PGI Readings on Abortion and Reproductive Rights
This PGI Collection should be read in conjunction with scholarship in the following areas to better understand social science examination of abortion politics.
Legal Theory
“Privacy” as a foundation (Roe v. Wade) leaves out poor & minority women. Democratic governments should promote equality, justice, autonomy, and flourishing; lack of reproductive options endangers these goals.
MacKinnon, Sex Equality (2001); McDonagh, Breaking the Abortion Deadlock (1996); McBride, ed. Abortion Politics, Women's Movements, & the Democratic State (2001)
Intersectionality
An understanding that every person has reproductive needs and rights based that intersects with their group identities. This is a rejection of a universal women’s experience that recognizes how other identities shape the reproductive choices of birthing people.
Price, “What is Reproductive Justice? (2020); Roberts. Killing the Black Body (1999); Carpenter Queering Pregnancy (2020)
Public Opinion & Policy
Americans prefer abortion to be legal, but most support restrictions and harbor both pro-choice and anti-abortion considerations. Activists have vastly different “worldviews” about sex, pregnancy, and motherhood.
Luker, Abortion & the Politics of Motherhood (1987); Zaller, Nature and Origins of Mass Opinion (1992); Krook and Childs, Women, Gender, and Politics (2010); Ferree et al., Shaping Abortion Discourse (2002)
Representation
Consider who makes the laws and their positionality; can male-dominated legislatures be fair on abortion policy? Who speaks for whom, and how?
Clayton, O’Brien, and Piscopo, “All Male Panels?...,” AJPS 2019; Mansbridge, “Should Blacks Represent Blacks...”, (1999); Phillips, Politics of Presence (1995)
Edited by
Shauna Shames(Rutgers University)
Nadia Brown(Georgetown University)