Abortion: Understanding Differences

SIDNEY CALLAHAN AND DANIEL CALLAHAN This book, like many other things to do with abortion, is a product of long controversy. Though carried out with cooperation, it was conceived in conflict. The conflict between the coeditors has per- sisted for years-in fact, for at least half of their thirty-year marriage. One, Sidney, is prolife; the other, Daniel, is prochoice. Ever since the topic of abortion became of professional interest to us, in the 1960s, we have disagreed. At one time, while Daniel was writing a book on the subject, Abortion: Law, Choice and Morality (1970), we talked about the subject every day for the four years of the book's gestation. On many occasions during the 1970s, prolife articles writ- ten by Sidney were passed out at Daniel's lectures in order to refute his pro choice views. Over the years, every argument, every statistic, every historical example cited in the literature has been discussed by the two of us. As Eliza Doolittle says about "words" in My Fair Lady, "There's nota one I haven't heard. " And yet we still disagree. How can it be, we ask ourselves, that intelligent people of goodwill who know all the same facts and all the same arguments still come down on different sides of the con- troversy? As we well know, it is possible to agree about many things and have great love and respect for an opponent, and still differ.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1461297036
• ISBN13: 9781461297031
• Release Date: October 2011
• Publisher: Springer
• Length: 360 Pages
• Weight: 1.12 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.1" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

The definitive abortion primer

Daniel and Sidney Callahan, along with their contributors, have, wayback in the 1980s presented us with the definitive work in all theabortion debate. If you would understand what the abortion debate isall about, this book, along with The Facts of Life, by Harold Morowitzand James Trefil and my book, There is a Bomb in Gilead, are basicallyall that you need to read. Understanding Differences is a group of 12essays, 10 of which are written from either a Pro-Life or a Pro-Choiceperspective -five on either side with the first two written from noparticular political view point. Each of the Pro-Choice or Pro-Lifeessays is critiqued at its end by an author from the oppositeperspective and the editors, Daniel and Sidney Callahan writing thelast two essays and critiqueing each others. Daniel Callahan is amedical ethicist writing from an essential Pro-Choice perspective andSidney is a clinical Psychologist writing from a religiously Pro-Lifeperspective. They are a married couple who had six children, one ofwhom they tragically lost a few years ago. Daniel was born and raisedCatholic and Sidney converted as a young adult. The book is the bestexploration of the differing positions informing the abortion debatethat I have ever read, and as I have been consumed by the issue foralmost twenty years, and was trained in ob/gyn in the uearsimmediately preceding the Roe v. Wade era, I believe that I know asmuch about the various aspects of the abortion debate as any personalive. (...) You need to get it and read it ifyou are really interested in the subject and desire to be adequatelyinformed to debate the issue intelligently from either side, withyourself or others. You really owe it to yourself to get and read it.wfh