Breaking the Abortion Deadlock: From Choice to Consent

by Eileen McDonagh

For over twenty years the abortion debate has raged, with each side entrenched in unyielding positions. This book breaks the impasse by using pro-life premises to reach pro-choice conclusions. While it is commonly assumed that state protection of the fetus as a form of human life undermines women's reproductive rights, McDonagh instead illuminates how it is exactly such state protection of the fetus that strengthens, rather than weakens, not only women's right to an abortion, but even more significantly, women's ability to call on the state for abortion funding. McDonagh's approach, by bridging the divide between pro-life and pro-choice advocates, revolutionizes the abortion debate in a way that opens up a whole new avenue for resolving the abortion conflict and advancing women's rights.

Hardcover

First published January 1, 1996

Reviews

[Sarah · Rating 1 out of 5]

"Even if the fetus were a person, a woman is justified in killing it because of what it does to her when it imposes wrongful pregnancy… A fetus making a woman pregnant without consent is similar to a rapist intruding upon and taking another’s body in pursuit of his own interest, to the detriment of the woman’s interests… It is conflict that typifies a pregnancy relationship; this conflict includes the fetus’s intimate imposition on a woman, which is to say, her virtual enslavement by it… If the fetus makes a woman pregnant without her consent, it deprives her of her liberty, that is, her inalienable rights… If a woman does not consent to pregnancy, the fetus has intruded on her liberty in a way similar to that of a kidnapper or slave master.”

While logically consistent, the author's characterization of an innocent unborn child as equivalent of a rapist is extreme and disturbing.

[Clinton Wilcox · Rating 2 out of 5]

McDonagh makes an interesting case for the pro-choice position but it ultimately fails. She makes an elementary mistake of confusing cause and effect. She argues that the man and woman are not responsible for pregnancy; the fetus is (she uses the terms embryo/fetus interchangeably in this book). However, this ignores the obvious situation that the fetus wouldn't exist in the first place if the man and woman didn't have sexual relations.

As far as pro-choice arguments go, I would skip this book. David Boonin makes a much stronger case in A Defense of Abortion.

[Raelene · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oh goodness. This book is something else. What McDonaugh does is this: she says okay, we aren't getting anywhere with our "discussions" of abortion because we end up fighting about when life begins. So I am just going to assume that a fetus is a living human being. Therefore it should be treated as such. She ends up showing that if we actually treated the fetus as a human being, abortions would not only be legal, they would be funded by the government.

[John Millard · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very interesting argument.