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The Abortion Controversy: A Documentary History. Ed. by Eva R. Rubin. (Westport: Greenwood, 1994. xxiv, 312 pp. $45.00, ISBN 0-313-28476-8.)
In The Abortion Controversy, Eva R. Rubin has collected and edited portions of nearly one hundred significant documents covering the history of abortion in the United States. This is a straightforward, no-nonsense approach to an important topic. As part of Greenwood Press's series Primary Documents in American History and Contemporary Documents, the volume focuses on the public, rather than the private, debate.
The documents appear in five broadly defined sections: (1) before 1960; (1) the abortion reform movement, 1960-1972; (3) the 1973 abortion cases; (4) the battle lines are drawn, 1974-1980; and (5) the Reagan and Bush Administrations and beyond, 1980- . Though this outline appears chronological, the approach at times tends to be topical. For instance, part 3, covering the 1973 abortion cases, includes the Ninth and Fourteenth amendments to the Constitution as well as selections from 1965 through 1979.
A significant amount of material is taken from state and Supreme Court cases, reflecting not only...