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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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