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40 J. Legal Med. 425 (2020)
Abortion and the Law in America: Roe v. Wade to the Present

handle is hein.journals/jlm40 and id is 446 raw text is: 


JOURNAL OF LEGAL MEDICINE
2020, VOL. 40, NOS. 3-4, 425-426                                     Tay    r
https://doi.org/10.1080/01947648.2020.1856569                         Taylor&Francis Group

BOOK   REVIEW

Abortion   and  the  Law  in America:   Roe   v. Wade   to  the Present,  Mary  Ziegler
(Cambridge   University Press, 2020, pp. 326), ISBN-13: 9781108735599,   paperback


Reviewed   by Eric J. Segall, J.D.*

Professor Mary   Ziegler is the author  of three books  on  abortion. Her  latest book,
Abortion  and the Law  in America: Roe v. Wade   to the Present, like the first two, makes
major  contributions  to the  unfortunately  divisive debates about  women's   right to
control their reproductive choices and  the concerns  of millions of Americans  for the
fetuses killed when  women   exercise those rights. Readers  will not uncover  Ziegler's
personal  views on  abortion when   reading this book, which  is just one of  the many
strengths of this wonderful new  treatment of a very old topic.
   Talking  about abortion  is truly difficult in our polarized country.  I once  wrote
the following:

   Many   controversial issues divide Americans, such as how  health  care should be
   handled, the appropriate relationship between church and state, and the validity of
   affirmative action. Although these questions trigger strong views, public debate is
   often (or at least at times) respectful and bracketed by an awareness on the part of
   most people that some compromise   is likely necessary.

   The  same simply can't be said about abortion. Those who believe that terminating a
   pregnancy is the moral equivalent of murder often characterize those in favor of that
   right as anti-life, anti-baby, and even anti-God. Those who think women should have
   the right to decide for themselves whether to carry a fetus to term often characterize
   those opposed as anti-women, anti-sex, and anti-choice. The rhetoric on both sides is
   often extreme with hyperbolic charges hurled in both directions.'

   There  is nothing extreme  about Abortion  and the Law  in America,  which  provides
the relevant arguments  and, more  important,  facts (where they exist) about our abor-
tion wars.  Starting with the rise of anti-abortion laws in the  mid-19th  century  and
ending  with  a discussion of the probable  demise  of Roe  v. Wade,  Zeigler takes the
reader through  the relevant societal movements   on both  sides of the abortion divide
and  provides a  clear-eyed examination  of the legal and  non-legal strategies used by
groups  who   support and  oppose   abortion. This book  tries and  mostly  succeeds at
being a just the facts treatment of this difficult topic.
   There  are many   revelations in this book  for both the  layperson and  the  expert.
Zeigler devotes much   more  attention than other  scholars to claims about the policy
costs and  benefits of abortion for women,   families, and the larger society.2 A rela-
tively unexamined   part of  the history of abortion  in this country  revolves around
women   of color. Zeigler focuses on this group in an on  the ground  way that brings

*Eric J. Segall is the Ashe Family Chair Professor of Law at Georgia State University College of Law. He is the
author of many articles on constitutional law, as well as Originalism as Faith and Supreme Myths: Why the
Supreme Court Is Not a Court and Its Justices Are Not Judges.  esegall@gsu.edu
'Eric J. Segall, Why Can't We Talk about Abortion?, DORF ON LAW (Dec. 9, 2014), http://www.dorfonlaw.org/2014/
12/why-cant-we-talk-about-abortion.html.
2Mary Ziegler, ABORTION AND THE LAW IN AMERICA: ROE V. WADE TO THE PRESENT 2 (2020).
C 2021 American College of Legal Medicine

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