Dispatches from the Abortion Wars: The Costs of Fanaticism to Doctors, Patients, and the Rest of Us

From the Publisher: Surprising firsthand accounts from the front lines of abortion provision reveal the persistent cultural, political, and economic hurdles to access. More than thirty-five years after women won the right to legal abortion, stories of limited access to abortion are still familiar; yet most people have little idea of just how inaccessible it has become. While a majority of Americans support safe and legal abortion, the pervasive stigma-cultivated by the religious right-continues to shame women and marginalize abortion providers in their own professional communities. Reproductive-health researcher Carole Joffe has studied abortion provision for more than thirty years. In Dispatches from the Abortion Wars, she relays on-the-ground stories of doctors grappling with the obstacles of providing abortion care for their patients: from skirting draconian state regulations to negotiating with intransigent insurance companies or having to beg superiors for the right to perform medically necessary abortions in-hospital. Joffe brings these examples to vivid life, reporting the lived experiences behind the polemics. Dispatches from the Abortion Wars also offers hope for real change, pointing the way to a more compassionate standard of women's health care-one that responds to the needs of the individual and trusts women to make their own moral choices.

• | Author: Carole Joffe
• | Publisher: Beacon Press
• | Publication Date: January 04, 2011
• | Number of Pages: 216 pages
• | Language: English
• | Binding: Paperback
• | ISBN-10: 0807001287
• | ISBN-13: 9780807001288