Abortion: Understanding Differences

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xxii

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2. Social Science and Ethical Issues

   • Mary Ann Lamanna

   Pages 1-23

3. Abortion and the Meaning of Life

   • Kristin Luker

   Pages 25-45

4. Reflections on Abortion, Values, and the Family

   • Jean Bethke Elshtain

   Pages 47-72

5. Commentary to Chapter 3

   • Sandra Harding

   Pages 73-80

6. A Family Perspective on Abortion

   • Theodora Ooms

   Pages 81-107

7. Commentary to Chapter 4

   • Mary B. Mahowald

   Pages 109-115

8. Children, Personhood, and a Pluralistic Society

   • Virginia Abernethy

   Pages 117-135

9. Commentary to Chapter 5

   • Jean Bethke Elshtain

   Pages 137-143

10. More Trouble than They’re Worth?

    • Mary Meehan

    Pages 145-170

11. Commentary to Chapter 6

    • Theodora Ooms

    Pages 171-175

12. Abortion and Equality

    • Mary B. Mahowald

    Pages 177-196

13. Commentary to Chapter 7

    • Mary C. Segers

    Pages 197-201

14. Beneath the Surface of the Abortion Dispute

    • Sandra Harding

    Pages 203-224

15. Commentary to Chapter 8

    • Lisa Sowle Cahill

    Pages 225-228

16. Abortion and the Culture

    • Mary C. Segers

    Pages 229-252

17. Commentary to Chapter 9

    • Mary Meehan

    Pages 253-259

18. Abortion, Autonomy, and Community

    • Lisa Sowle Cahill

    Pages 261-276

19. Commentary to Chapter 10

    • Virginia Abernethy

    Pages 277-283

20. Value Choices in Abortion

    • Sidney Callahan

    Pages 285-301

SIDNEY CALLAHAN AND DANIEL CALLAHAN This book, like many other things to do with abortion, is a product of long controversy. Though carried out with cooperation, it was conceived in conflict. The conflict between the coeditors has per­ sisted for years-in fact, for at least half of their thirty-year marriage. One, Sidney, is prolife; the other, Daniel, is prochoice. Ever since the topic of abortion became of professional interest to us, in the 1960s, we have disagreed. At one time, while Daniel was writing a book on the subject, Abortion: Law, Choice and Morality (1970), we talked about the subject every day for the four years of the book's gestation. On many occasions during the 1970s, prolife articles writ­ ten by Sidney were passed out at Daniel's lectures in order to refute his pro choice views. Over the years, every argument, every statistic, every historical example cited in the literature has been discussed by the two of us. As Eliza Doolittle says about "words" in My Fair Lady, "There's nota one I haven't heard. " And yet we still disagree. How can it be, we ask ourselves, that intelligent people of goodwill who know all the same facts and all the same arguments still come down on different sides of the con­ troversy? As we well know, it is possible to agree about many things and have great love and respect for an opponent, and still differ.

• autonomy
• children
• marriage
• morality

• Mercy College, Dobbs Ferry, USA

  Sidney Callahan

• The Hastings Center Institute of Society, Ethics and the Life Sciences, Hastings-on-Hudson, USA

  Daniel Callahan

Policies and ethics