EBOOK
About
A POWERFUL ARGUMENT FOR ABORTION AS A MORAL RIGHT AND SOCIAL GOOD BY A NOTED FEMINIST AND LONGTIME COLUMNIST FOR THE NATION
Forty-years after the landmark Roe v. Wade ruling, "abortion" is still a word that is said with outright hostility by many, despite the fact that one in three American women will have terminated at least one pregnancy by menopause. Even those who support a woman's right to an abortion often qualify their support by saying abortion is a "bad thing," an "agonizing decision," making the medical procedure so remote and radioactive that it takes it out of the world of the everyday, turning an act that is normal and necessary into something shameful and secretive. Meanwhile, with each passing day, the rights upheld by the Supreme Court are being systematically eroded by state laws designed to end abortion outright.
In this urgent, controversial book, Katha Pollitt reframes abortion as a common part of a woman's reproductive life, one that should be accepted as a moral right with positive social implications. In Pro, Pollitt takes on the personhood argument, reaffirms the priority of a woman's life and health, and discusses why terminating a pregnancy can be a force for good for women, families, and society. It is time, Pollitt argues, that we reclaim the lives and the rights of women and mothers.
Forty-years after the landmark Roe v. Wade ruling, "abortion" is still a word that is said with outright hostility by many, despite the fact that one in three American women will have terminated at least one pregnancy by menopause. Even those who support a woman's right to an abortion often qualify their support by saying abortion is a "bad thing," an "agonizing decision," making the medical procedure so remote and radioactive that it takes it out of the world of the everyday, turning an act that is normal and necessary into something shameful and secretive. Meanwhile, with each passing day, the rights upheld by the Supreme Court are being systematically eroded by state laws designed to end abortion outright.
In this urgent, controversial book, Katha Pollitt reframes abortion as a common part of a woman's reproductive life, one that should be accepted as a moral right with positive social implications. In Pro, Pollitt takes on the personhood argument, reaffirms the priority of a woman's life and health, and discusses why terminating a pregnancy can be a force for good for women, families, and society. It is time, Pollitt argues, that we reclaim the lives and the rights of women and mothers.
Related Subjects
Reviews
"Katha Pollitt's brilliant new book, Pro: Reclaiming Abortion Rights, arrives like an urgent letter as rights are fast eroding….With Pollitt's characteristic wit and logic, Pro marshals science, history, medicine, religion, statistics and stories of real women's lives--with all the 'tangled secret misfortunes' of families--to make a myth-busting argument that abortion is a social good. It's good for women. It's good for children. It's good for men. It's a normal fact of life and has been since ancient times. All of which might sound shocking, so rarely do we hear about abortion's benefits."
Kate Manning, Time
"Enraging...Pollitt's exploration of the hypocrisy of abortion opponents...is so witheringly encyclopedic it will be an eye opener for those who have never darkened the door of a women's studies classroom....Pro may succeed best at galvanizing complacent pro-choicers....Motherhood is hard enough if you go into it willingly. And Pollitt is correct to insist that the right to an abortion is merely society's down payment on all the rights we are yet due."
The New York Times Book Review
"[An] important, revelatory new book... Pollitt does an excellent job of unpacking [the statistics] and showing the contradictions in our views, as well as the limits to what surveys can tell us about the decisions Americans make for themselves."
Laurie Abraham, Elle