Beyond Choice: Reproductive Freedom In The 21st Century

When you read a book on a subject where you are in general agreement, it is unusual to dislike it this much. The author announces he is going to make a moral argument in favor of abortion by using biology. He fails to do that, though he does talk about biology of reproduction quite a bit. Some of

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it is correct, some is questionable, and some is just plain wrong. The studies he cites do not appear, at least from his description, to be well done at all, which means the conclusions should be a bit suspect. He appears to mistake correlation for causation, though he does finally give one sentence to explaining that of course it is not, but... He seems to believe that high levels of reproduction are in the best interests of society, and abortion, in his argument, increases those levels by allowing women to bring up more healthy children and live longer. In addition, he manages to annoy by constantly referring to Margaret Sanger as "my grandmother". In a biography or autobiography, that would be fine, but in a formal, scholarly work, he should limit that to the preface then just refer to her by name from there on out. Sloppy in research, sloppy in thinking, sloppy in writing, I cannot recommend this book to anyone. Read Katha Pollitt instead.

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