Abortion Politics, Women's Movements and the Democratic State: A Comparative Study of State Feminism. Edited by Dorothy McBride Stetson. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001. 380p. $72.00 cloth, $24.95 paper.

Extract

This book deals with the politics of abortion and abortion law reform as they have developed in 11 countries of Western Europe and North America during the period of the women's movement's second wave. The stories that are told vary a good deal, even among countries apparently similar in religious composition, political tradition, and legal culture. They include the early and comparatively uncontroversial move to allow abortion on grounds of the mother's physical or mental health in Great Britain, more radical reform in the Netherlands making early abortion available on demand, and the continuing division in Ireland where judicial affirmation of a woman's right to travel outside the country must be counted a win. It is an interesting and worthwhile book for this alone.