Book Selections

"While many claim that being a mom is the most important job in the world, in reality, motherhood in the United States is becoming harder. From pre-conception, through pregnancy and while parenting, women are held to ever-higher standards and finding themselves punished - both socially and criminally - for failing to live up to these norms. This book uncovers how women of all ethnic backgrounds and socio-economic statuses have been interrogated, held against their will, and jailed for a rapidly expanding list of offenses such as falling down the stairs while pregnant or letting a child spend time alone in a park, actions that were not considered criminal a generation ago. While poor mothers and moms of color are targeted the most, all moms are in jeopardy, whether they realize it or not. Women and mothers are disproportionately held accountable compared to men and fathers who do not see their reproduction policed and almost never incur charges for "failure to protect." The gendered inequality of prosecutions reveals them to be more about controlling women than protecting children. Using a reproductive justice lens, Caitlin Killian analyzes how and why mothers are on a precipice and what must change to prevent mass penalization and instead support mothers and their children."--

In this deeply personal account, Dr. Curtis Boyd and Dr. Glenna Halvorson-Boyd reflect on their lives in abortion care, from the childhood experiences that shaped their paths to the Supreme Court decision that forced the closure of their Dallas clinic. Their stories begin in the 1960s, as Curtis opens a clandestine abortion practice while breaking with the beliefs of his Baptist family and Glenna pursues psychology while coming to understand the world of restrictive gender roles. When the two of them meet shortly after abortion is legalized, they bond over a common commitment to women, forming a professional and personal partnership that will weather the coming decades. We Choose To is the story of that partnership, and the staff and patients that have shaped the history of modern abortion. In these pages, Curtis and Glenna share their holistic, morally rooted approach to their work. Led by a desire to empower patients, they advance abortion and mental health care further than ever even as they find themselves at the center of a controversial new issue in American life. Sweeping, introspective, and deeply honest, We Choose To is a rare portrait of abortion providers and the world in which they work, where abortion is not a talking point in a culture war but a private, even spiritual, act. -- Provided by publisher.

"This work explores how and why individual states choose to regulate abortion in different ways"--

"The inspiring, on-the-ground story of the rising grassroots leaders in the abortion rights movement during the pivotal first year after Dobbs. When the Supreme Court decided Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization -- overturning the constitutional right to abortion care -- the country was thrown into chaos. Abortion providers and their patients faced sudden closures, new restrictions, and rapidly changing rules as nearly half of the states moved quickly to ban or severely curtail abortion access. Against this backdrop, an army of health care providers, lawyers, activists, and everyday people mobilized to protect what a majority of Americans want: legal abortion. In You Must Stand Up, Nieman Fellow Amanda Becker provides a real-time portrait of the creative resistance that unfolded in America's first year without the protections of Roe v. Wade. Amidst daily shifts in health care access, new legal battles coming before partisan courts, and up-for-grabs state constitutions, Becker follows the leaders rising to meet these challenges -- doctors and staffers turning to new financial and medical models to remain open and provide abortions, volunteers campaigning against antiabortion ballot initiatives, and medical students fighting to learn to provide what can be lifesaving care. By depicting the splintered reality of post-Dobbs America, and by capturing how Americans have developed new ways to best protect their constitutional rights, Becker ultimately shows how outrage can beget hope, and give rise to a new movement." --

Through the perspectives of patients, providers, activists and lawmakers, the author, as the landscape of abortion rights continues to shift, forcing people to cross state lines to seek life-saving care, presents this timely examination of human rights, healthcare and economic and racial inequality in America.;"On June 24, 2022, Roe v. Wade was overturned, and the impact was immediate: by 2024, abortion was virtually unavailable or significantly restricted in 21 states. In Undue Burden, reporter Shefali Luthra traces the unforgettable stories of patients faced with one of the most personal decisions of their lives... A revelatory portrait of inequality in America, Undue Burden examines abortion not as a footnote or a political pawn, but as a basic human right, something worthy of our collective attention and with immense power to transform our lives, families, and futures"--

Decades before the overturning of Roe v. Wade, pregnant people faced arrest and prosecution for supposed crimes against the fertilized eggs, embryos, and fetuses they gestated. The Pregnancy Police investigates the legal arguments undergirding these prosecutions and sheds much-needed light on the networks of health-care providers, social workers, and legal personnel participating in this ongoing surveillance and punishment of pregnant people. Drawing on detailed analyses of legislation, statements from prosecutors and law enforcement, and records from over a thousand arrest cases, Grace E. Howard traces the long history of state attempts to regulate and control people who have the capacity for pregnancy--from the early twentieth century's white supremacist eugenics to the end of Roe and the ever-increasing criminalization of abortion across the United States.

With expertise across politics and religion, two award-winning New York Times journalists show how the battle over Roe, no matter your view on abortion, symbolizes a miscarriage of the ideals America promised: democracy, morality and freedom, while inadvertently laying out a roadmap for how we might make our way forward in this new America.;From two top New York Times journalists, the breathtaking untold story of the plan to overturn Roe v. Wade and the consequences for women, abortion, and the future of America. In June 2022, Americans watched in shock as the Supreme Court reversed one of the nation's landmark rulings. For nearly a half century, Roe was synonymous with women's rights and freedoms. Then, suddenly, it was gone. In their groundbreaking book The Fall of Roe, Elizabeth Dias and Lisa Lerer reveal the explosive inside story of how it happened. Their investigation charts the shocking political and religious campaign to take down abortion rights and remake American families, womanhood, and the nation itself. Reeling from Barack Obama's 2012 landslide presidential victory -- and motivated by a spiritual mission -- a small but determined network of elite conservative Christian lawyers and powerbrokers worked quietly and methodically to keep their true cause alive: ending abortion rights. Thinking in generational terms, they devised a strategic, top-down takeover at every level of political and legal life, from little-known anti-abortion lobbyists in far flung statehouses to the arbiters of the constitution at the highest court in the land. Broad swaths of liberal America did not register the severity of the threat until it was far too late. At a moment when women had more power than ever before, the feminist movement suffered one of the greatest political defeats in American history.

Hume tells the story of the radical feminist networks who worked outside the law to defend abortion. Starting in the 1970s, small groups of feminist activists met regularly to study anatomy, practice pelvic exams on each other, and learn how to safely perform a procedure known as menstrual extraction, which can empty the contents of the uterus in case of pregnancy using equipment that can be easily bought and assembled at home. This "self-help" movement grew into a robust national and international collaboration of activists and health workers determined to ensure access to reproductive healthcare, including abortion, at all costs--to the point of learning how to do the necessary steps themselves. Even after abortion was legalized in 1973 with Roe v. Wade, activists continued meeting, studying, and teaching these skills, reshaping their strategies alongside decades of changing legal, medical, and cultural landscapes such as the legislative war against abortion rights, the AIDS epidemic, and the rise of anti-abortion domestic terrorism in the 1980s and 90s. The movement's drive to keep abortion accessible led to the first clinic defense mobilizations against anti-abortion extremists trying to force providers to close their doors. From the self-help movement sprang a constellation of licensed feminist healthcare clinics, community programs to promote reproductive health, even the nation's first known-donor sperm bank, all while fighting the oppression of racism, poverty, and gender violence. Hume follows generations of activists and clinicians who orbited the Women's Choice clinic in Oakland from the early 1970s until 2010, as they worked underground and above ground, in small cells and broad coalitions and across political movements with grit, conviction, and allegiances of great trust to do what they believed needed to be done--despite the law, when required. Grounded in interviews of activists sharing details of their work for the first time, Hume retells three decades of this critical, if under-recognized story of the radical edge of the abortion movement. These lessons are more pertinent than ever following the Supreme Court's 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson decision and the devastation to abortion access nationwide. --

"Bringing together a remarkable group of scholars and experts, this volume confronts the beginning and end of the Constitutional right to obtain an abortion in the United States, from the landmark decision in Roe v. Wade to its shocking overturning in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health fifty years later. This is a critical moment in which to reflect on the past, present, and future of abortion regulations and legislation in the U.S"--

"Fighting Mad is a book about what "reproductive justice" means and what it looks like to fight for it. Editors Krystale E. Littlejohn and Rickie Solinger bring together many of the strongest, most resistant voices in the country to describe the impacts of the Supreme Court's Dobbs decision and what it means for abortion access and care. The essayists and change agents in Fighting Mad represent a remarkable breadth of expertise: activists and artists, academics and abortion storytellers, health care professionals and legislators, clinic directors and lawyers, and so many more. They discuss abortion restrictions and strategies to provide care, the impacts of criminalization, efforts to protect the targeted, shortcomings of the past, and visions for the next generation. Fighting Mad captures for the social and historical record the vigorous resistance happening in the early post-Roe moment to show that there are millions on the ground fighting to secure a better future"--

On June 24, 2022, the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, immediately stripping women of their constitutional right to abortion. The devastating effects of this decision can be seen as states begin to criminalize abortion. Abortion is now illegal in 16 states, and anti-abortion lawmakers in other states are rushing to follow suit, threatening to make abortion inaccessible to an estimated 33 million women across the country. The impact of this decision on women’s health was almost immediate.

"Abortion access has been transformed by medication abortion pills. These pills have made safe abortion possible around the world, even in the most restrictive legal contexts. Abortion Beyond Borders follows these pills as they are moved by feminist activists from India into Ireland, Northern Ireland, Poland and the USA. It explores how medication abortion pills and the activists who supply them have changed abortion access, impacted politics, and catalyzed progressive reforms. Abortion Beyond Borders offers an unprecedented, up-close look into the global self-managed abortion movement"--

"The story of the National Organization for Women-its structures, trials, and revolutionary mission-told through the work of three extraordinary, little-known members"--;In the summer of 1966, crammed into a D.C. hotel suite, twenty-eight women devised a revolutionary plan. Betty Friedan, the well-known author of The Feminine Mystique, and Pauli Murray, a lawyer at the front lines of the civil rights movement, had called this renegade meeting from attendees at the annual conference of state women's commissions. Fed up with waiting for government action and trying to work with a broken system, they laid out a vision for an organization to unite all women and fight for their rights. Alternately skeptical and energized, they debated the idea late into the night. In less than twenty-four hours, the National Organization for Women was born. In The Women of NOW, the historian Katherine Turk chronicles the growth and enduring influence of this foundational group through three lesser-known members who became leaders: Aileen Hernandez, a federal official of Jamaican American heritage; Mary Jean Collins, a working-class union organizer and Chicago Catholic; and Patricia Hill Burnett, a Michigan Republican, artist, and former beauty queen. From its bold inception through the tumultuous training ground of the 1970s, NOW's feminism flooded the nation, permanently shifted American culture and politics, and clashed with conservative forces, presaging our fractured national landscape. These women built an organization that was radical in its time but flexible and expansive enough to become a mainstream fixture. This is the story of how they built it--and built it to last.

"Over its half-century of public life, Roe v. Wade took on meanings that extended far beyond its original purpose of protecting the privacy of the doctor-patient relationship. At various times, it forced us to confront hard questions about judicial activism and restraint, the believability of science, racial justice, the suppression of religion, and much more. Mary Ziegler explores the transformations of meaning that have kept abortion on the front lines of our political and social battles"--

The modern Republican Party is the party of conservative Christianity and big business-two things so closely identified with the contemporary GOP that we hardly notice the strangeness of the pairing. Legal historian Mary Ziegler traces how the antiabortion movement helped to forge and later upend this alliance. Beginning with the Supreme Court's landmark decision in Buckley V. Valeo, right-to-lifers fought to gain power in the GOP by changing how campaign spending-and the First Amendment-work. The antiabortion movement helped to revolutionize the rules of money in US politics and convinced conservative voters to fixate on the federal courts. Ultimately, the campaign finance landscape that abortion foes created fueled the GOP's embrace of populism and the rise of Donald Trump. Ziegler offers a surprising new view of the slow drift to extremes in American politics-and explains how it had everything to do with campaign spending.

Controlling reproduction - who has children, how many, and when - is important to states, communities, families, and individuals across the globe. However, the stakes are even higher than might at first be appreciated: control over reproduction is an incredibly powerful tool. Contests over reproduction necessarily involve control over women and their bodies. Yet because reproduction is so intertwined with other social processes and institutions, controlling it also extends far into most corners of social, economic, and political life. Nancy Riley and Nilanjana Chatterjee explore how various social institutions beyond the individual - including state, religion, market, and family - are involved in the negotiation of reproductive power. They draw on examples from across the world, such as direct fertility policies in China and Romania, the influence of the Catholic Church in Poland and Brazil, racial discrimination and resistance in Mexico and the US, and how Japan and Norway use laws intended to encourage gender equality to indirectly shape reproduction. This engaging book sheds new light on the operations of power and gender in society. It will appeal to students taking courses on reproduction in departments of sociology, anthropology, and gender studies. -- Provided by publisher.

"In 1997, this groundbreaking book made a powerful entrance into the national conversation on race. In a media landscape dominated by racially biased images of welfare queens and crack babies, Killing the black body exposed America's systemic abuse of Black women's bodies. From slave masters' economic stake in bonded women's fertility to government programs that coerced thousands of poor Black women into being sterilized as late as the 1970s, these abuses pointed to the devaluation of Black motherhood--and the neglect of Black women's reproductive needs in mainstream feminist and civil rights agendas. Now, some two decades later, Killing the Black body remains as crucial as ever--a rallying cry for education, awareness, and action on extending reproductive justice to all women"--Page 4 of cover.

"A practical introduction to human trafficking for attorneys and students in criminal, corporate, employment, immigration, international, and public interest law"--

"Taking positions both for and against the constitutional right to abortion, the contributors offer novel and illuminating arguments that get to the heart of this fascinating case. In addition, Jack Balkin gives a detailed introduction to Roe v. Wade, chronicling the history of the Roe litigation, the constitutional and political clashes that followed it, and the state of abortion rights in the U.S. today"--

Presents a collection of photos, essays, and creative work inspired by the movement of the same name, a template for building new communities of healing, and a call to action. Since SYA's inception, people all over the country have shared stories and begun organizing in a range of ways: making art, hosting comedy shows, creating abortion-positive clothing, altering billboards, starting conversations that had never happened before. This book documents some of these projects and illuminates the individuals who have breathed life into this movement, illustrating the liberatory and political power of defying shame and claiming sole authorship of our experiences. --From publisher description.

Black mothering is an inherently political act. Black women are more likely to die during pregnancy or childbirth than women of any other race; black mothers must stand before television cameras reminding the world that their slain children were human beings. The author explores how to ensure her daughter lives with dignity and joy, learning how to parent boldly in uncertain times and cope with the anxieties that sometimes threaten to consume her. McClain spoke with mothers on the frontlines of movements for social, political and cultural change who are grappling with the same questions.

Reproducing Race, an ethnography of pregnancy and birth at a large New York City public hospital, explores the role of race in the medical setting. Khiara M. Bridges investigates how race--commonly seen as biological in the medical world--is socially constructed among women dependent on the public healthcare system for prenatal care and childbirth. Bridges argues that race carries powerful material consequences for these women even when it is not explicitly named, showing how they are marginalized by the practices and assumptions of the clinic staff. Deftly weaving ethnographic evidence into broader discussions of Medicaid and racial disparities in infant and maternal mortality, Bridges shines new light on the politics of healthcare for the poor, demonstrating how the "medicalization" of social problems reproduces racial stereotypes and governs the bodies of poor women of color.

The accomplishments of pioneering American doctors such as John Peter Mettauer, James Marion Sims, and Nathan Bozeman are well documented. It is also no secret that these nineteenth-century gynecologists performed experimental cesarean sections, ovariotomies, and obstetric fistula repairs primarily on poor and powerless women. "Medical Bondage" breaks new ground by exploring how and why physicians denied these women their full humanity yet valued them as "medical superbodies" highly suited for medical experimentation. Even as they were advancing, these doctors were legitimizing groundless theories related to whiteness and blackness, men and women, and the inferiority of other races or nationalities. "Medical Bondage" moves between southern plantations and northern urban centers to reveal how nineteenth-century American ideas about race, health, and status influenced doctor-patient relationships in sites of healing like slave cabins, medical colleges, and hospitals. -- From publisher's description.

"This edition strives to give a comprehensive view of the entire subject of abortion-safety, morality, legality, accessibility, human rights and freedoms, reproductive justice, and a host of other issues as it relates to ongoing public policy"--

From a decidedly left-of-center perspective, the author discusses how law and public policy grapple with the differences between genders while simultaneously struggling to maintain a commitment to equal treatment under the law. The book consists of previously published general audience articles that are both provocative and newsworthy.

In January 1973, the Supreme Court's opinion in Roe v. Wade struck down most of the country's abortion laws, and held for the first time that women had a constitutional right to safe and legal abortions. Three decades later, Roe v. Wade remains one of the Supreme Court's most controversial decisions, and political struggles over abortion rights still divide American politics. Roe has emerged as a central issue in federal judicial nominations, becoming a powerful symbol in debates about judicial restraint, judicial activism, and the proper role of courts in a democratic society. In What Roe v. Wade Should Have Said, eleven distinguished constitutional scholars rewrite the opinions in this landmark case in light of thirty years of experience but making use only of sources available at the time of the original decision. Taking positions both for and against the constitutional right to abortion, the contributors offer novel and illuminating arguments that get to the heart of this fascinating case. In addition, Jack Balkin gives a detailed introduction to Roe v. Wade, chronicling the history of the Roe litigation, the constitutional and political clashes that followed it, and the state of abortion rights in the U.S. today. Contributing their versions of Roe are: Anita Allen, Akhil Amar, Jack M. Balkin, Teresa Stanton Collett, Michael Stokes Paulsen, Jeffrey Rosen, Jed Rubenfeld, Reva Siegel, Cass Sunstein, Mark Tushnet, and Robin West.

"At the turn of the twentieth century, American women began to reject Victorian propriety in favor of passion and livelihood outside the home. This alarmed authorities, who feared certain "over-sexed" women could destroy civilization if allowed to reproduce and pass on their defects. Set against this backdrop, THE UNFIT HEIRESS chronicles the fight for inheritance, both genetic and monetary, between Ann Cooper Hewitt and her mother Maryon. In 1934, aided by a California eugenics law, the socialite Maryon Cooper Hewitt had her "promiscuous" daughter declared feebleminded and sterilized without her knowledge. She did this to deprive Ann of millions of dollars from her father's estate, which contained a child-bearing stipulation. When a sensational court case ensued, the American public was captivated. So were eugenicists, who saw an opportunity to restrict reproductive rights in America for decades to come. This riveting story unfolds through the brilliant research of Audrey Clare Farley, who captures the interior lives of these women on the pages and poses questions that remain relevant today: What does it mean to be "unfit" for motherhood? In the battle for reproductive rights, can we forgive the women who side against us? And can we forgive our mothers if they are the ones who inflict the deepest wounds?"--

Using historical research, original organizational case studies, and personal interviews, the authors illuminate how women of color have led the fight to control their own bodies and reproductive destinies.

"Few Supreme Court decisions have stirred up as much controversy, vitriolic debate, and even violence as the one delivered in Roe v. Wade in 1973. Almost five decades later, it remains a touchstone for the culture wars in the United States and a pivot upon which much of our politics turns. N. E. H. Hull and Peter Charles Hoffer have taken stock of the abortion debates, controversies, and cases that have emerged in recent years in order to update their bestselling book on this landmark case. As with the first two editions, the book details the case's historical background; highlights Roe v. Wade's core issues, essential personalities, and key precedents; tracks the case's path through the courts; clarifies the jurisprudence behind the court's ruling in Roe; assesses the impact of the presidential elections of George W. Bush and Barack Obama, along with the confirmations of Chief Justice John Roberts, Justice Samuel Alito, and Justice Sonia Sotomayor; and gauges its impact on American society and subsequent challenges to it in Webster v. Reproductive Services (1989), Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992), and Gonzales v. Carhart (2007). The new edition, however, adds two completely new chapters covering abortion politics and legal battles in Obama's second term and Donald J. Trump's first term. The new material covers two important cases in detail, Whole Woman's Health v. Hellerstedt (2016) and June Medical Services, LLC v. Russo (2020). The cases dealt with state laws-Texas and Louisiana, respectively-designed to limit access to abortion by requiring doctors performing abortions to have admission privileges at a state-authorized hospital within 30 miles of the abortion clinic. In both cases the Court ruled the laws unconstitutional, thus handing the abortion rights activists key victories in the face of an increasingly conservative Court. The new chapters also cover the confirmations of Justices Elena Kagan, Neil Gorsuch, and Brett Kavanaugh, as well as the heated po litical environment surrounding the Court in the age of Trump"--

From the back-alley clinics of illegal abortionists to the behind-the scene deliberations of the Supreme Court justices, Roe v. Wade is a riveting history of the thorniest ethical debate ever brought before the Supreme Court. this is the bull story behind the struggle of two lawyers, Sarah Weddington and Linda Coffee and their unwed, unemployed, pregnant client Norma McCorvey. In this updated edition Faux details recent challengesand erosions to the decision--including parental consent laws and bans on partial-birth abortions--and illuminates how the ruling has impacted public attitudes and policy.