Roe

This book taught me about the history of the regulation of abortion in the United States from the 19th century to the Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, assuring women’s right to abortion, and its recent Dobbs v. Jackson decision overturning it.

The book also helped me understand why the issue of abortion is never settled in the United States, whereas it is settled in many other countries, including Israel, where I grew up. The book tells the stories of many women who were and continue to be among the leaders in the movement to restrict abortion rights, but… show more.

Mary Ziegler is arguably the country’s foremost expert on abortion law; I hear her on NPR every time judges and justices weigh in on women’s reproductive freedom.

This is her account not of how Roe v. Wade got decided or what the law did, but instead of how the case has become symbolic of the Supreme Court writ large and the struggles over women’s autonomy in the United States. In essence, this is a history of how we have all come to invest so much in the myth of Roe, even as it was recently overturned.

I find Ziegler to… show more.