Pro-Choice Movement

In this highly-praised analysis of the controversial pro-choice movement, Suzanne Staggenborg traces the development of the movement from its origins through the 1980s. She shows how a small group of activists were able to build on the momentum created by other social movements of the 1960s to win their cause--the legalization of abortion in 1973--and argues that professional leadership and formal organizational structures, together with threats from the anti-abortion movement and grass-roots support, enabled the pro-choice movement to remain an active force even after their primary goal had been achieved.

When The Ethics of Abortion first appeared, this powerful collection of essays gained instant recognition as one of the first attempts to present both sides of the abortion debate in the words of leading proponents. Now, after two major Supreme Court cases, intense political wrangling, and heavy media coverage of often violent public demonstrations, the editors have updated and revised this groundbreaking book by adding thirteen new selections and retaining many popular selections from the previous edition. Comprehensive and balanced, this popular volume in Prometheus's "Contemporary Issues" series offers nineteen essays and three excerpts from the high court's opinions in Roe v. Wade, which changed the face of abortion law for all time; Webster v. Reproductive Health Services (1989), which regulated the use of public facilities for abortions; and Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey (1992), which imposed a waiting period and permitted parental notification. This provocative anthology covers such compelling issues as the pre-Roe abortion period in American history, abortion and the Constitution, abortion and feminism, abortion and Christianity, as well as the fundamental moral issues.

Bowers argues that, when correctly interpreted and applied, the Constitution and the theory of liberty on which it is based require government to reject the conventional pro-choice and anti-abortion perspectives as too extreme and incomplete. Instead, this book sets forth a position that government is constitutionally obligated to approach abortion policy from a middle perspective. Relying on a jurisprudence of original theory, Pro-Choice and Anti-Abortion forcefully asserts that government is constitutionally constrained to formulate abortion policy that is at once pro-choice and anti-abortion. In so arguing, this book walks readers through this constitutionally mandated middle position by introducing them to the liberal teachings of John Locke that were so influential to the framers of the Constitution and by applying this political theory to the major issues of the abortion controversy--including the individual liberty interest in the abortion decision, minors and abortions, the liberty interest of the fetal-being, and the Freedom of Choice Act.

Examining key court cases, institutions, dramatic events, and public opinion, O'Connor highlights the dilemma of how a polity attempts to make decisions about issues on which agreement or compromise is unlikely.

Mark Graber looks at the history of abortion law in action to argue that the only defensible, constitutional approach to the issue is to afford all women equal choice -- abortion should remain legal or bans should be strictly enforced. Graber compares the philosophical, constitutional, and democratic merits of the two systems of abortion regulation in the twentieth century: pre-Roe v. Wade statutory prohibitions on abortion and Roe's ban on significant state interference with the market for safe abortion services. He demonstrates that before Roe, pro-life measures were selectively and erratically administered, thereby subverting our constitutional right of equal justice under law. Claiming that these measures would be similarly administered if reinstated, the author seeks to increase support for keeping abortion legal, even among those who have reservations about its morality.

This book traces the roots of the contemporary abortion debate in the tradition of existential philosophy of the Sartrian type by investigating the work of four feminist writers on abortion--each with a specific focus: Simone de Beauvoir, Mary Daly, Carol Gilligan, and Beverly Wildung Harrison.nbsp; No Higher Court attempts to envisage a pro-life feminism that is able to provide a "new world for women without abortion as its linchpin and bedrock."

Presents stories of the Society for Humane Abortion -- otherwise known as the Jane Collective -- and draws political lessons about their program, success, and cooptation that are relevant to the agendas of abortion-rights groups today.

While there is extensive literature on the social history, politics, and legal aspects of birth control and abortion in the United States, the history of family planning as a policy remains to be fully recorded. This volume is intended to contribute to this history by examining birth control and abortion within a larger cultural, policy, and comparative framework. The essays contained in this volume represent a variety of perspectives and scholarly interests. In many instances the authors differ with each other as well as with the editor on fundamental points of historical interpretation. They all, however, share a commitment to study the politics of population within a scholarly framework that emphasizes the importance of policy history for understanding past and contemporary problems.