Roe: The History of a National Obsession

by Mary Ziegler

Overview

The leading U.S. expert on abortion law charts the many meanings associated with Roe v. Wade during its fifty-year history
 
“Ziegler sets a brisk pace but delivers substantial depth. . . . A must-read for those seeking to understand what comes next.”—Publishers Weekly
 
What explains the insistent pull of Roe v. Wade? Abortion law expert Mary Ziegler argues that the U.S. Supreme Court decision, which decriminalized abortion in 1973 and was overturned in 2022, had a hold on us that was not simply the result of polarized abortion politics. Rather, Roe took on meanings far beyond its original purpose of protecting the privacy of the doctor-patient relationship. It forced us to confront questions about sexual violence, judicial activism and restraint, racial justice, religious liberty, the role of science in politics, and much more.
 
In this history of what the Supreme Court’s best-known decision has meant, Ziegler identifies the inconsistencies and unsettled issues in our abortion politics. She urges us to rediscover the nuance that has long resided where we would least expect to find it—in the meaning of Roe itself.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780300276862
Publisher:	Yale University Press
Publication date:	06/04/2024
Pages:	248
Sales rank:	709,106
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x (d)

About the Author

Mary Ziegler is the Martin Luther King Jr. Professor of Law at the University of California, Davis, and author of six books on the law, history, and politics of abortion and American conservatism. She lives in Sausalito, CA.

Editorial Reviews

Ziegler sets a brisk pace but delivers substantial depth. . . . A must-read for those seeking to understand what comes next.”—Publishers Weekly

“An accessible account. . . . As always, Ziegler is a clear explainer of a complex, gray-shaded body of law.”—Kirkus Reviews

“Ziegler’s succinct description about the nation’s polarizing debate over abortion remains more relevant than ever. . . . Ziegler’s greatest contribution to the legal history of abortion (besides her prodigious research and her ability to uncover information that no one else has discovered) is her even-handed analysis and attention to nuance and complexity.”—Daniel K. Williams, Current

“Lucid and cogent. . . . The strength of the book is its descriptions of the multiple meanings of Roe in American society and how the decision became a microcosm of political polarization and debates in the US for the last half-century.”—D. Schultz, Choice

“An accessible and timely primer on the many meanings Roe has accrued in American politics, law, and culture across half a century, deepening our understanding of this polarizing constitutional landmark.”—Ken Kersch, author of Conservatives and the Constitution

“Mary Ziegler offers a brilliant and insightful analysis of the fascinating ways in which our nation’s understanding of the abortion issue has evolved over the half-century since Roe was decided.”—Geoffrey R. Stone, author of Sex and the Constitution

“With the landmark Supreme Court abortion decision as its lens, Roe offers a vivid view of the half-century of political, legal, and social conflicts over judicial activism, women’s rights, the place of religion in America, racial justice, sexuality, regional and class differences—while illuminating shifting political party positioning and pivotal individuals who resist the easy labels of polarized politics.”—Martha Minow, 300th Anniversary University Professor, Harvard University

From the Publisher

01/16/2023

UC Davis law professor Ziegler (Dollars for Life) analyzes in this expert study how the Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion captured the nation’s imagination as “a meta-symbol of our many political and cultural disagreements and a shorthand for their inherent contradictions.” In the 1960s, a series of legal cases carved out exceptions to abortion bans for rape, incest, and fetal defects; Ziegler notes opposition from both anti-abortion activists (who believed in fetal personhood) and the women’s liberation movement (which believed abortion should be a constitutional right). In the 1970s, the Hyde Amendment, which blocked Medicaid funding for abortion, led abortion rights activists to elevate the message that Roe was about women’s freedom of choice, while right-to-lifers increasingly sought to upend the Republican establishment. Among other themes, the decades after Roe saw the intertwining of anti-abortion groups and evangelical Christianity; the politicization of science and expertise, especially around the concept of “partial birth abortion”; and the foregrounding of racial issues, with anti-abortion activists highlighting Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger’s belief in eugenics and abortion rights organizations shifting from a white-centered choice message to a reproductive justice framework. Ziegler sets a brisk pace but delivers substantial depth as she reveals just how much the terms of this debate have shifted in the 50 years between Roe and its recent overturning. It’s a must-read for those seeking to understand what comes next. (Jan.)

Publishers Weekly

Mary Ziegler offers a brilliant and insightful analysis of the fascinating ways in which our nation’s understanding of the abortion issue has evolved over the half-century since Roe was decided.”

author of Sex and the Constitution Geoffrey R. Stone

With the landmark Supreme Court abortion decision as its lens, Roe offers a vivid view of the half-century of political, legal, and social conflicts over judicial activism, women’s rights, the place of religion in America, racial justice, sexuality, regional and class differences—while illuminating shifting political party positioning and pivotal individuals who resist the easy labels of polarized politics.”

300th University Professor at Harvard University Martha Minow

An accessible and timely primer on the many meanings Roe has accrued in American politics, law, and culture across half a century, deepening our understanding of this polarizing constitutional landmark.”

author of Conservatives and the Constitution Ken Kersch

2022-12-05
An accessible account of the legal issues surrounding Roe v. Wade and the many layers of controversy surrounding them.

The author of Dollars for Life: The Anti-Abortion Movement and the Fall of the Republican Establishment and other books about abortion and the law in America, Ziegler opens with the observation that Roe is the only Supreme Court–adjudicated law concerning abortion. For example, part of the decision was overruled in the 1992 Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey decision. Still, “Roe has become the repository for the contradictions of the American abortion war,” which extend well beyond abortion: Does a woman have the right to control her own body? Does life begin at conception? Does the federal government have the right to make laws that should be the purview of individual states? Ziegler digs deep to look at novel approaches to litigation, with some anti-abortion groups, for instance, using the 14th Amendment to equate the unborn with the enslaved, with “their humanity denied by others who perpetrated acts of unspeakable violence against them.” Other interpretations have centered on science, with both pro-choice and anti-abortion activists insisting that the scientific evidence is on their side. Interestingly, Ziegler writes, the religious liberty aspect of Roe came to the fore relatively recently, when “conservative Christian groups…framed legal abortion and LGBTIQ rights as forcing Christians to forsake their own beliefs.” Interestingly, too, Roe was from the outset criticized as poorly framed. “Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who would become the Supreme Court’s most vocal defender of abortion rights, often argued that Roe went too far too fast and undermined the pro-choice movement’s earlier progress,” writes Ziegler. Following Roe’s overturning by a Supreme Court that has been revealed as a partisan rather than impartial body, a newly “robust popular constitutionalism” may arise by which states guarantee the right of choice through citizen action.

As always, Ziegler is a clear explainer of a complex, gray-shaded body of law.

Kirkus Reviews