cover image Beyond Pro-Life/Pro-Ch

Beyond Pro-Life/Pro-Ch

Kathy Rudy. Beacon Press (MA), $23 (185pp) ISBN 978-0-8070-0426-5

Rudy, a feminist who worked with the Catholic left and joined the United Methodist Church in adulthood, was herself an unwanted pregnancy, given up by her biological mother to her Catholic adopted parents. Currently assistant professor of ethics and women's studies at Duke University, she has written a scholarly, opinionated critique of the abortion controversy. She faults the overwhelmingly white, narrowly focused pro-choice movement for failing to address broad concerns: the difficulty low-income women experience when seeking safe, legal abortions; the need for universal access to childcare, birth control and health care; and freedom from sterilization abuse. Noting that, with prenatal testing, the abortion of defective fetuses has become virtually mandatory, she supports women's right ""to choose to have babies that are `defective' or nontraditional."" The Christian church, Rudy maintains, could transcend the polarized abortion debate by using the age-old ethical methodology known as casuistry, which in effect means gauging the moral nature of each abortion by a woman's specific circumstances. In her final chapter, Rudy advocates the repeal of all abortion laws, a step she believes would allow each community to work out its own norms and practices. All rights: Beacon Press. (July)