Choice 评论

Updating the third edition (CH, Feb'87), chapters in this work survey legal, medical, and ethical dimensions of abortion. The material on law covers state legislation, constitutional uncertainty, consequences of legal abortion, privacy (historical injustices against women remain), wrongful birth/life, fetal rights, and the world scene. A section on medicine covers prenatal development, personhood for embryos, RU486 (by developer Baulieu), availability of abortion, Alan Guttmacher on history, the abnormal fetus, fetal tissue research, and psychological aspects of unwanted pregnancy and abortion. The ethics section contains material on the rise and fall of the antiabortion movement in Congress (1973-83) by Senator Packwood; congressional action (1984-91); privacy (historically broader than previously believed); the ethics of abortion by Daniel Callahan, a Roman Catholic; fetal tissue transplants; and religion (a survey of pronouncements). Appendixes cover Dr. Everett Koop on health effects of abortion, fetal tissue research, a model Freedom of Choice bill, and Supreme Court pronouncements on Webster (Missouri) and Planned Parenthood of Southeast Pennsylvania. As the abortion debate "ranges even more heatedly," this volume will be of interest to a diverse readership. All libraries. H. O. Thompson; University of Pennsylvania