Mary Ziegler

"Over its half-century of public life, Roe v. Wade took on meanings that extended far beyond its original purpose of protecting the privacy of the doctor-patient relationship. At various times, it forced us to confront hard questions about judicial activism and restraint, the believability of science, racial justice, the suppression of religion, and much more. Mary Ziegler explores the transformations of meaning that have kept abortion on the front lines of our political and social battles."--

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. 

The History of a National Obsession

With the Supreme Court likely to reverse Roe v. Wade, the landmark abortion decision, American debate appears fixated on clashing rights. The first comprehensive legal history of a vital period, Abortion and the Law in America illuminates an entirely different and unexpected shift in the terms of debate. Rather than simply championing rights, those on opposing sides battled about the policy costs and benefits of abortion and laws restricting it. This mostly unknown turn deepened polarization in ways many have missed. Never abandoning their constitutional demands, pro-choice and pro-life advocates increasingly disagreed about the basic facts. Drawing on unexplored records and interviews with key participants, Ziegler complicates the view that the Supreme Court is responsible for the escalation of the conflict. A gripping account of social-movement divides and crucial legal strategies, this book delivers a definitive recent history of an issue that transforms American law and politics to this day.

Roe v. Wade to the Present

Abortion and the Law in America

In the decade after the 1973 Supreme Court decision on abortion, advocates on both sides sought common ground. But as pro-abortion and anti-abortion positions hardened over time into pro-choice and pro-life, the myth was born that Roe v. Wade was a ruling on a woman’s right to choose. Mary Ziegler’s account offers a corrective.

After Roe

Roe's privacy rationale inspired left-leaning movements unrelated to abortion--around sexual orientation, class, gender, race, disability, and patient rights. But groups on the right used it as well, to attack government involvement in American life. Mary Ziegler's analysis shows that privacy belongs to no party or cause.

Roe V. Wade and the Battle for Privacy

Beyond Abortion

Ziegler documents a shift to debates on policy costs and benefits that deepened polarization on abortion in this first legal history of the period.

Mary Ziegler

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