do rapid social and technological changes shape reproductive realms today? This book considers the complex choices, anxieties and challenges that come alongside postmodern reproduction for women and men in the West. Topics include surrogacy, fatherhood, sperm banking, egg donation, contraception, breastfeeding, and postpartum body image.

Birth controlled analyses the world of selective reproduction - the politics of who gets to legitimately reproduce the future - through a cross-cultural analysis of three modes of 'controlling' birth: contraception, reproductive violence and repro-genetic technologies. It argues that as fertility rates decline worldwide, the fervour to control fertility, and fertile bodies, does not dissipate; what evolves is the preferred mode of control. Although new technologies like those that assist conception or allow genetic selection may appear to be an antithesis of other violent versions of population control, this book demonstrates that both are part of the same continuum. All population control policies target and vilify women (Black women in particular), and coerce them into subjecting their bodies to state and medical surveillance; Birth controlled argues that assisted reproductive technologies and repro-genetic technologies employ a similar and stratified burden of blame and responsibility based on gender, race, class and caste. To empirically and historically ground the analysis, the book includes contributions from two postcolonial nations, South Africa and India, examining interactions between the history of colonialism and the economics of neoliberal markets and their influence on the technologies and politics of selective reproduction. The book provides a critical, interdisciplinary and cutting-edge dialogue around the interconnected issues that shape reproductive politics in an ostensibly 'post-population control' era. The contributions draw on a breadth of disciplines ranging from gender studies, sociology, medical anthropology, politics and science and technology studies to theology, public health and epidemiology, facilitating an interdisciplinary dialogue around the interconnected modes of controlling birth and practices of neo-eugenics. -- .

A thorough treatment of a central part of the moral issue concerning abortion. The book is confined to certain cases of abortion, namely those which involve (a) an unmistakable lethal attack on (b) a creature which would naively be supposed a young human being. A consideration of our problem must take up the "liberal" arguments, that despite appearances, it is not a grave wrong to destroy such an individual, even though it is somehow of value. The book is constructed around the work of Ronald Dworkin and kindred writers.

Abortion is arguably the most controversial and divisive moral issue of modern times, but up until now the debate has taken place almost exclusively within a Western cultural, religious and philosophical context. For the past three decades in the West arguments both for and against abortion have been mounted by groups of all kinds, from religious fundamentalists to radical feminists and every shade of opinion in between. Rather than mutual understanding, however, the result has been the polarisation of opinion and the deepening of entrenched positions. In the face of this deadlock a new perspective is urgently required. Buddhism is an ancient tradition which over the centuries has refined its distinctive beliefs and values in the course of a long interaction with the major cultures of Asia. As Buddhism continues to engage the attention of the West, the time is now opportune for its views on abortion to be heard. This is the first book to explore the abortion question from a range of Buddhist cultural and ethical perspectives. The approach is interdisciplinary and will be of relevance to those working in fields such as law, ethics, medicine, philosophy, religion, the social sciences and women's studies.

Abortion in Popular Culture: A Call to Action brings together scholars who examine depictions of abortion in film, television, literature, and social media. By examining texts ranging from medical dramas of the 1960s and recent films such as Never Rarely Sometimes Always and Unpregnant to dystopian novels and social-media campaigns, the essays analyze a range of narrative styles, rhetorical strategies, and cinematic techniques, all of which shape cultural attitudes toward abortion. They also analyze cultural shifts, including the willingness or reluctance of networks and cable channels to acknowledge medication abortion and the role that abortion plays in family planning. As a whole, however, the essays argue that popular culture can play a significant role in destigmatizing abortion by including a wider range of narratives and doing so with nuance and empathy. With reproductive rights under attack in the United States, each essay is a call to action for writers, producers, directors, showrunners, authors, and musicians to use their platforms to tell more positive and accurate stories about abortion.

Abortion remains one of the most politicized issues globally and whilst some countries such as the USA continue to experience restrictions to access to abortion, Northern Ireland stands out as having enacted historical positive change in abortion law, from an almost complete ban throughout the Twentieth Century to decriminalization achieved in 2019. This book documents and analyzes how this historical change was achieved. This, the second of two volumes, places emphasis on allies and support for abortion provision, illustrating how the movement has relied upon an intersectional network of social movement actors, NGOs and fundraisers to maintain momentum and inclusivity. It also focuses on the reality of abortion provision. Each chapter is written by those directly involved in the long-fought battle to change abortion law - including those with personal experience of seeking abortions, activists, academics, legal experts, political actors, NGOs, and volunteers. This interdisciplinary text will be of relevance to academics and students in the disciplines of law, policy, political science, and sociology, but also to organizers and policy makers in other global contexts and across other social justice campaigns.

What if you said the worst thing a mother could say? What if your husband found out about it in the national press? And what if after all that, you didn't regret it...? 'My life is a tight knot I would like to undo. And, yes, there's no use crying over spilt milk but, the truth is, I'd rather die than spill any more...' Bea has a husband and daughter. Bea also has an appointment for a termination. Her first child changed everything - her life, her relationship, her identity. Now she has a pregnancy test and a decision to face. This is a story about the women we (think we) know, the choices we make, the friends who stand by us and how the secrets we keep and the words left unsaid can be more dangerous than any lie we tell...

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

Most arguments for or against abortion focus on one question: is the fetus a person? In this provocative and important book, David Boonin defends the claim that even if the fetus is a person with the same right to life you and I have, abortion should still be legal, and most current restrictions on abortion should be abolished. Beyond Roe points to a key legal precedent: McFall v. Shimp. In 1978, an ailing Robert McFall sued his cousin, David Shimp, asking the court to order Shimp to provide McFall with the bone marrow he needed. The court ruled in Shimp's favor and McFall soon died. Boonin extracts a compelling lesson from the case of McFall v. Shimp-that having a right to life does not give a person the right to use another person's body even if they need to use that person's body to go on living-and he uses this principle to support his claim that abortion should be legal and far less restricted than it currently is, regardless of whether the fetus is a person. By taking the analysis of the right to life that Judith Jarvis Thomson pioneered in a moral context and applying it in a legal context in this novel way, Boonin offers a fresh perspective that is grounded in assumptions that should be accepted by both sides of the abortion debate. Written in a lively, conversational style, and offering a case study of the value of reason in analyzing complex social issues, Beyond Roe will be of interest to students and scholars in a variety of fields, and to anyone interested in the debate over whether government should restrict or prohibit abortion.

Drawing from extensive ethnographic research on abortion debates in public spaces, this book explores the beliefs, motivations and practices of UK anti-abortion activists. Whilst they represent a tiny minority, there is recent evidence of an increase in activism outside UK abortion clinics; faith-based groups regularly organise 'vigils' seeking to deter service users from entering clinics. In response to this, pro-choice groups launched a campaign for buffer-zones around clinics. Although there is overwhelming public support for abortion, it remains an area of public contestation that touches on ideas about bodily autonomy, religious freedom and reproductive rights. Despite being active in the UK since before the 1967 Abortion Act, anti-abortion activism has received little attention. Taking a lived religion approach, Anti-Abortion Activism in the UK explores the sacred and profane commitments of anti-abortion activists and counter-demonstrations outside clinics, examining the contestations over space. The authors argue that as a moral reform social movement, the anti-abortion activists typically frame their activism in terms of risk and abortion harm, but their religiously-informed understanding of ultra-sacrificial motherhood as 'natural' for women undermines this framing. Their conservative gender and sexuality attitudes position them culturally as a moral minority. The displays of public religion are also anomalous in a country in which religion is usually seen as a private issue. Their presence outside abortion clinics causes a significant amount of distress, but public support for the establishment of safe zones outside of abortion-service provision is strong and is a proportionate response to safeguard the freedoms of those seeking abortion.

Jeremy Cander has designed a home that cures depression. Jack Nesteby, a Canadian reporter, wants the story. In a New Ulm, Minnesota bar called The Broken Gate, they meet, but a flood and an accident change both men forever.

Danielle D'Souza Gill, in a pathbreaking new book, blows the lid off the abortion debate, which is radically different than it was when the Supreme Court issued its landmark ruling of Roe v. Wade in 1973. Technology has transformed the landscape and allowed people to see development in the womb. Ultrasound has rendered many old assumptions about abortion obsolete. The Democratic Left has become radicalized on abortion. It is no longer a necessary evil, but a positive good. Consequently, the Left has legitimized a form of mass killing in this country that dwarfs the deaths caused by cancer, smoking, homicide, terrorism, and war. Writing with freshness, intelligence, and insight, Danielle explores the contours of the debate, taking into account new ideas, new technology, and new laws and putting forth a new vision for a life-affirming society. In Socratic style, Danielle builds her case in response to the strongest contentions of the pro-choice camp. She engages their most powerful arguments head-on, carefully examines them, and then dismantles them. The result is a pro-life argument so persuasive that it will reach into the heart of the most hardened opponent. While it is a heartbreaking book, it is in the end inspiring. No matter what you believe about abortion, this book will educate, astonish, and deeply move you. It may move you to a position different from what you now hold. If you read one book about abortion, make it this one, The Choice: The Abortion Divide in America.

This multidisciplinary volume investigates different abortion and reproductive practices across time, space, geography, national boundaries, and cultures. The authors specialize in the reproductive politics of Australia, Bolivia, Cameroon, France, 'German East Africa,' Ireland, Japan, Sweden, South Africa, the United States, and Zanzibar, with historical focuses on the pre-modern era, nineteenth and twentieth centuries, as well as the present day. This timely work complicates the many histories and ongoing politics of abortion by exploring the conditions in which women have been forced to make these life-altering decisions.

A personal story of almost forty years debating abortion on radio, television, and univeristy campuses that also shapes up as an anecdotal history of the pro-life movement and a handbook for debating against abortion.

Freedom and Dialogue in a Polarized World argues that our most cherished ideas about freedom-being left alone to do as we please, or uncovering the truth-have failed us. They promote the polarized thinking that blights our world. Rooted in literature, political theory and Mikhail Bakhtin's theories of language, this book introduces a new concept: dialogic freedom. This concept combats polarization by inspiring us to feel freer the better able we are to see from the perspectives of others. To say that freedom is dialogic is to apply to it an idea about language. If you and I are talking, I anticipate from you a response that could be friendly, hostile, or indifferent, and this awareness helps determine what I say. If you look bored or give me a blank stare, I might not say anything at all. In this sense language is dialogic. The same can be said of freedom. Our decisions take into account the voices of others to which we feel answerable, and these voices coauthor our choices. In today's polarized world, prevailing concepts of freedom as autonomy and enlightenment have encouraged us to take refuge in echo chambers among the like-minded. Whether the subject is abortion, terrorism, or gun control, these concepts encourage us to shut out the voices of those who dare to disagree. We need a new way to think about freedom. Freedom and Dialogue in a Polarized World presents riveting moments of choice from Homer's Iliad, Dante's Inferno, Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice, Milton's Paradise Lost, Melville's "Benito Cereno," Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov, Kafka's "In the Penal Colony," and Morrison's Beloved, in order to advocate reading for and with dialogic freedom. It ends with a practical application to the debate about abortion and an invitation to rethink other polarizing issues. For more information, please visit: http://dialogicfreedom.weebly.com/.

This book provides a comprehensive study of abortion politics and policy in Northern Ireland. Whilst there is a substantial amount of literature on abortion in Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom, there has been scant academic attention paid to the situation in Northern Ireland. Adopting a feminist institutionalist framework, the book illustrates the ways in which abortion has been addressed at both the national institution at Westminster and the devolved institution at Stormont. Covering the period from early peace process in the 1980s to the present day, the text will be of interest to politics scholars, but also sociologists, historians and students of Irish studies.

Abortion is a contentious issue in social life but it has rarely been subjected to careful scrutiny in the social sciences. While the legalization of abortion has brought it into the public domain, it still remains a sensitive topic in many cultures, often hidden from view and rarely spoken about, consigned to a shadowy existence. Drawing on reports gathered from hospital settings and in-depth interviews with women who have had abortions, Luc Boltanski sets out to explain the ambiguous status of this social practice. Abortion, he argues, has to remain in the shadows, for it reveals a contradiction at the heart of the social contract: the principle of the uniqueness of beings conflicts with the postulate of their replaceable nature, a postulate without which no society would achieve demographic renewal. This leads Boltanski to explore the way human beings are engendered and to analyze the symbolic constraints that preside over their entry into society. What makes a human being is not the foetus as such, ensconced within the body, but rather the process by which it is taken up symbolically in speech - that is, its symbolic adoption. But this symbolic adoption presupposes the possibility of discriminating among embryos that are indistinguishable. For society, and sometimes for individuals, the arbitrary character of this discrimination is hard to tolerate. The contradiction is made bearable, Boltanski shows, by a grammatical categorization: the "project" foetus - adopted by its parents, who use speech to welcome the new being and give it a name - is juxtaposed to the "tumoral" foetus, an accidental embryo that will not be the object of a life-forming project. Bringing together grammar, narrations of life experience and an historical perspective, this highly original book sheds fresh light on a social phenomenon that is widely practised but poorly understood.

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.

In this novel examination of the issue of abortion, the authors offer a primer in the biological aspects of fetal development and its impact on the abortion controversy. Although purely scientific study cannot offer a universal solution to the issue of abortion, nor can a purely political or moral response be fully informed without the benefit of the latest scientific knowledge.

Reviewing the latest developments in molecular biology, evolutionary biology, embryology, and neurophysiology, the authors reveal a surprising agreement of scientific opinion on when 'humanness' begins: with the development of a highly developed cerebral cortex. It is on this issue that the authors focus with sensitivity to the myriad of ethical and religious arguments that surround it.

*Winner of the James S. Donnelly, Sr. Prize 2022* In Ireland, 2018, a constitutional ban that equated the life of a woman to the life of a fertilised embryo was overturned and abortion was finally legalised. This victory for the Irish Repeal movement set the country alight with euphoria. But, for some, the celebrations were short-lived - the new legislation turned out to be one of the most conservative in Europe. People still travel overseas for abortions and services are not yet fully commissioned in Northern Ireland. This book traces the history of the origins of the Eighth Amendment, which was drawn up in fear of a tide of liberal reforms across Europe. It draws out the lessons learned from the groundbreaking campaign in 2018, which was the culmination of a 35-year-long reproductive rights movement and an inspiring example of modern grassroots activism. It tells the story of the 'Repeal' campaign through the lens of the activists who are still fighting in a movement that is only just beginning.

The question of whether abortion should or should not be permitted, and under what circumstances, is among the most difficult and sometimes anguished decisions for contemporary men and women. How we feel about this issue, and what actions we take, help to define our image of who we are as social beings. In the midst of the surrounding political, ethical, and religious debate, people everywhere are once again examining their conscience and their beliefs, and turning to unutilized sources of information as they seek to come to terms with this contentious issue. And as emotions run high, it is helpful to step back from the highly charged arena to reconsider the underlying scientific facts about human development.
In The Facts of Life, Harold Morowitz and James Trefil, two distinguished scientists and science writers, examine what modern biology can contribute to our understanding of this debate. Sensitive to the myriad ethical and religious arguments beyond the realm of science that swirl around abortion, the authors focus on one crucial question--when does a fetus acquire "humanness," that quality that sets us apart from all other living things. From the viewpoint of science, they argue, "humanness" begins with the possession of a highly developed cerebral cortex. While humans are linked via cell structure and cell chemistry with all life on our planet--from monkeys to fruit flies to pumpkins--it is the human brain structure which makes us who we are. Reviewing the latest advances in molecular biology, evolutionary biology, embryology, neurophysiology, and neonatology--fields that all bear on this question--the authors reveal a surprising consensus of scientific opinion on when humanness begins.
A lucid primer on the biological aspects of the abortion issue, The Facts of Life is also a fascinating inquiry, across various scientific disciplines, into what makes us uniquely human. Anyone who struggles with the issue of abortion will be grateful to find a work that moves this heated issue from the intensely emotional area it has occupied to the calmer domain of science.