Inception * Before Roe * The Struggle for Roe Quickening * The Father of Rescue: John OKeefe * The Father of Violence: Michael Bray * The New Militants: Joseph Scheidler, Francis Schaeffer, and Jerry Falwell * The Battle of St. Louis * John Ryans Obsession * Pensacola: From Saint Joan to Randall Terry Operation Rescue * Street Preacher: Randall Terry * Blood Guiltiness * The Siege of Atlanta * Betrayal and Breakup Wrath * Wichita: Summer of Mercy? * A Time to Kill
Jim Risen is an investigative reporter in the Washington bureau of the Los Angeles Times.Judy Thomas reports for the Kansas City Star. Both have been nominees for the Pulitzer Prize.
Risen and Thomas, reporters respectively for the Los Angeles Times and the Kansas City Star, penetrate deep inside the anti-abortion subculture in this detailed journalistic chronicle, which draws on more than 200 interviews with activists, families and experts on both sides of the battle. The authors chart the split in the right-to-life movement in the wake of the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion as a "direct-action faction" frustrated by the incremental lobbying tactics of the antiabortion mainstream that took to increasingly radical, violent measures. Led first by Catholic leftists rooted in the 1960s tradition of antiwar and social protest, it was later co-opted by militant born-again Christians, the authors contend, as Jerry Falwell's Moral Majority helped forge an unstable alliance among Protestant fundamentalists, Catholic antiabortion groups and the religious right. The book's strength lies in its chilling in-depth profiles of antiabortion militants such as evangelical Randall Terry, founder of Operation Rescue, and born-again seminarian Michael Bray, mentor to convicted clinic bomber Thomas Spinks. Photos. (Jan.)
During the past 25 years, abortion has mobilized conservative Protestant fundamentalists, now a major political force, and it continues to play a role in American politics. Here, journalists Risen and Thomas trace the history of the anti-abortion movement from its beginning in the leftist Catholic antiwar movement, with its opposition to all forms of killing, to its transformation into a splintered, right-wing, fundamentalist movement with violent factions willing to bomb clinics and murder doctors to save the unborn. The authors, who have done extensive research, include interviews with anti-abortion extremists such as Randall Terry, John Bray, and Joan Andrews. The documentary approach makes the book interesting. By focusing on a specific time period, it is less comprehensive than Leslie J. Reagan's When Abortion Was a Crime (Univ. of California, 1997), but the extensive bibliography provides access to more information. Highly recommended for all collections.‘Barbara M. Bibel, Oakland P.L., Cal.
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