Pro--Reclaiming Abortion Rights

Starred review from September 8, 2014
Even though abortion “is found in virtually every society going back at least 4,000 years,” it continues to be a divisive, controversial issue in the United States. Pollitt (Virginity or Death!), a columnist at the Nation, regards abortion as a fact of life and makes an impassioned, persuasive case for understanding it in its proper context—“the lives and bodies of women” and their families. With wit and logic, Pollitt debunks the many myths surrounding abortion, and analyzes what abortion opponents really oppose: namely, women’s growing sexual freedom and power. She similarly addresses the notion of the “personhood” of the zygote/embryo/fetus and shows how, in spite of its small numbers (“only 7 to 20% of Americans tell pollsters they want to ban abortion”), the anti-abortion movement succeeds by focusing the debate on “life.” As Pollitt explains, objections to abortion have only surfaced within the past 140 years, and she illuminates the “anti-feminist, anti-modern view of relations between the sexes” at the core of today’s opposition, showing how its connection to patriarchal religious institutions provides much of its political power and funding. Finally, Pollitt brings readers up to date on the positive changes she sees in the current pro-choice movement—the growth in the number of women sharing their abortion stories, and in the support for reproductive justice for targeted groups—and offers suggestions of her own. With arguments that are both lucid and sensible, Pollitt successfully reframes the abortion debate to show that, “in the end, abortion is an issue of fundamental human rights.” Agent: Melanie Jackson, Melanie Jackson Agency.

August 15, 2014
A pro-choice proponent delivers a dramatic, persuasive argument for abortion.Feminist poet and award-winning Nation essayist Pollitt (The Mind-Body Problem: Poems, 2009, etc.) succinctly delivers a personalized perspective on an issue that has always been a magnet for controversy. The author believes it is time for an expansive and fair-minded discussion in order to "put abortion back into its context, which is the lives and bodies of women, but also the lives of men, and families, and the children those women already have or will have." Bolstered by dramatic statistics ("excluding miscarriages, 21 percent of pregnancies end in abortion"), personal interviews and historical references reaching as far back as ancient Greece and Egypt, Pollitt impressively makes her case while admitting that abortion clinics have become increasingly inaccessible and certain "pronatalist pundits" are holding women's intimately private pregnancy decisions up for public scrutiny. The opposition has definitely made itself known, she asserts, and their movement has gained momentum in recent years. Abortion opponents have reframed their positions, swiveling away from the sexual morality core points to issues of bodily protection concerning a woman's unborn "zygote/embryo/fetus" and to accusations of "murder." Pollitt believes the anti-abortion movement has become both physically assaultive and gender-restrictive, stifling the authority women have gained across decades. Aside from discussing the American consensus on abortion rights and dispelling its associated myths, the author structures her arguments around absolutists who base their viewpoints on theocratic religious beliefs, political affiliations, flawed medical information or a general resistance to the progress of women's liberation movements. She considers abortion an "urgent practical decision that is just as moral as the decision to have a child" and issues a passionate plea for the kind of deep social change necessary to destigmatize it.Pollitt's cogent opinion presents potent testimony on a woman's right to choose.

COPYRIGHT(2014) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Starred review from September 1, 2014
In this powerful pro-choice treatise, Pollitt (The Mind-Body Problem, 2009), the well-known feminist, poet, and award-winning columnist for the Nation, expertly lays out why she supports a woman's right to decide whether to end a pregnancy. To argue her case that it's good for everyone if women only have the children they want and can raise well, she employs the personal (her own mom had an abortion); the political ( The anti-abortion movement is a crucial chunk of the base of the Republican Party ); the practical (deaths decrease when termination is legal); the surprising (most women who have abortions are already mothers); and the statistical (half of all pregnancies in the U.S. are accidental; by menopause, 3 in 10 U.S. women will have terminated at least one pregnancy). Pollitt urges Americans to discuss why so many pregnancies are unplanned and why it's such a big deal to ask men to wear a condom. She also states, We need to talk about . . . the extraordinary, contradictory demands we make upon young girls to be simultaneously sexually alluring and withholding. She notes that about half of all fertilized eggs naturally wash out of women's bodies during menstruation. Finally, Pollitt writes that abortions will continue because life will always be complicated, there is no perfect contraception, and there are no perfect people, either. (Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)

September 15, 2014

Opponents of abortion have not succeeded in reversing the key Supreme Court decision, Roe v. Wade (1973), which prohibited states from making abortion illegal. Instead, a small group of activists have called abortion shameful, persuading state legislatures to pass hundreds of restrictions short of criminalization. The author, a well-known columnist for the Nation, here asserts that abortion constitutes a positive good and that the law should serve the well-being of women rather of embryos. She addresses her argument to the "muddled middle," whose views about abortion are, according to her research, inconsistent. Pollitt offers background, medical information, and evidence of hypocrisy by abortion opponents who don't help poor women support their children, who don't organize women to "adopt" fetuses by implantation into their own wombs, and who don't require men to make their blood or bone marrow available to their living children. For Pollitt, respecting women requires access to health care, adequate income, shared child rearing, and flexible work arrangements. She sees hope in the appearance of young leaders who are willing to push for reproductive justice. VERDICT Although the "muddled middle" may not welcome the ascription, pro-choice advocates will find Pollitt's summation helpful in recruitment. [See Prepub Alert, 4/14/14.]--Cynthia Harrison, George Washington Univ., Washington, DC

Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

May 1, 2014

Here's a book that will surely kick up heated commentary. Nation columnist Pollitt, winner of a National Book Critics Circle Award for her poetry and two National Magazine awards for her essays and criticism, reclaims women's abortion rights, arguing that abortion must be seen as a common aspect of a woman's reproductive life--one in three American women terminate a pregnancy before menopause--and that in today's complex world it can be a source for social good

Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.