The Cost of Choice: Women Evaluate the Impact of Abortion [Paperback]

Erika Bachiochi (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 25, 2004

Captures the moral, legal, medical and political complexities surrounding abortion.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Erika Bachiochi received a graduate degree in theology from Boston College, where she was a Bradley Fellow. She is now an attorney living in Boston.

Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Encounter Books (October 25, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1594030510
• ISBN-13: 978-1594030512
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,067,639 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

74 of 80 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Provocative, Fascinating Book, October 21, 2004

By 

MTM (Boston, MA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Cost of Choice: Women Evaluate the Impact of Abortion (Paperback)

The 12 essays in this book come at the contested issue of abortion from a different point of view than one typically hears in political discourse about abortion. Listening only to partisans debating the issue in political campaigns, one would think that the issue boils down to this: does the fetus's claim to life outweigh the benefits to women and society of safe, legal abortion?. After reading these essays by 12 women intellectuals and professionals, one should question the assumptions underpinning that basic question.

Instead, these women ask a fundamental question, the answer to which is usually assumed, rather than proven: is legal abortion a boon to women? The answer from these 12 is no. Once that assumption is undermined, so too is much of the argument in favor of legalized, widespread abortion.

While pro-lifers will be drawn to this book more naturally than those who are pro-choice, there is something in here to disturb and enlighten people on both sides of the issue.

For pro-lifers, the essayists here make a central point that is often ignored in pro-life rhetoric that it is important to ask what the benefit to women of legalized abortion is. For those who believe that an unborn child has a claim on life, the benefits to the mother of abortion are sometimes written out of the equation. The essayists also recognize that many men and women who are pro-choice take that position because they genuinely believe legalized abortion is good for women. It is to these people of good will that the essays are really addressed. The book will also make pro-lifers realized that 'feminist' is not a dirty word and is not synonymous with being pro-abortion.

For pro-choicers who care about the well-being of women (as opposed to those who are pro-choice for other reasons such as societal benefit or an ideological committment to absolute individual autonomy), this book raises important questions that must be answered, rather than assumed. It should prompt those advocating an absolute right to legal abortion as a fundamental component of women's health to question whether abortion really is a positive for women's health or a negative. After all, if abortion does not actually benefit women, the debate takes on an entirely different tone.

This book also puts to lie the notion that pro-lifers on are a mission to force women into subservience, roll back women's rights and exclude women from the public sphere. This is a feminist a book to the core.

This book is an important contribution to the ongoing abortion debate, and opens a new front for discussion, research and analysis. Those who care about this issue, on both sides, would be well-advised to attend to its arguments.

61 of 71 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a feminist case against abortion, October 1, 2004

By 

C.J.A. (Washington, DC USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Cost of Choice: Women Evaluate the Impact of Abortion (Paperback)

A solid collection of twelve essays by professional women who are active in the public square. This book includes a version Feminists for Life's president Serrin Foster's brilliant speech "The Feminist Case Against Abortion."

This book is a fine addition to a growing pro-life feminist library, including Prolife Feminism Yesterday & Today (ISBN: 0945819625, soon to be updated); Pro-Life Feminism: Different Voices (ISBN: 0919225225); Swimming Against the Tide: Feminist Dissent on the Issue of Abortion (ISBN: 1851822674); and Real Choices: Listening to Women, Looking for Alternatives to Abortion (ISBN: 1888212071) ...all of which are available through Amazon.com.

Abortion is a violent symptom of numerous systematic and structural economic & social injustices perpetrated against women. Real feminists should not be advocating abortion, but seeking to address abortion's root causes: the lack of practical and social resources for women. If you recognize the intrinsic interrelatedness and interdependence of all humans, you must believe we have a personal and social responsibility to empower women to make life-affirming, nonviolent choices for themselves and their children.

35 of 41 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Dismantling the choice mantra, September 20, 2005

By 

William Muehlenberg (Melbourne Australia) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Cost of Choice: Women Evaluate the Impact of Abortion (Paperback)

Abortion, we are often told, is a women's issue, and men should just butt out. But given that half of all abortion victims are male, this seems like an odd demand. But if one still insists on a women-only discussion, this book at least will qualify.

This book features twelve women who all think that abortion is far from being pro-women. Instead, they all believe that abortion is basically anti-women, and that it is time women rethink the past three decades of pro-abortion propaganda on the issue.

And they are well qualified to speak on the host of issues associated with the abortion debate. The authors are lawyers, doctors, academics, political scientists and ethicists, all experts in their fields. And all are convinced that women have been sold short by the pro-abortion camp in particular, and the wider feminist movement in general.

In this regard it is interesting to note that the original feminist movement was strongly pro-life. As one of the authors informs us, "Without known exception, the early American feminists condemned abortion in the strongest possible terms". She notes the irony of the fact that the US anti-abortion laws of the latter half of the nineteenth century were the direct results of the advocacy work of the early feminists.

Of course many in the current crop of feminists seem to believe that the right to abortion is the quintessential feminist issue. But as these twelve women argue, that is not necessarily the case.

Indeed, a central theme of these essays is that women have been the big loser in the Sexual Revolution, and that abortion-on-demand is harmful to women. Pro-choice feminists and their allies have assured women that sexual freedom and abortion for any reason would bring them liberation and wholeness. Instead we see bondage and disintegration, argue the authors.

There has been a high price paid by women especially, although all of society has suffered. But women have born the brunt of the broken promises, with many harmful mental, medical and psychological consequences. Entire chapters are devoted to some of these social problems and health risks, and rightly so, because the mainstream media is often quite reluctant to let the truth be told about such complications.

A number of essays look at the very real physical consequences of women who have abortions. The research clearly shows that abortion is associated with an increased long-term risk of breast cancer, pre-term birth, maternal suicide and a host of other medical complications.

The abortion-breast cancer link for example is quite extensively documented. If women were told of just this one possible risk, much harm could be prevented. Indeed, it could mean that many thousands of women might be saved each year.

Elizabeth Fox-Genovese goes so far as to say that abortion is really a "war against women". Another author argues that while women are the big losers, there are several major beneficiaries. Certainly abortionists are getting the benefits: they are getting rich. And men have also benefited: they can simply "love `em and leave `em" and not face any of the consequences, while women are left holding the bag, or the baby.

Another author makes the connection between abortion and the return of eugenics. The push for designer babies and the attempt to weed out any imperfections in our offspring is taking us back to some dark times in recent history. But we seem to have short memories. Thus we are now putting a whole new generation at risk in our search for the perfect baby. Such eugenic activity is clearly of a piece with the abortion mentality.

The cumulative case against abortion as expressed in these essays should be enough for many women to have a rethink. Indeed, many of the authors in this book did just that: many were originally pro-choice, but as they became exposed to the truth of the issue, they had a radical change of mind and heart.

Perhaps other women reading these essays will undergo similar sorts of conversion. For their sakes, as well as for the sake of the unborn, and all of society, it is hoped that this is indeed the case.