PRO: Reclaiming Abortion Rights

A POWERFUL ARGUMENT FOR ABORTION as a moral right and force for social good by noted feminist and
longtime columnist for The Nation, Katha Pollitt.

Forty years after the landmark Roe v. Wade ruling, “abortion” is still a word that is said with outright hostility by many, despite the fact that one in three American women will have terminated at least one pregnancy by the time they reach menopause. Even those who advocate a woman's right to an abortion often qualify their support by saying abortion is a “bad thing,” an “agonizing decision,” making the medical procedure so remote and adioactive that it takes it out of the world of the everyday, turning an act that is normal and necessary into something shameful and secretive. Meanwhile, with each passing day, the rights upheld by the Supreme Court are being systematically eroded by state laws designed to end abortion outright. In this controversial and necessary book, Katha Pollitt reframes abortion as a common part of a woman's reproductive life, one that should be accepted as a moral right with positive social implications. Pollitt takes on the personhood argument, reaffirms the priority of a woman's life and health, and discusses why terminating a pregnancy can be a force for good for women, families, and society. It is time, Pollitt argues, that we reclaim the lives and the rights of women and mothers. KATHA POLLITT is an award-winning poet, essayist, and columnist for The Nation. She has won many prizes and awards for her work, including the National Book Critics Circle Award for her first collection of poems, Antarctic Traveller, and two National Magazine Awards for Essays and Criticism. Her works include Reasonable Creatures, Subject to Debate, Virginity or Death!, Learning to Drive, and The Mind- Body Problem. She lives in New York City. Praise for Katha Pollitt's VIRGINITY OR DEATH! “Over the years, I've been outsourcing my thinking on a host of issues to Katha Pollitt. You can do it too –start with Virginity or Death! and get smarter overnight.”—Barbara Ehrenreich “As this book, which is greater than the sum of its brilliant parts, makes clear, Katha Pollitt, who is famously a feminist, is also a humorist, a moralist, and a most hilarious, wise, and incisive observer.”—Victor S. Navasky “Katha Pollitt has long and rightly been hailed for her brilliance, wit, and great insight into politics, social issues, and women's rights. As with all of her work, I am enormously grateful for Virginity or Death!, and also deeply jealous.”—Anne Lamott