cover image With Liberty and Justice for All: A Life Spent Protecting the Right to Choose

With Liberty and Justice for All: A Life Spent Protecting the Right to Choose

Kate Michelman, . . Hudson Street, $24.95 (278pp) ISBN 978-1-59463-006-4

Michelman, who was head of NARAL for nearly 20 years, has written a political memoir rebutting the prolife movement's insistence that making abortion illegal is the American way. She declares that pro-choice politicians win elections and that 80% of Americans support a right to choose. More potent are her stories of women affected by laws restricting abortion rights: a teenager who dies rather than disappoint her parents under a parental notification law; a woman who cannot safely deliver her rigid, fatally defective fetus except by late-term abortion; and Michelman herself, who was a young Catholic mother when the end of her marriage forced her to rethink abortion. The book pragmatically discusses the campaigns, political discussions and compromises involved in the battle over legal abortion. Michelman's passion for the issue and the suspense around certain fights, particularly the "partial-birth abortion" law and the gag law eliminating federal funds for clinics mentioning abortion, keep the book readable. However, too much focus on campaigns and strategy and not enough on human interest stories and tactics may make this book too cool for general readers and too broad for an activist's manual. (Dec.)