The debate over whether or not abortion should be a legal option continues to divide Americans long after the U.S. Supreme Court's 7-2 decision on Roe v. Wade declared the procedure a fundamental right. The essays in this anthology provide contrasting views on the abortion controversy and are sourced from a number of organizations including the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, the Life and Liberty Ministries, the Center for Reproductive Rights, and the Freedom from Religion Foundation. A question-and-response format prompts readers to evaluate complex topics from multiple angles. By evaluating and understanding divergent opinions, students can attain a balanced knowledge of the issues. Important facts, perfect for report writing, are dispersed throughout in boxed insets.

This up-to-date history of Roe v. Wade covers the complete social and legal context of the case that remains the touchstone for America's culture wars.

Abortion is a woman's health concern and a complex moral dilemma everywhere. It is now also one of the most intractable social and political problems of our time. This book provides the first account of the abortion controversy globally. It examines how this issue is being played out beyond the established western liberal democracies and how the Catholic Church and other groups engage it worldwide. The questions addressed in this scholarly and readable work are of paramount significance for the future management of this dispute.

Presents opposing arguments concerning various aspects of abortion.

Abortion has remained one of the most volatile and polarizing issues in the United States for over four decades. Americans are more divided today than ever over abortion, and this debate colors the political, economic, and social dynamics of the country. This book provides a balanced, clear-eyed overview of the abortion debate, including the perspectives of both the pro-life and pro-choice movements. It covers the history of the debate from colonial times to the present, the mobilization of mass movements around the issue, the ways it is understood by ordinary Americans, the impact it has had on US political development, and the differences between the abortion conflict in the US and the rest of the world. Throughout these discussions, Ziad Munson demonstrates how the meaning of abortion has shifted to reflect the changing anxieties and cultural divides which it has come to represent. Abortion Politics is an invaluable companion for exploring the abortion issue and what it has to say about American society, as well as the dramatic changes in public understanding of women’s rights, medicine, religion, and partisanship.

Forty years after the U.S. Supreme Court handed down its decision legalizing abortion, Roe v. Wade continues to make headlines. After Roe: The Lost History of the Abortion Debate cuts through the myths and misunderstandings to present a clear-eyed account of cultural and political responses to the landmark 1973 ruling in the decade that followed. The grassroots activists who shaped the discussion after Roe, Mary Ziegler shows, were far more fluid and diverse than the partisans dominating the debate today. In the early years after the decision, advocates on either side of the abortion battle sought common ground on issues from pregnancy discrimination to fetal research. Drawing on archives and more than 100 interviews with key participants, Ziegler’s revelations complicate the view that abortion rights proponents were insensitive to larger questions of racial and class injustice, and expose as caricature the idea that abortion opponents were inherently antifeminist. But over time, “pro-abortion” and “anti-abortion” positions hardened into “pro-choice” and “pro-life” categories in response to political pressures and compromises. This increasingly contentious back-and-forth produced the interpretation now taken for granted—that Roe was primarily a ruling on a woman’s right to choose. Peering beneath the surface of social-movement struggles in the 1970s, After Roe reveals how actors on the left and the right have today made Roe a symbol for a spectrum of fervently held political beliefs.

"Examines the debate over abortion, discussing both the pro-life and pro-choice sides of the argument, the history and laws on abortion in the United States, and finding a middle ground on the issue"--Provided by publisher.