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Crow After Roe: How "Separate But Equal" Has Become the New Standard In Women s Health And How We Can Change That
2013 marks the fortieth anniversary of the Supreme Court’s abortion decision in Roe v. Wade, one of the most divisive rulings ever to shape American politics. In recent years, attempts to overturn Roe v. Wade have reached a fevered pitch. Since 2010, hundreds of bills banning or putting up roadblocks to abortion access, contraception, and basic women’s health have been proposed across the United States, with nearly one hundred new laws going into effect. The goal is to create a law that will eventually be brought before the Supreme Court in order to overturn Roe v. Wade.
Crow After Roe: How “Separate But Equal” Has Become the New Standard In Women’s Health And How We Can Change That examines eleven states—Arizona, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Mississippi, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, Wisconsin, Texas, Utah and Washington DC—that since 2010 have each passed a different anti-abortion or anti-women’s health law explicitly written to provoke a repeal of Roe v. Wade. The chilling effect of these laws has been to establish a reproductive health care system in these states that makes abortion legal in name only, and which places women—especially poor, rural, or those of color—into a separate health care class, with few choices or control. Featuring a foreword by Gloria Feldt.
Crow After Roe: How “Separate But Equal” Has Become the New Standard In Women’s Health And How We Can Change That examines eleven states—Arizona, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Mississippi, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, Wisconsin, Texas, Utah and Washington DC—that since 2010 have each passed a different anti-abortion or anti-women’s health law explicitly written to provoke a repeal of Roe v. Wade. The chilling effect of these laws has been to establish a reproductive health care system in these states that makes abortion legal in name only, and which places women—especially poor, rural, or those of color—into a separate health care class, with few choices or control. Featuring a foreword by Gloria Feldt.
224 pages, Paperback
First published April 5, 2013
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
May 13, 2013
I can't say I 'enjoyed' this book because I found a lot of it terrifying - but it is a well written (and as timely as humanly possible) account of the frontal assault being waged on abortion rights in the United States right now. I very much appreciated being able to see what was going on nation-wide from a state-by-state perspective in understandable and approachable language and I enjoyed the final chapter's look at and hope for the future. Pieklo and Marty did an excellent job making the stuffy language of our legislative and judicial branches approachable and understandable.
June 17, 2013
The Best Repro Health Contemporary History 101 You Can Ask For!
I work in the reproductive health movement, so I did not expect this book to be a revelation. I monitor this work on a daily basis, so I assumed I had a very advanced understanding of the latest fights over reproductive health. Wow, was I wrong! The authors laid our in rich detail the minutia of the latest attacks on reproductive health and justice. They bring complex legal battles, arcane regulatory fights, and little known individual struggles into the limelight in a manner that is readily accessible to the general public and incredibly engaging. If one has any interest in one of the most high profile issues of our time, the politics of reproductive health, then Crow After Roe is a must read for your literary palette.
I work in the reproductive health movement, so I did not expect this book to be a revelation. I monitor this work on a daily basis, so I assumed I had a very advanced understanding of the latest fights over reproductive health. Wow, was I wrong! The authors laid our in rich detail the minutia of the latest attacks on reproductive health and justice. They bring complex legal battles, arcane regulatory fights, and little known individual struggles into the limelight in a manner that is readily accessible to the general public and incredibly engaging. If one has any interest in one of the most high profile issues of our time, the politics of reproductive health, then Crow After Roe is a must read for your literary palette.
November 18, 2014
Marty and Pieklo have written a frightening wake-up call on the state of reproductive rights in this country. Each chapter focuses on a particular state and the attempts in that states to limit abortion access, with particular focus on legislative and judicial actions that have occurred under the Obama administration. The prognosis is not good. From "fetal pain" bills and mandatory ultrasounds to TRAP (Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers, attempts to close clinics by flooding them with unreasonable nuisance regulations) legislation and funding restrictions that funnel state reproductive health money away from legitimate providers like Planned Parenthood and into religiously-based "Crisis Pregnancy Centers", the last half-decade has been a disaster for a woman's right to choose. While abortion remains legal in all states, so many barriers have been erected that, particularly in the Midwest and the South, an abortion is increasingly impossible for low income women to obtain. Combine this fact with the increasing rollbacks of access to contraception -- through funding maneuvers and "conscience clauses" that allow providers to follow their religious beliefs over the established best-practices of their vocation -- and we are currently experiencing a crisis of reproductive health in this country, unprecedented since before Roe v. Wade became the law of the land. The particular thesis of this book is that this crisis predominantly effects poor women and women of color, in certain regions of the country, and therefore represents a sort of new Jim Crow scheme which contributes to the vulnerability of poor communities.
The book is highly informative and decently well-argued considering the startling array of largely disingenuous anti-abortion legislation it attempts to classify in a short ~200 pages. However, I wish I had read it sooner after it was published in 2013 because, as with all such "current events"-style books, it feels sort of out of date. Even so, it has provided me with a lexicon for understanding the various species of anti-choice legislation and the case law surrounding them. Although the book is focused on the last 5 or 6 years, it does a good job of examining earlier laws and court decisions as needed.
In the end, the authors provide a (too brief) chapter on what can and must be done to reverse the recent and ongoing assault on reproductive rights. I compiled some bullet points of their recommendations:
1.) Female Personhood - Turn the "fetal personhood" rhetoric back on the right-wing, and emphasize how various attempts to roll back reproductive rights infantilize and dehumanize women.
2.) Move towards Universal Healthcare - Only by treating healthcare as a right and not a privilege and severing, once and for all, the connection between healthcare and employment, can we eliminate entanglements like the Hobby Lobby decision.
3.) Repeal the Hyde Amendment - Access to family planning services should not be determined by wealth, therefore the state must provide services where women are not able to afford them themselves. Anything less is apartheid.
4.) Remove barriers to providers - Among other things, it should be emphasized that abortion is a standard and necessary part of OB-GYN training and should remain such.
5.) Ensure the availability of contraceptives - Access to birth control allows women to control their reproduction and should be expanded, not collapsed.
6.) Take back funding from religious "Crisis Prevention Centers" - These often unliscensed and unskilled enterprises are basically state-funded proselytizing and it is a laughable establishment clause violation that religious objections to abortion lead to family planning funding being funneled into religious organizations such as these.
7.) Encourage women to participate in the political system - Women are the group most directly effected by these rollbacks and they should be empowered to combat that tide.
8.) The judiciary needs to set an "undue burden" precedent - One of the more frusterating recurring threads in the book is how the court system has ducked and dodged around defining what constitutes an "undue burden" on a woman seeking an abortion, a threshold that was first defined in the Supreme Court's 1992 Planned Parenthood v Casey decision. Apparently, all the quibbling and farcical trumped-up "safety" regulations that have passed in state legislatures over the years have not yet constituted the "undue burden" laid out in Casey, despite the fact that a first trimester abortion is incredibly simple and a much safer procedure than childbirth, which is subject to no such absurd regulations.
9.) Organizing and Activism - In my view, this has been shown to be the most powerful tool available to defenders of a woman's choice, and the book provides many fine examples for why this is so. The defeat of trans-vaginal ultrasound provisions, (essentially state-sanctioned rape), of anti-choice legislation from the last few years is one fine example for how, even in "red states", a large enough public outcry can halt anti-choice politicians' advance.
All in all, this book was informative and terrifying. I would recommend it as a good primer on the subject of abortion legislation and case-law, at least until a newer, more up to date book is written.
The book is highly informative and decently well-argued considering the startling array of largely disingenuous anti-abortion legislation it attempts to classify in a short ~200 pages. However, I wish I had read it sooner after it was published in 2013 because, as with all such "current events"-style books, it feels sort of out of date. Even so, it has provided me with a lexicon for understanding the various species of anti-choice legislation and the case law surrounding them. Although the book is focused on the last 5 or 6 years, it does a good job of examining earlier laws and court decisions as needed.
In the end, the authors provide a (too brief) chapter on what can and must be done to reverse the recent and ongoing assault on reproductive rights. I compiled some bullet points of their recommendations:
1.) Female Personhood - Turn the "fetal personhood" rhetoric back on the right-wing, and emphasize how various attempts to roll back reproductive rights infantilize and dehumanize women.
2.) Move towards Universal Healthcare - Only by treating healthcare as a right and not a privilege and severing, once and for all, the connection between healthcare and employment, can we eliminate entanglements like the Hobby Lobby decision.
3.) Repeal the Hyde Amendment - Access to family planning services should not be determined by wealth, therefore the state must provide services where women are not able to afford them themselves. Anything less is apartheid.
4.) Remove barriers to providers - Among other things, it should be emphasized that abortion is a standard and necessary part of OB-GYN training and should remain such.
5.) Ensure the availability of contraceptives - Access to birth control allows women to control their reproduction and should be expanded, not collapsed.
6.) Take back funding from religious "Crisis Prevention Centers" - These often unliscensed and unskilled enterprises are basically state-funded proselytizing and it is a laughable establishment clause violation that religious objections to abortion lead to family planning funding being funneled into religious organizations such as these.
7.) Encourage women to participate in the political system - Women are the group most directly effected by these rollbacks and they should be empowered to combat that tide.
8.) The judiciary needs to set an "undue burden" precedent - One of the more frusterating recurring threads in the book is how the court system has ducked and dodged around defining what constitutes an "undue burden" on a woman seeking an abortion, a threshold that was first defined in the Supreme Court's 1992 Planned Parenthood v Casey decision. Apparently, all the quibbling and farcical trumped-up "safety" regulations that have passed in state legislatures over the years have not yet constituted the "undue burden" laid out in Casey, despite the fact that a first trimester abortion is incredibly simple and a much safer procedure than childbirth, which is subject to no such absurd regulations.
9.) Organizing and Activism - In my view, this has been shown to be the most powerful tool available to defenders of a woman's choice, and the book provides many fine examples for why this is so. The defeat of trans-vaginal ultrasound provisions, (essentially state-sanctioned rape), of anti-choice legislation from the last few years is one fine example for how, even in "red states", a large enough public outcry can halt anti-choice politicians' advance.
All in all, this book was informative and terrifying. I would recommend it as a good primer on the subject of abortion legislation and case-law, at least until a newer, more up to date book is written.
April 16, 2019
Not really a book to enjoy but an important one.
January 23, 2016
An extremely important read for anyone active in the pro-choice, pro-family planning, and women's rights movement. Many of the issues Marty and Pieklo present will not be unfamiliar to anyone active in those movements, but they do an incredible job tying all the threads of the twelve different state laws they analyze together to show very clearly how America is moving towards a system of women's reproductive healthcare that is separated on just about any line you can imagine: racial, socioeconomic, political. In fact, the subtitle of this book is probably misleading; women's health is so far beyond "separate but equal" that it would be almost comical, if not for the very real, very tragic consequences.
One critique I had is that, while Marty and Pieklo outline lots of great suggestions for how to combat this massive inequality in the conclusion, they are light on details of how to go about it. For example, one suggestion they offer is the creation of a grassroots movement in support of women's rights/personhood - not unlike the fetal personhood movement. But they offer almost no guidance on women's rights models to look at or even any suggestions of groups or organizations that could be used as a building ground (or even are already doing the work). It makes a lot of the recommendations - which are commonsense and good advice - read hollow, because they come off sounding like much simpler endeavors than they will be (which anyone with movement experience will know, but the casual reader may not).
One critique I had is that, while Marty and Pieklo outline lots of great suggestions for how to combat this massive inequality in the conclusion, they are light on details of how to go about it. For example, one suggestion they offer is the creation of a grassroots movement in support of women's rights/personhood - not unlike the fetal personhood movement. But they offer almost no guidance on women's rights models to look at or even any suggestions of groups or organizations that could be used as a building ground (or even are already doing the work). It makes a lot of the recommendations - which are commonsense and good advice - read hollow, because they come off sounding like much simpler endeavors than they will be (which anyone with movement experience will know, but the casual reader may not).
May 13, 2014
Without this book, it's impossible to see the road map being used by extremists and their political allies to erode our rights. Marty & Pieklo's conversational style breaks down the legal framework with unmatched skill.
Whether you're just now waking up to the state of reproductive rights or have been involved for decades, this book is for you.
Whether you're just now waking up to the state of reproductive rights or have been involved for decades, this book is for you.
February 28, 2016
An excellent overview of recent state and federal level efforts to restrict access to abortion and reproductive health care. The authors do a good job of covering law and policy in an interesting way. I particularly appreciated that they tied current policies in a particular state to histories of similar restrictions, giving readers both breadth and depth to the struggle for reproductive rights.
July 31, 2013
This book was informative but depressing to read due to the content & relevance to current events. The authors did a great job laying out the status of reproductive health across the U.S. The book is timely due to the continued attacks on women's reproductive health access across the nation.
June 16, 2017
This book was incredible! Such a great book about the necessary activism we need to take for reproductive rights!
July 14, 2016
3 star writing 5 star content
March 1, 2017
Good run-down of anti-choice tactics making abortions harder to access in the 2000s through 2012. Wish I'd read it sooner, feels a bit dated now. Loses a star for non-gender-inclusive language.
July 16, 2022
Granted, I'm reading this in 2022 so a lot of info might be out of date. Add in Roe being overturned and trigger laws going into effect. I'm not pro-abortion but I don't believe in punishing people who get abortions either.
August 26, 2020
Surprisingly readable. I thought this would be a little dry, but I found it interesting, albeit frustrating.
September 10, 2016
Though attacks on women's rights has been debated, chewed over, and measured in election after election, they haven't been chronicled so thoroughly or methodically until this book. I've long admired the work of Jessica Mason Pieklo and Robin Marty, and I'm glad I got a chance to finally read this book.
Marty and Pieklo go over legislative fights, state by state, to demonstrate the multifaceted attack on women's rights, from the grassroots anti-abortion groups' efforts to send teddy bears to the Ohio legislators debating the so-called Heartbeat Bill to the rise of the 20 week abortion bans in states, this book demonstrates how many efforts there are against women's reproductive rights.
Anti-abortion activists aren't just trying one strategy; they're trying every strategy just to see what sticks. This doesn't always mean that those efforts are coordinated. In fact, as the fights in Ohio demonstrated, the National Right To Life viewed the Heartbeat Bill as a waste of time.
The only flaw this book has is that it's already become outdated by even more recent attacks on women's rights. Though Marty and Pieklo cover Texas, Wendy Davis doesn't make an appearance because she wasn't yet a national figure when the book was published. Though they talk about attacks on Plan B and RU-486, they don't have the contraception mandate challenge now coming before the Supreme Court. The book could only be improved by becoming a living and constantly updated book, which is more like, well, a website.
It's a tireless task, but I know Marty and Pieklo are still doing the job.
Marty and Pieklo go over legislative fights, state by state, to demonstrate the multifaceted attack on women's rights, from the grassroots anti-abortion groups' efforts to send teddy bears to the Ohio legislators debating the so-called Heartbeat Bill to the rise of the 20 week abortion bans in states, this book demonstrates how many efforts there are against women's reproductive rights.
Anti-abortion activists aren't just trying one strategy; they're trying every strategy just to see what sticks. This doesn't always mean that those efforts are coordinated. In fact, as the fights in Ohio demonstrated, the National Right To Life viewed the Heartbeat Bill as a waste of time.
The only flaw this book has is that it's already become outdated by even more recent attacks on women's rights. Though Marty and Pieklo cover Texas, Wendy Davis doesn't make an appearance because she wasn't yet a national figure when the book was published. Though they talk about attacks on Plan B and RU-486, they don't have the contraception mandate challenge now coming before the Supreme Court. The book could only be improved by becoming a living and constantly updated book, which is more like, well, a website.
It's a tireless task, but I know Marty and Pieklo are still doing the job.
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews