A Private Choice, Abortion in America in the Seventies

I found this book in a box full of old books while staying at a friend's house ten years ago. It didn't seem like the kind of book you curl up with, but that is just what I ended up doing. The book was written in 1979, but it illuminates things that are going on even now and explains the legal background and elite cultural attitudes behind them. It also clears up a lot of misconceptions and outright falsehoods that are passed along "Telephone-Game"-style, by the media. The tone of the book is fair, reasonable, measured and even scholarly. Noonan is no Ann Coulter or James Carville. I was pro-choice 10 years ago. I am now pro-life, and John Noonan's book had a lot to do with that change. Don't read it if you don't like having your positions challenged.

Don't let the title fool you: this book did not become obsolete in 1980. Noonan provides a primer in Constitutional law as it applies to abortion in America. More recent cases have only built on their predecessors, so by all means read this important book.