"The Pro-choice and Pro-life debate continues"

If there is one thing that will surely stir up emotions is a heated debate between pro-life and pro-choice advocates. The debate invariably brings in political, legal, religious, moral, medical and sociological factors that often times only confuse those who are the spectators.

Alexander Sanger is the recently retired president of Planned Parenthood of New York City and grandson of the renowned planning advocate Margaret Sanger. In his defense of pro-choice, as exposed in his recent book, Beyond Choice: Reproductive Freedom In The 21st Century, Sanger argues that having abortion legalized and accessible is morally right, nor morally wrong. It is his contention that there should be a new perspective when defending the right to abortion in that it should be viewed as less of a rights issue but rather more of a reproductive one. Up to now Sanger believes that the traditional arguments of the pro-choice as well as the pro-life defenders do not provide us with as much guidance as the public deserves and needs.

As his principal objective is to defend pro-choice, Sanger maintains that the central challenge for those in favor of choice is to show that the movement has the ideas and philosophy to help people cope with the ethical dilemmas that new reproductive technologies present. Furthermore, he believes that American and worldwide views of abortion will become more pro-choice only when abortion is put into a reproductive and biological context. In other words, shift the perspective from rights to reproduction. As he states, "having the choice whether or not to become a parent and having a child has been and is essential to the survival and well-being of humanity." Furthermore, as he maintains, the abortion debate in the last quarter of the twentieth century failed to address the issue as to why it is biologically vital that women control childbearing.

In order to advance his argument, Sanger examines the following topics: the origins of choice, reproductive freedom and human evolution, the reproductive rights debate that ignored reproduction, putting reproduction back into reproductive freedom, enlisting men in support of reproductive freedom, defending reproductive freedom from the dangers of reproductive technology, and should the government have the right to enter our bedrooms and enact abortion laws.

Sanger neatly presents his arguments with a great deal of historical and scientific information incorporating his own personal observations. As to the validity of his arguments, readers will have to judge for themselves, however, this is what makes the book intriguing food for thought.

To read an interesting interview with the author conducted by Public Affairs in February 2004 click: HERE

Reviewed by Norman Goldman
Courtesy Bookpleasures
Posted August 11, 2004

Summary

The world has changed, but the pro-choice position hasn't. Now an internationally renowned pro-choice advocate--and grandson of Margaret Sanger--offers a compelling new basis for keeping abortion legal. Thirty years after Roe v. Wade, the argument between "pro- choicers" and "pro-lifers" has reached stalemate. Pro- choice arguments haven't persuaded a comfortable majority that legal abortion is vital to our society, nor addressed our moral qualms. Younger people are less and less supportive of reproductive rights. Since 1996, state legislatures have enacted nearly 300 pieces of anti-choice legislation. With Roe in jeopardy, International Planned Parenthood Council Chair Alexander Sanger asks a simple but heretical question: How many more pieces of anti-choice legislation will it take to get the pro-choice movement to rethink its approach to the issue? In Beyond Choice Sanger explores the history of the reproductive rights movement to discover how it got stuck in its thinking, and then provides a convincing new argument for the moral rightness of its cause. He shows why it is vital to the health and survival of the human race that couples be able to have children, or not, when they choose; why reproductive rights are just as important to men as to women; and why, in an era of new reproductive technologies, completely unfettered choice is not morally defensible. Beyond Choice is inspiring and important reading for women's rights advocates, opinion leaders, medical ethicists, and anyone concerned to preserve our freedom to reproduce, or not, without government intervention.