Pollitt, Katha. Pro: Reclaiming Abortion Right. New York: Picador, 2015. Print.
Katha Pollitt is a known feminist and has been covering gender equality and female reproductive rights for decades. In this book, she talks about women and their rights on abortion, debates about sex and how life begins at conception. She brings out abortion as part of a women’s reproductive life and that it should not be viewed as a moral right. In the book, she takes the first person position and tries to argue out how abortion is beneficial to families, women, and society. She concludes that by accepting and legalizing abortion, the lives of pregnant women can be reclaimed. I believe this book is important to incorporate in my paper. Ultimately, Pollitt is arguing not just for reproductive rights but for reproductive justice and gives a powerful argument for abortion as a moral right and a social good.
- “Instead of shaming women for ending a pregnancy, we should acknowledge their realism and self-knowledge. We should accept that it’s a good for everyone if women have only the children they want and can raise well. Society benefits when women can commit to education and work and dream without having at the back of their mind a concern that maybe it’s all provisional, because at any moment an accidental pregnancy could derail them for life.
- “In the end, abortion is an issue of fundamental human rights. To force women to undergo pregnancy and childbirth against their will to deprive them of the right to make basic decisions about their lives and well-being, and to give that power to the state.”
