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What the future holds for the legal status of abortion is anyone's guess. Certainly Roe v. Wade has aroused tempestuous reactions from both sides—those who are in favor of abortion rights (a group the author refers to as the “rights-bearers”) and those who believe that abortion should be outlawed (the “regulators”). These arguments have to do with the nature of the fetus: is it a living being from the point of conception, is it in this sense “a person,” and is it to be defined purely on the basis of biology; or is it the psychological qualities of the fetus that have to be considered? Some authorities seek a simpler method assessing the beginning of life. The mother's recognition of the baby's quickening could be considered the point at which the fetus is genuinely a person. Viability might be another way to measure humanness, or perhaps some standard such as the child's looking like a human being.
The first hundred pages of this book comprise a long essay defining the arguments that exist on both sides of the abortion issue. The final 230 pages contain a collection of detailed notes in sufficiently small print to drive away all but the most dedicated student. Yet these notes represent a scholarly commitment to presenting an enormous amount of information coupled with considerable scholarship. One can