Women Against Abortion: Inside the Largest Moral Reform Movement of the Twentieth Century (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9780252040962)

Women from remarkably diverse religious, social, and political backgrounds made up the rank-and-file of anti-abortion activism. Empowered by--yet in many cases scared of--the changes wrought by feminism, they founded grassroots groups, developed now-familiar strategies and tactics, and gave voice to the movement's moral and political dimensions. Drawing on oral histories and interviews with prominent figures, Karissa Haugeberg examines American women 's fight against abortion. Beginning in the 1960s, she looks at Marjory Mecklenburg's attempt to shift the attention of anti-abortion leaders from the rights of fetuses to the needs of pregnant women. Moving forward she traces the grassroots work of Catholic women, including Juli Loesch and Joan Andrews, and their encounters with the influx of evangelicals into the movement. She also looks at the activism of evangelical Protestant Shelley Shannon, a prominent pro-life extremist of the 1990s. Throughout, Haugeberg explores important questions such as the ways people fused religious conviction with partisan politics, activists' rationalizations for lethal violence, and how women claimed space within an unshakably patriarchal movement.

Author: Karissa Haugeberg
ISBN-10: 0252040961
ISBN-13: 9780252040962
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
Language: English
Published: 04/03/2017
Pages: 240
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 1.05lbs
Size: 9.10h x 6.10w x 0.90d

Review Citation(s):
Choice 10/01/2017