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In recent years, public debate has raged over the issue of maternal choice. While personal testimony and political argument have received widespread attention, artistic representations of birth and abortion have been submerged. Judith Wilt offers the first look at how contemporary writers tell and retell the stories that shape our perceptions about abortion. She reveals that the struggle to plot these painful, complex narratives of choice, control, guilt, loss, and liberation has preoccupied an...

The first half of the twentieth century witnessed a revolution in contraceptive behaviour as the large Victorian family disappeared. This book offers a new perspective on the gender relations, sexual attitudes, and contraceptive practices that accompanied the emergence of the smaller family in modern Britain. Kate Fisher draws on a range of first-hand evidence, including over 190 oral history interviews, in which individuals born between 1900 and 1930 described their marriages and sexual relat...

Original and compelling, Laura Briggs' "Reproducing Empire" shows how, for both Puerto Ricans and North Americans, ideologies of sexuality, reproduction, and gender have shaped relations between the island and the mainland. From science to public policy, the 'culture of poverty' to overpopulation, feminism to Puerto Rican nationalism, this book uncovers the persistence of concerns about motherhood, prostitution, and family in shaping the beliefs and practices of virtually every player in the twe...

It is estimated that 43% of women in childbearing years have experienced an abortion. The issue for many of these women goes beyond politics, banner waving, and shouting matches. It is a personal decision that was made that often leaves the woman with emotions she never expected. In "A Surrendered Life," Pat Layton shares her personal story, along with those of others, to guide women who have had abortions--and those who love these women--toward their own faith-based healing journeys. "A Surrend...

A powerfully empathetic and impeccably researched look at abortion clinic escorting, which Rebecca Traister (New York Times bestselling author of Good and Mad) calls “one of the most under-covered and crucial, lifesaving, rigorous forms of activism out there." Incisive, eye-opening, and uplifting, Bodies on the Line makes a clear case for the right to an abortion as a fundamental part of human dignity and the stakes facing us all if it ends. Abortion has been legal for nearly fifty years in the...

Reproductive politics is a term coined by feminists in the 1970s to describe contemporary, Roe v. Wade-era power struggles over contraception and abortion, adoption and surrogacy, and other satellite issues. Forty years later, questions of reproductive rights are just as complex-and controversial-as they were then. Focusing mainly on the United States, Reproductive Politics explores the legal, political, religious, social, ethical, and medical dimensions of this hotly contested arena. Tracing...

The Ethics of Pregnancy, Abortion and Childbirth addresses the unique moral questions raised by pregnancy and its intimate bodily nature. From assisted reproduction to abortion and ‘vital conflict’ resolution to more everyday concerns of the pregnant woman, this book argues for pregnancy as a close human relationship with the woman as guardian or custodian. Four approaches to pregnancy are explored: ‘uni-personal’, ‘neighborly’, ‘maternal’ and ‘spousal’. The author challenges not only the view t...