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Abortion and Catholicism in Britain: Attitudes, Lived Religion and Complexity (Palgrave Studies in Lived Religion and Societal Challenges)
by Sarah-Jane Page Pam LoweThis book details how British Catholic communities view abortion, highlighting the diversity of positions which often contrast with the official line of Catholic Church doctrine. The authors’ extensive qualitative investigation involving various Catholic constituents demonstrates the complex ways attitudes are formed. Based on interviews with priests, Catholic parishioners, anti-abortion activists and Catholics living in close proximity to activism, this book takes a lived religion approach to argue that attitudes and approaches to abortion are nuanced and contextual, with the Catholic concept of individual conscience playing a fundamental role in navigating abortion issues. Ultimately, this investigation helps to explore in much greater depth the increased liberalisation in attitudes among Catholics towards abortion, at a time when Catholic activism opposing abortion is growing, and therefore shines a light on the conflicts that are apparent at the heart of Catholic parishes. Thisbook will be of interest to scholars in Gender and Sexuality Studies, Sociology, Theology and Religious Studies.
Abortion and Contraception in Modern Greece, 1830-1967: Medicine, Sexuality and Popular Culture (Medicine and Biomedical Sciences in Modern History)
by Violetta HionidouThe book examines the history of abortion and contraception in Modern Greece from the time of its creation in the 1830s to 1967, soon after the Pill became available. It situates the history of abortion and contraception within the historiography of the fertility decline and the question of whether the decline was due to adjustment to changing social conditions or innovation of contraceptive methods. The study reveals that all methods had been in use for other purposes before they were employed as contraceptives. For example, Greek women were employing emmenagogues well before fertility was controlled; they did so in order to ‘put themselves right’ and to enhance their fertility. When they needed to control their fertility, they employed abortifacients, some of which were also emmenagogues, while others had been used as expellants in earlier times. Curettage was also employed since the late nineteenth century as a cure for sterility; once couples desired to control their fertility curettage was employed to procure abortion. Thus couples did not need to innovate but rather had to repurpose old methods and materials to new birth control methods. Furthermore, the role of physicians was found to have been central in advising and encouraging the use of birth control for ‘health’ reasons, thus facilitating and speeding fertility decline in Greece. All this occurred against the backdrop of a state and a church that were at times neutral and at other times disapproving of fertility control.
Abortion and Democracy: Contentious Body Politics in Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay
by Barbara SuttonAbortion and Democracy offers critical analyses of abortion politics in Latin America’s Southern Cone, with lessons and insights of wider significance. Drawing on the region’s recent history of military dictatorship and democratic transition, this edited volume explores how abortion rights demands fit with current democratic agendas. With a focus on Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay, the book’s contributors delve into the complex reality of abortion through the examination of the discourses, strategies, successes, and challenges of abortion rights movements. Assembling a multiplicity of voices and experiences, the contributions illuminate key dimensions of abortion rights struggles: health aspects, litigation efforts, legislative debates, party politics, digital strategies, grassroots mobilization, coalition-building, affective and artistic components, and movement-countermovement dynamics. The book takes an approach that is sensitive to social inequalities and to the transnational aspects of abortion rights struggles in each country. It bridges different scales of analysis, from abortion experiences at the micro level of the clinic or the home to the macro sociopolitical and cultural forces that shape individual lives. This is an important intervention suitable for students and scholars of abortion politics, democracy in Latin America, gender and sexuality, and women’s rights.
Abortion and Ireland: How the 8th Was Overthrown
by David RalphThis book asks the crucial question of how it came to pass that on the 25 May 2018, the Irish electorate voted by a landslide in favour of changing its abortion legislation that, for the previous thirty-five years, had been one of the most restrictive regimes in Europe. The author shows how, alongside traditional campaigning tactics such as street demonstrations, door-to-door canvassing, and the distribution of pro-choice merchandise and information leaflets, a key strategy of pro-choice advocacy groups was to encourage first-person abortion story-sharing by women in their efforts to repeal the Eighth Amendment, which had effectively banned abortion provision in the country. The book argues that a normalizing of abortion talk took place in the lead-up to the referendum, with women speaking publicly in unprecedented numbers about their abortion histories. These women storytellers were mirroring certain pro-choice movements in other contexts, where a new ‘sound it loud, say it proud’ narrative around abortion experiences has emerged as a central contemporary strategy for destigmatizing abortion discourse.Students and scholars across a range of disciplines, including law, gender studies, sociology, and human geography, will find this book of interest.
Abortion and Mothering: Research, Stories, and Artistic Expressions
by Heather Jackson;Jessica ShawAbortion and Mothering: Research, Stories, and Artistic Expressions is a collection of academic research, personal narratives, and art that comments on different perspectives on abortion and mothering. Scholarly research is balanced with voices and experiences from outside of academia, through the inclusion of personal narratives, poetry, and art. The collection is rooted in the idea that there are not 'women who have abortions' and 'women who have babies,' but that they are the same women at different points in their lives. By considering the intersection of abortion and mothering, and the liminal spaces in between, the reader is challenged to explore some of the culturally and socially constructed complexities that surround the decisions that people make about to their reproductive lives.
Abortion and Reproductive Rights in Slovenia: A Case of Resistance
by Ana Kralj Tanja Rener Vesna Leskošek Metka Mencin Mirjana Ule Slavko KurdijaAbortion and Reproductive Rights in Slovenia: A Case of Resistance provides a detailed and in-depth analysis of the situation of sexual and reproductive rights in Slovenia. This important intervention comes at a time when sexual and reproductive rights in Slovenia and around the world are assailed by populist and neoconservative discourses. The authors provide a detailed account of the history of the struggle for reproductive rights, particularly the struggles for access to safe abortion, insights based on interviews with fellow activists and an analysis of Slovenian public opinion on abortion in a temporal and comparative perspective. The scholar-activist authors put the issue of sexual and reproductive rights at the forefront of the social, political and scientific agenda in the name of collectivity and solidarity, reinforcing the potential apparent within civil society and social movements. This work will be of interest to researchers and activists with an interest in gender and reproductive rights in contemporary Europe.
Abortion and Social Responsibility: Depolarizing the Debate
by Laurie ShrageShrage argues that Roe v Wade's regulatory scheme of a six-month time span for abortion on demand polarized the public and obscured alternatives with potentially broader support. She explores the origins of that scheme, then defends an alternate one--with a time span shorter than 6 months for non-therapeutic abortions--that could win broad support needed to make legal abortion services available to all women.
Abortion and the Politics of Motherhood
by Kristin LukerKristin Luker examines the issues, people, and beliefs on both sides of the abortion conflict and draws data from twenty years of public documents and newspaper accounts, as well as over two hundred interviews with both pro-life and pro-choice activists.
Abortion and the Private Practice of Medicine
by Jonathan B. ImberOriginally published in 1986, Abortion and the Private Practice of Medicine was the first book to look at abortion from the perspective of physicians in private practice. Jonathan B. Imber spent two years observing and interviewing all twenty-six of the obstetrician-gynecologists in “Daleton,” a city that did not have an abortion clinic. The decision as to whether, when, and how to perform abortions was therefore essentially up to the individual doctor. Imber begins the volume with a historical survey of medical views on abortion and the medical profession’s response to the legalization of abortion in the United States. Quoting extensively from his interviews, he looks at various characteristics of doctors that may affect their professional opinion on abortion: their age, gender, religious background, and length of residence in the community; the nature of their training and prior experience; and the setting of the practice (whether group or solo). Imber found that the physicians’ reasons for agreeing or refusing to perform abortions revealed considerable differences of opinion about how they construe their responsibilities.
Abortion and Woman's Choice: The State, Sexuality and Reproductive Freedom
by Rosalind Pollack Petchesky&“The best book I have read on the politics of reproduction. It raises complex theoretical and strategic questions, in a clear and accessible way, and represents an important breakthrough in feminist thinking.&”– Leslie Doyal, author of What Makes Women SickThis prize-winning study is the definitive work on the politics of abortion and fertility. Rosalind Pollack Petchesky provides overwhelming evidence against the anti-abortion forces and in the process takes up issues of teenage sexuality, the politics of eugenics, and women&’s relationship to medical technology. The book&’s continuing relevance is a tribute to the author and a sad indictment of contemporary politics.
Abortion Beyond the Law: Building a Global Feminist Movement for Self-Managed Abortion
by Naomi BraineHow feminists across Latin America, Africa, and Europe are making self-managed abortion available to all–and the strong transnational feminist movement they have built along the wayThe feminists across Latin America, Africa, and Europe making self-managed abortion available to all - and the transnational movement they have built along the wayDrawing on years of research with activists around the world, sociologist Naomi Braine describes the strategies, politics, and tactics of direct action feminists bringing abortion pills, information, and support to people seeking to end unwanted pregnancies. From combatting the legal strictures of Bolsonaro's Brazil, to navigating the NGO-dominated landscape of Kenya and Nigeria, feminist activists are making safe, accessible abortion care available against the odds.Even more important, these women are building a robust transnational feminist network. Tactics developed in the Global South - hotlines, practices of accompaniment and peer-to-peer care, and scientific information - are now being shared with activists in Europe and North America, building a new model for international feminist solidarity.
Abortion Care as Moral Work: Ethical Considerations of Maternal and Fetal Bodies (Critical Issues in Health and Medicine)
by Curtis Boyd Glenna Boyd Renee Chelian Thomas Cunningham Sarah Dubow Marc Heller Amy Hagstrom Miller Colin Partridge Shelley Sella Shannon WithycombeAbortion Care as Moral Work brings together the voices of abortion providers, abortion counselors, clinic owners, neonatologists, bioethicists, and historians to discuss how and why providing abortion care is moral work. The collection offers voices not usually heard as clinicians talk about their work and their thoughts about life and death. In four subsections--Providers, Clinics, Conscience, and The Fetus--the contributions in this anthology explore the historical context and present-day challenges to the delivery of abortion care. Contributing authors address the motivations that lead abortion providers to offer abortion care, discuss the ways in which anti-abortion regulations have made it increasingly difficult to offer feminist-inspired services, and ponder the status of the fetus and the ethical frameworks supporting abortion care and fetal research. Together these essays provide a feminist moral foundation to reassert that abortion care is moral work.
Abortion Care is Health Care
by Barbara BairdIn Abortion Care is Health Care Barbara Baird tells the history of the provision of abortion care in Australia since 1990. Against the backdrop of a reticent public sector Baird describes a system of predominantly private provision, which has excluded women already marginalised by poverty, rural and remote residency, lack of Medicare entitlement, racism and other factors. Tracing changes in the private sector, the long struggle to make medical abortion available and the nationwide decriminalisation of abortion since 2002, Baird introduces readers to the large cast of 'champions' and everyday healthcare workers and activists who have persisted in their commitment to make abortion care available when governments and the medical profession have so often failed. Drawing on oral history interviews conducted nationwide with abortion-providing doctors, nurses, counsellors and managers, women's health workers, academics and community activists, Baird brings a critical feminist analysis to create a sophisticated historical narrative of abortion provision over the last thirty years.
The Abortion Debate in the United States and Canada: A Source Book
by Maureen MuldoonFirst published in 1991. Over the last twenty-five years or so, the debate on abortion has not moved any closer to resolution in either the United States or Canada. The courts, the legislatures, the pulpits, the classrooms, the hospitals and clinics and the media have provided the forums for this on-going struggle. Two groups of activists have dominated the debate. The opponents of abortion, who are referred to as anti-abortion or pro-life, advocate restrictive policies on abortion while the pro-choice groups direct their attempts to creating a permissive policy that allows a woman to make her own decision. The anti-abortion advocates and the pro-choice advocates alike have learned the skills and developed the strategies to advance their own positions. Whatever legal and public policy gains are made by one side are often countered by moves from their opponents. There is available a vast amount of material related to the topic of abortion. From the extensive and diverse literature, this book draws a collection of relevant materials primarily representing aspects of the sociological, philosophical, religious and legal aspects of the abortion issue. Its purpose is to serve as a source bode for those interested in seeing how the abortion debate has been conducted within the recent past. The book also serves as a reference work for further study.
The Abortion Dilemma: Personal Views on a Public Dilemma
by Miriam ClaireUsing interviews, Miriam Claire writes about how people make choices about abortion.
Abortion Freedom: A Worldwide Movement (Routledge Revivals)
by Colin FrancomeFirst published in 1984, Abortion Freedom explains the main reasons for widespread international liberalisation of abortion laws. Colin Francome points out that the birth control movement had its roots in a concern with overpopulation and that this is still a crucial issue today. A major change, however, is that whereas in the early days the socialists were often opposed to birth control they are now amongst the keenest supporters of the woman’s right to choose. The author pays particular attention to the debates in the United States, France and Italy. It is aimed primarily at students of politics, sociology and law but it has a much wider appeal to the general public as a readable explanation of the ideas and strategies of the opposing forces involved.
Abortion In Asia
by Andrea WhittakerThe issue of abortion forces a confrontation with the effects of poverty and economic inequalities, local moral worlds, and the cultural and social perceptions of the female body, gender, and reproduction. Based on extensive original field research, this provocative collection presents case studies from Thailand, Cambodia, Burma, Vietnam, Bangladesh, Indonesia, and India. It includes powerful insight into the conditions and hard choices faced by women and the circumstances surrounding unplanned pregnancies. It explores the connections among poverty, violence, barriers to access, and the politics and strategies involved in abortion law reform. The contributors analyze these issues within the broader conflicts surrounding women's status, gender roles, religion, nationalism and modernity, as well as the global politics of reproductive health.
Abortion in Early Modern Italy (I Tatti studies in Italian Renaissance history)
by John ChristopoulosA comprehensive history of abortion in Renaissance Italy.In this authoritative history, John Christopoulos provides a provocative and far-reaching account of abortion in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Italy. Drawing on portraits of women who terminated—or were forced to terminate—pregnancies, he finds that Italians maintained a fundamental ambivalence about abortion, despite injunctions from civil and religious authorities. Italians from all levels of society sought, had, and participated in abortions. Early modern Italy was not an absolute anti-abortion culture, an exemplary Catholic society centered on the “traditional family.” Rather, Christopoulos shows, Italians held many views on abortion, and their responses to its practice varied.Bringing together medical, religious, and legal perspectives alongside a social and cultural history of sexuality, reproduction, and the family, Christopoulos offers a nuanced and convincing account of the meanings Italians ascribed to abortion and shows how prevailing ideas about the practice were spread, modified, and challenged. Christopoulos begins by introducing readers to prevailing medical ideas about abortion and women’s bodies, describing the widely available purgative medicines and surgeries that various healers and women themselves employed to terminate pregnancies. He also explores how these ideas and practices ran up against and shaped theology, medicine, and law. Catholic understanding of abortion was changing amid religious, legal, and scientific debates concerning the nature of human life, women’s bodies, and sexual politics. Christopoulos examines how ecclesiastical, secular, and medical authorities sought to regulate abortion, and how tribunals investigated and punished its procurers—or didn’t, even when they could have.
Abortion in England 1900-1967 (Routledge Library Editions: Women's History)
by Barbara BrookesOver the decades from 1900 to 1967 abortion was transformed from an important female-centred form of fertility control into a medical event, closely monitored by the State. This transition, the author argues here, took place against a background of debate over fertility control and its implications for women’s maternal role. The book, originally published in 1988, suggests that the inter-war years saw a crucial mapping of boundaries in the debates over abortion. The distinction between methods of fertility control used before and after conception was more sharply drawn. The abortion law was difficult to enforce and in 1936 the Abortion Law Reform Association was founded by feminists to call for safe legal abortion as a woman’s right. Resort to criminal abortion continued in the post-war years and the number of therapeutic abortions also began to increase. The medical profession’s attempt to create a distinction between worthy medical and spurious social reasons for fertility control gave way in the face of women’s demands for safe and effective means to plan when and if they would have children. After a hard-fought battle, the abortion law was reformed in 1967. The abortion decision, however, remained firmly in the hands of the medical profession.
Abortion in India: Ground Realities
by Leela VisariaIndia was a pioneer in legalizing induced abortion, or Medical Termination of Pregnancy (MTP) in 1971. Yet, after three decades, morbidity and mortality due to unsafe abortion remain a serious problem. There is little public debate on the issue despite several national campaigns on safe motherhood. Instead, discussion on abortion has mainly centred around declining sex ratio, sex-selective abortion, and the proliferation of abortion clinics in urban areas. Adding to the problem is that abortion continues to be a sensitive, private matter, often with ethical/moral/religious connotations that sets it apart from other reproductive health-seeking behaviour.This book fills a gap in our understanding of the ground realities with respect to induced abortion in India to create an evidence-based body of knowledge. Using both quantitative and qualitative research methods, the case studies show why and under what circumstances women seek abortion and the quality of services available to them. They also explore inter-generational differences in attitudes and practices, the perceptions and selection of providers, female-selective abortion, and informal abortion practitioners. Among other issues, the contributors show that strong preference for sons, availability of modern techniques for diagnostic tests, widespread acceptance of the small family norm, and heavy reliance on female sterilisation as the primary method of contraception lead women to abort unwanted pregnancies.A book that goes beyond the smokescreen of data and regulations to unravel the human story behind elective abortion, it will be of interest to those studying health, public policy, and gender, apart from the general reader.
Abortion in Mexico: A History (Engendering Latin America)
by Nora E. JaffaryAbortion in Mexico: A History concisely examines the long history of abortion from the early postcontact period through the present day in Mexico by studying the law, criminal and ecclesiastical trials, medical texts, newspapers, and other popular publications. Nora E. Jaffary draws on courts&’ and medical practitioners&’ handling of birth termination to advance two central arguments. First, Jaffary contends, the social, legal, and judicial condemnation of abortion should be understood more as an aberration than the norm in Mexico, as legal conditions and long periods of Mexican history indicate that the law, courts, the medical profession, and everyday Mexicans tolerated the practice. Second, the historical framework of abortion differed greatly from its present representation. The language of fetal personhood and the notion of the inherent value of human life were not central elements of the conceptualization of abortion until the late twentieth century. Until then, the regulation of abortion derived exclusively out of concerns for pregnant people themselves, specifically about their embodiment of sexual honor. In Abortion in Mexico Jaffary presents the first longue durée examination of this history from a variety of locations in Mexico, providing a concise yet comprehensive overview of the practice of abortion and informing readers of just how much the debate has evolved.
Abortion in Post-revolutionary Tunisia: Politics, Medicine and Morality (Fertility, Reproduction and Sexuality: Social and Cultural Perspectives #46)
by Irene MaffiAfter the revolution of 2011, the electoral victory of the Islamist party ‘Ennahdha’ allowed previously silenced religious and conservative ideas about women’s right to abortion to be expressed. This also allowed healthcare providers in the public sector to refuse abortion and contraceptive care. This book explores the changes and continuity in the local discourses and practices related to the body, sexuality, reproduction and gender relationships. It also investigates how the bureaucratic apparatus of government healthcare facilities affects the complex moral world of clinicians and patients.
Abortion in the Age of Unreason: A Doctor's Account of Caring for Women Before and After Roe v. Wade
by Warren M. HernThis vivid account by a nationally prominent doctor reports the daily challenges of offering and receiving abortion services in a volatile political and social atmosphere. In stories from the front lines – from protecting patients and staff from protesters’ attacks to the dangers to women of restricted access to abortion services, and the pertinent findings of his remote research in Latin America, Hern’s book is strikingly detailed just as it exposes the needs of women and the U. S. national interest. Dr. Hern – an abortion specialist, researcher, scholar, and highly visible public advocate –shows how abortion saves women’s lives given the many risks that arise during pregnancy – remarkably more than most people realize. He points to political and national solutions to reverse a reawakened crisis that now threatens democracy. Throughout the book, Dr. Hern shows how the current emergency was largely created by political actors who have exploited and distorted the abortion issue to increase and consolidate their power.A vital component of women’s health care, the crisis over abortion is not new. Yet the reversal of Roe v. Wade and the steady accumulation of power by America’s right wing has put the issue at a level of urgency and national prominence not seen since the days before legalization. Women’s need for safe abortion services will continue as the struggle to secure their rights intensifies. This book is about that struggle during what has evolved, over the last 50 years, to an Age of Unreason.
Abortion & Life
by Jennifer BaumgardnerBaumgardner's groundbreaking new book includes testimonials by Ani DiFranco, Barbara Ehrenreich, Gloria Steinem, and others. In Abortion & Life, author and activist Jennifer Baumgardner reveals how the most controversial and stigmatized Supreme Court decision of our time cuts across eras, classes, and race. Stunning portraits by photographer Tara Todras-Whitehill of folk singer Ani DiFranco, authors Barbara Ehrenreich and Gloria Steinem, and others accompany their elucidating accounts of their own abortion experiences. In this bold new work, Baumgardner explores some of the thorniest issues around terminating a pregnancy, including the ones that the pro-choice establishment has been the least sensitive or effective in confronting.
The Abortion Myth
by Leslie Cannoldforges a new women-centered abortion ethic capable of preserving a woman's right to control her body and her freedom to choose/reject motherhood