Customer Reviews

Abortion, Motherhood, and Mental Health: Medicaliing Reproduction in the United States and Great Britian (Social Problems and Social Issues)

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Lee's thesis - that the increased medicalization of women's reproductive lives has lead to a tendency to describe and explain such experiences with reference to mental illness and disease - is unique, and she argues it well and convincingly. In doing so, she exposes the similarities between the arguments of the antiabortion lobby and the arguments put forward by those who claim that giving birth can harm women's mental health, i.e. that both experiences - birth and abortion - can bring on Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Lee goes so far as to say that motherhood is now regarded as the more problematized choice.

Fascinating book, well-written and definitely worth a read.