标题: 2022.06.21关于堕胎权辩论的最佳书籍 [打印本页] 作者: shiyi18 时间: 2022-7-6 23:24 标题: 2022.06.21关于堕胎权辩论的最佳书籍 Economist Reads | Abortion
The best books to explain America’s debate on abortion rights
Four recommendations from our American social affairs correspondent
TOPSHOT - Anti-abortion activists are seen outside of the US Supreme Court in Washington, DC, on June 15, 2022. - A draft opinion leaked in May would have the conservative majority on the nine-member court overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 landmark decision allowing nationwide access to abortion. (Photo by MANDEL NGAN / AFP) (Photo by MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty Images)
Jun 21st 2022 (Updated Jun 25th 2022)
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This article is part of our Summer reads series. Visit our collection to discover “The Economist reads” guides, guest essays and more seasonal distractions.
Editor’s note: On June 24th a 5-4 majority on the Supreme Court voted to overrule the constitutional right to an abortion, which had been guaranteed since 1973 in Roe v Wade.
After nearly half a century the Supreme Court seems likely to overturn its most famous ruling, Roe v Wade. A right to abortion, previously established at the federal level, could be handed instead to individual states to decide upon. It is likely that in roughly half of the states, largely ones where Republicans dominate, women will lose the right. Comparatively uncontentious at the time it was decided, Roe has had an extraordinarily divisive effect on American politics. Why, when it is a settled matter in most of the rich world, has abortion remained such a controversial issue in America? These four books help to answer that question.
When Abortion was a Crime. By Leslie Reagan. University of California Press; 432 pages; $29.95 and £24
“There would be no history of illegal abortion to tell without the continuing demand for abortion from women, regardless of law.” So Leslie Reagan, a professor of history, law, gender and women’s studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, begins her study of the period when abortion was illegal in America: 1867 to 1973. Yet some of the book’s most fascinating revelations come in her description of the years before, when abortion was extremely common and largely uncontroversial. Women often used herbs for “restoring the menses” before “quickening”, when a fetus’s first kicks are felt. The legal acceptance of this practice, “tacitly assumed that women had a basic right to bodily integrity,” Dr Reagan writes. The anti-abortion campaign that followed, “anti-feminist to its core”, abandoned such thinking. The criminalisation of abortion in the middle of the 20th century was particularly brutal. Yet still women demanded abortion. And so they will if Roe is overturned.
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Defenders of the Unborn. By Daniel Williams. Oxford University Press; 400 pages; $29.95 and £26.49
Anti-abortion activism in America is today strongly associated with the Christian right. It was not always so. In “Defenders of the Unborn”, Daniel Williams argues that it began as a progressive cause. He uses pro-lifers’ own words—in letters, journals, church newsletters—to illustrate some truths now largely forgotten. Democrats were once broadly opposed to abortion while many conservatives supported it. Many early pro-lifers saw the unborn deserving protection alongside the impoverished and weak. Catholic anti-abortionists often argued that the state’s protection of life should stretch from conception to the end of life and include support for poor women and federally funded childcare. Others were concerned that the government would use abortion to control the African-American population. “Abortion is advocated as a way of reducing the number of illegitimate children and reducing the welfare rolls,” the Louisiana Right to Life Association declared in 1972. “Who do you think abortionists have in mind?” In a time of polarisation this is an especially illuminating book.
Abortion and the Law in America: Roe v Wade to the present. By Mary Ziegler. Cambridge University Press; 332 pages; $29.99 and £22.99
America’s abortion war is often described as a clash of rights, between those of pregnant woman and fetus. Yet much of the legal battle has been fought at a lowlier level, focusing on the costs and benefits of abortion and regulations that restrict it. In “Abortion and the Law in America” Mary Ziegler, a legal historian, describes how, after the Supreme Court ruling, anti-abortionists moved quickly and strategically to focus on incremental restrictions designed to hollow out the right the ruling enshrines. In turn, abortion-rights activists emphasised the benefits of abortion, especially for poor women. They have argued for its health benefits, prompting pro-lifers to claim that abortion can be gravely injurious. It seems that every aspect of abortion has been argued over in detail over the past half-century, from surgical techniques to financial costs. The process has helped push the two sides further apart while rewarding vested interests on both, Ms Ziegler argues in her impressively dispassionate style. And the end of Roe will “simply trigger a new round of fighting”.
The Family Roe: An American story. By Joshua Prager. W.W. Norton and Company; 672 pages; $35 and £25
Joshua Prager, a journalist, spent more than a decade reporting on the life of Norma McCorvey, aka Jane Roe, plaintiff in the landmark abortion case. And it shows. Using letters, interviews and Supreme Court documents “The Family Roe” paints an extraordinarily detailed portrait of the woman whose case sparked America’s most famous ruling. Though she became a poster child for the abortion-rights movement Ms McCorvey was a singularly bad one. For one thing, she never had an abortion: her third child was born before Roe got to the Supreme Court. Later, she converted to the pro-life cause and was filmed being baptised on national TV before reneging on all that shortly before her death. Even her defence lawyer regretted choosing Ms McCorvey as a plaintiff. She was an unreliable narrator to boot, and Mr Prager’s book is an attempt to set the record straight after so many accounts of her life had muddled truth and fiction. What relevance does Ms McCorvey’s messy story really have to the abortion issue? At the very least it offers a reminder that there are few easy or simple truths. ■
经济学家》读后感 | 堕胎
解释美国关于堕胎权辩论的最佳书籍
我们的美国社会事务通讯员为您推荐四本书
TOPSHOT - 2022年6月15日，在华盛顿特区的美国最高法院外，看到反堕胎活动人士。- 5月份泄露的一份意见书草案将使这个由9名成员组成的法院中的保守派多数推翻罗伊诉韦德案，即1973年允许全国范围内进行堕胎的里程碑式决定。(Photo by MANDEL NGAN / AFP) (Photo by MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty Images)
2022年6月21日（2022年6月25日更新）。
