Argues that abortion is a common part of a woman's reproductive life and should not be vilified, but instead accepted as a moral right that can be a force for social good.

Examines the changing legal, medical, and moral issues surrounding abortion before and since Roe v. Wade; considers both anti-abortion and pro-choice points of view.

In the field of social policy, some topics are so complicated that they will always be subject to debate. Since no clear right or wrong exists, they are consigned to the gray areas of ongoing dispute. Among such issues open for debate both across America and in this eye-opening series are capital punishment, genetic engineering, gun control, and global warming. Others involve terrorism and chemical and biological warfare, two outright evils, though with highly disputable solutions. Open for Debate explores the past, present, and future to shed light on complex, high-priority public policy. A lucid, readily accessible format offers the pros and cons of each issue with opinions from social policy experts. It features sidebars of fascinating facts and easy-to-understand diagrams of key statistics. Open for Debate introduces future public policy thinkers to both sides of twenty-first-century, life-and-death concerns.

This twenty-fifth anniversary edition places abortion politics in the context of reproductive justice today and explains why abortion has been—and remains—a political flashpoint in the United States. Before Roe v. Wade, hundreds of thousands of illegal abortions occurred in the United States every year. Rickie Solinger tells the story of Ruth Barnett, an abortionist in Portland, Oregon, from 1918 to 1968, to demonstrate how the law, not back‐alley practitioners, endangered women’s lives in the years before legalized abortion. Women from all walks of life came to Barnett, who worked in a proper office, undisturbed by legal authorities, and never lost a patient. But in the illegal era following World War II, Barnett and other practitioners were hounded by police and became targets for politicians; women seeking abortions were forced to turn to syndicates run by racketeers or to use self‐induced methods that often ended in injury or death. This new edition places abortion politics in the context of reproductive justice today. Despite the change in women’s status since Barnett’s time, key cultural and political meanings of abortion have endured. Opponents of Roe v. Wade continue their efforts to recriminalize abortion and reestablish an inexorable relationship between biology and destiny. The Abortionist is an instructive reminder that legal abortion facilitated women’s status as full members of society. Barnett’s story clarifies the relationship of legal abortion to human dignity and shows why preserving and extending Roe v. Wade ensures women’s freedom to decide for themselves what is best for their health.

Entering the moral worlds of Catholicism, the evangelical Protestantism of the Operation Rescue movement, feminism, and the classical liberalism expressed in modern medicine, Beyond Pro-Life and Pro-Choice brilliantly illuminates the little-understood religious and philosophical aspects of the abortion issue. Rudy reveals how each community's beliefs about abortion are connected to its deeply held values and concerns, and offers an alternative that would obviate the unproductive, divisive, and sometimes violent abortion debate we have today.

Highlights both sides of the controversial abortion debate, with presentation of the ethical, political and legal views espoused by the pro- choice movement and the anti-abortion camp.