Encyclopedia of Abortion in the United States

This now revised and updated acclaimed encyclopedia, comprehensively covers abortion from the founding of the nation to the present day. Since the publication of the first edition in 2002, the Supreme Court has issued a number of important opinions on abortion, such as the approval of a federal ban on partial-birth abortion in Gonzales v. Carhart. Along with new entries on these events, the second edition is also enhanced by many photographs, charts and graphs.Arranged alphabetically, the entries address the many political, legal, social, religious, and medical issues associated with abortion. The roles of the Supreme Court and other judicial and legislative bodies are covered in great detail, through entries which focus on the 'voting' position taken by every Supreme Court Justice who has ever participated in an abortion decision, entries which cover the actual abortion laws of each state, and entries which summarize individual statutes to help nonspecialist readers understand the laws.Several entries focus on the social, religious, or moral arguments surrounding abortion, including entries which identify and describe the leading pro-life or pro-choice abortion organizations across the nation and entries which summarize the major lawful or unlawful activities that have occurred in support or protest of abortion. Medical issues related to abortion are also covered, in entries devoted to such topics as modern contraceptive devices, different methods of abortion, the gestational development of the human fetus, embryonic cloning, assisted reproductive technology, surrogacy, and embryonic/fetal stem cell research.