Her Body, Our Laws

http://www.renaud-bray.com

http://www.renaud-bray.com

With stories from the front lines, a legal scholar journeys through distinct legal climates to understand precisely why and how the war over abortion is being fought.Drawing on her years of research in El Salvador—the only country to ban abortion without exception—legal scholar Michelle Oberman explores what happens when a country makes ending a pregnancy a crime. She reveals the practical experiences of criminalizing abortion, such as selective enforcement, mistaken diagnoses, wrongful convictions, and a thriving black market in abortion drugs, and she describes how Salvadoran doctors and lawyers collaborate in order to identify and prosecute those suspected of abortion-related crimes. To illustrate how similar draconian polices are enforced in the United States, Oberman turns her attention to Oklahoma, one of the most pro-life states. Through a series of interviews with current and former legislators in Oklahoma, and in stories gathered from crisis pregnancy centers and abortion clinics, Oberman reveals how abortion-related laws become incentives or penalties, nudging pregnant women in one direction or another. A fresh look at the battle over abortion law, Her Body, Our Laws is an invitation to those on all sides of the issue to move beyond the incomplete discourse about legality by understanding how the law actually matters.