This book examines the current policies and restrictions relating to U.S. family planning and population assistance abroad. Topics discussed in this book include abortion and family planning-related provisions in U.S. foreign assistance law and policy; international family planning programs; and background information on the U.N. Population Fund and U.S. funding debate.

You've planned every detail of your wedding, but have you planned your marriage?
This updated third edition of "Before You Say "I Do" "will help every bride and groom discover what they need to know about themselves, each other, and their marriage--before the wedding.
Featuring questions designed to inspire in-depth conversations between you and your future spouse, this book also invites parents, friends, future in-laws, clergy, and children from previous marriages into the discussions to offer their own perspectives. Together, couples are encouraged to explore their life histories and experiences, their hopes and dreams, and their views on love, children, religion, work, and politics, to find both common and uncommon ground on which to strengthen the foundation of their marriage.

The "New York Times" bestselling author of "The Girls from Ames "shares an intimate look at a small-town bridal shop, its multigenerational female owners, and the love between parents and daughters as they prepare for their wedding day.

Thousands of women have stepped inside Becker's Bridal, in Fowler, Michigan, to try on their dream dresses in the Magic Room, a special space with soft lighting, a circular pedestal, and mirrors that carry a bride's image into infinity. The women bring with them their most precious expectations about romance, love, fidelity, permanence, and tradition. Each bride who passes through has a story to tell--one that carried her there, to that dress, that room, that moment.

Illuminating the poignant aspects of a woman's journey to the altar, "The Magic Room "tells the stories of memorable women on the brink of commitment. Run by the same family for four generations, Becker's has witnessed transformations in how America views the institution of marriage: some of the shop's clientele are becoming stepmothers, some are older brides, some are pregnant. Shop owner Shelley has a special affection for all the brides, hoping their journeys will be easier than hers. Jeffrey Zaslow weaves their true stories using a reporter's research and a father's heart.

The lessons Zaslow shares from within the Magic Room are at times joyful, at times heartbreaking, and always with insight on marriage, family, and the lessons that parents--especially mothers--pass on to their daughters about love. Weaving together secrets, memories, and family tales, "The Magic Room "explores the emotional lives of women in the twenty-first century.

Some say the fetus is the "tiniest citizen". If so, then the bodies of women themselves have become political arenas - or, recent cases suggest, battlefields: A cocaine-addicted mother is convicted of drug trafficking through the umbilical cord. Women employees at a battery plant must prove infertility to keep their jobs. A terminally ill woman is forced to undergo a cesarean section. No longer concerned with conception or motherhood, the new politics of fetal rights focuses on fertility and pregnancy itself, on a woman's relationship with the fetus. How exactly, Cynthia Daniels asks, does this affect a woman's rights? Are they different from a man's? And how has the state helped determine the difference? The answers, rigorously pursued throughout this book, give us a detailed look into the state's paradoxical role in gender politics - as both a challenger of injustice and an agent of social control. In benchmark legal cases concerned with forced medical treatment, fetal protectionism in the workplace, and drug and alcohol use and abuse, Daniels shows us state power at work in the struggle between fetal rights and women's rights. These cases raise critical questions about the impact of gender on women's standing as citizens, and about the relationship between state power and gender inequality. Fully appreciating the difficulties of each case, the author probes the subtleties of various positions and their implications for a deeper understanding of how a woman's reproductive capability affects her relationship to state power. In her analysis, the need to defend women's right to self-sovereignty becomes clear, but so does the need to define further the very concepts of self-sovereigntyand privacy. The intensity of the debate over fetal rights suggests the depth of the current gender crisis and the force of the feelings of social dislocation generated by reproductive politics. Breaking through the public mythology that clouds these debates, At Women's Expense makes a hopeful beginning toward liberating woman's body within the body politic.

Despite the extensive debates about new reproductive technologies, there is still little published research on the "social "and "cultural "implications of the new reproductive techniques. Our understanding of how babies are conceived and what it means to be a parent or relative have become more complex.

The authors argue that the neglect of social research into new reproductive technologies has led to a failure to make the necessary provisions for their consequences. The plight of the involuntary childless who, having been helped to conceive, find themselves with three, four or more babies illustrates this point clearly.