Beyond Pro-Life and Pro-Choice

by Kathy Rudy

Entering the moral worlds of Catholicism, the evangelical Protestantism of the Operation Rescue movement, feminism, and the classical liberalism expressed in modern medicine, Beyond Pro-Life and Pro-Choice brilliantly illuminates the little-understood religious and philosophical aspects of the abortion issue. Rudy reveals how each community's beliefs about abortion are connected to its deeply held values and concerns, and offers an alternative that would obviate the unproductive, divisive, and sometimes violent abortion debate we have today.

224 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1996

Reviews

[Amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love diving into theory and research, but what I have read post-college has been written so as to be easily accessible to readers. Beyond Pro-Life and Pro-Choice (abbreviated to Pro/Pro from here on out) has excellent material, but it is exhausting. It is the kind of book you eat like a tootsie pop, one lick at a time, one or two pages per sitting. It’s the kind of book that, unfortunately, you will likely not get through if you do not have some kind of secondary education in your background (which is bullshit). Therefore, after a short review, I will include a summary of each chapter for those who want a guide as they read the text, or who are curious about what this book has to say.

Rudy states that abortion means different things to different people because it is understood from the perspectives of a variety of individuals with different realities. The realities outlined in Pro/Pro include liberalism, Roman Catholicism, American Catholicism, televangelism, and feminism, which are each explained to have a different moral and ethical belief that affects their opinions concerning abortion.

What makes this book so difficult and inaccessible comes down to language use and sentence construction. Rudy uses big college words gleaned from her various disciplines (see above) that include theories and concepts not typically studied or known by many who may be interested in learning more about the topics the book addresses, but who have not pursued higher education.

As for sentence construction, many sentences and paragraphs are so wordy and dense that I had to read them one sentence at a time, over and over again, emphasizing different words and concepts, until I could wrap my head around it. Many times I found myself reading no more than one page per day, requiring absolute silence in my environment in order to have the concentration required to slog through the book.

But still, I loved it. This book has so much to say, so many ideas that intrigued me, that I agreed with, so many points that challenged or changed my own beliefs on abortion and feminism. For instance, rather than pro-choice, I now consider myself to be a reproductive rights activist, which is a much more accurate label for my own belief system, but which I did not fully understand before reading Pro/Pro.

Check out the link for my reading recommendations, as well as a summary for those who need notes to follow while reading! https://vulvaink.wordpress.com/2018/0...

[Lacey Louwagie · Rating 4 out of 5]

My thoughts on this book can be found on my blog:

https://laceylouwagie.com/2022/12/28/...