Abortion: Law, Choice and Morality

Title: Abortion: Law, Choice and Morality
ABP identifier: ABP-W-0017
Creator: Daniel Callahan
Date: 1970
Type: Book
Description: Callahan published this wide-ranging study before Roe v. Wade, when state abortion laws and reform proposals were under intense debate.
Intellectual stream: Law & public policy; Theological ethics
Verification status: Verified
Evidence confidence: High
Historical significance: Callahan published this wide-ranging study before Roe v. Wade, when state abortion laws and reform proposals were under intense debate. He examined theological positions, moral arguments, legal rules, social conditions, and the practical consequences of both prohibition and liberalization. Rather than reducing abortion to a single principle, he treated it as a conflict among claims about fetal life, women’s freedom, family life, medicine, and public authority. The book is important to the history of American bioethics because it shows the field emerging through a contested public problem, before bioethics had settled institutions or a standard method. It also documents the close early relationship among moral theology, law, and policy analysis.