Product Description

'The history of how abortion came to be banned and how women lost--for the century between approximately 1870 and 1970--rights previously thought to be natural and inherent over their own bodies is a fascinating and infuriating one.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #218440 in Books
• Published on: 1979-09-20
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 352 pages

Review

"A fascinating book which sets to rest a number of preconceptions on the subject. Easy to read and yet hard-hitting."--Marlette Rebhorn, ustin Community College
"Should be an eye-opener to those who think that religious objections were at the root of anti-abortion legislation and equally to those who think that abortion has been a matter of life and death."--Carl N. Degler, Stanford University
"A superb example of the way history can inform a current contentious controversy."--Journal of American History
"Mohr makes it abundantly clear that Supreme Court decisions of the 1970s were not a modern weakening of moral standards but a return to what Americans believed and practiced a hundred years ago."--The Christian Century
"An altogether lucid review of American abortion policy in the 19th century."--Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, The New York Times

About the Author
James C. Mohr is at University of Oregon.

Customer Reviews

Excellent analysis of the evolution of abortion policy.
James Mohr's "Abortion in America" is a breath of fresh air in the abortion debate. Scholarly, unbiased, and betraying no hint whatsoever of any kind of agenda -- pro or con -- regarding abortion policy, the book is nevertheless revelatory concerning the development of abortion law in this country. From the colonial and early republican period, when abortion was perfectly legal (partly because doctors, hampered by inadequate medical knowledge, -- the difference between a pregnancy and some kind of uterine "stoppage" was unclear -- frequently administered medications that caused abortions) to the 1890s, when virtually every state had a system of laws prohibiting abortions, the story is capably told. And the truth ought to startle anyone who thinks religious activism was in any way responsible for the late 19th-century wave of anti-abortion legislation. I'll leave it to prospective readers to discover who or what was actually responsible, and how self-interest (as opposed to an interest in the unborn) played a crucial role. An eye-opener, and an important read for people for either side of the debate.

Required Reading for Those Interested in the Issue
Mohr's groundbreaking work is a history of abortion in the United States from the colonial days until the present (as of the late 1970s). What is fascinating about this book is how the medical establishment railed against the increased use of abortion in the 1800s but became among its foremost advocates a century later. Mohr also shows the reader how legalizing abortion in recent years was not a result of lax morals but rather was a return to the past.

This is a brief book, but it is one of the very finest books on this controversial issue.