Abortion.(Book review)

ABORTION Belinda Bennett (ed) Aldershot UK: Ashgate Publishing, 2004, 584 pp (Hb) GBP 115.00 USD 199.50 AUD 267.50 ISBN 0-7546-2238-X

The first thing that caught my eye regarding this publication is the format: it presents more as a reader with a hard cover than as an edited collection. By this I mean that the editor has selected 25 previously published journal articles and the publisher has simply put them together in one place. The upside of this is that it is easy to identify the page numbers and publication details of the original article (though this might be a downside for the editor and publisher, as reference to the article can circumvent the present volume). The downside is primarily aesthetic: different font styles and sizes, some articles use footnote referencing, others use endnotes, and some articles are formatted into columns--a real mixture. The large majority of articles were published in the 1990s; the most recent in 2002 and the earliest in 1971.

Overall, the volume provides a useful and informative collection of articles in the broad field of law and ethics, which is not surprising as is it part of the International Library of Medicine, Ethics and Law series under the general editorship of Michael D. Freeman. It is an important resource for scholars from primarily health sciences, law and philosophy, especially bioethics, and less so, sociology and politics.

The book is organized into four sections, each with a summarizing Introduction by the editor.

Part I--Personhood, Prenatal Life and Reproductive Rights--comprises 11 articles that deal with the ethics of abortion and the moral and legal significance of the life of a foetus. It traverses debates on the moral significance of the embryo and the role of legal protection, especially the notion of fetal rights. At least four of the articles are written by avowedly feminist scholars who attend to the rights women in the ethical debates about embryos in which women are often absent. Unfortunately, there is no article in this section that examines the significance of abortion, the embryo and women's rights in the context of in vitro fertilization and other associated conceptive technologies.

Part II--Regulating Abortion: International Perspectives--with six reprints, provides insights into the different legal regimes that regulate abortion. Especially informative is Kerry Petersen's comparative (historical and cross-cultural) analysis of the Australian, English and US laws on abortion. This chapter highlights the effect of the different legal systems and legal cultures, especially the salience of rights discourse in the US, on the form and content of abortion laws. The section also examines access to abortion, public health and women's reproductive rights in the member states of the European Union and in developing nations, including China where the issue of coerced abortion raises special concerns.

Part III--Health Professionals and Abortion--is the shortest section with only three articles. It looks at the ...