Susan Erdreich: Generation Roe

[bibliogramma]

Sarah Erdreich's book, The Roe Generation, looks at the current state of reproductive choice access and politics from the perspective of those she calls "the Roe generation - those for whom abortion has always been legal, but has also always been a topic of public discussion and controversy.

Erdreich covers a great deal of territory in this book. She begins with an overview of the history of abortion in the US, including the role that credentialisation played in the elimination of lay-midwives experienced in abortion from the health care scene and the pro-nativist concern over falling birthrate of white women that lay behind much of the early anti-abortion rhetoric.

Adding context to her research through extensive interviews with interviews with abortion providers, pro-choice activists, non-medical personnel who work in abortion clinics, students considering becoming abortion providers, and others involved in the reproductive rights movement, Erdreich examines such important topics as:

- the current state of training around abortion care and contraception in medical schools and the efforts of anti-choice organisations to further erode access to training

- strategies used by anti-choice activists to restrict access to abortion through legislation and court challenges that have the long-range goal of overturning Roe v. Wade

- the strong focus on family in anti-choice rhetoric, and how its emphasis on the fetus and on the damage to women from "post abortion syndrome" infantilises women and perpetuates the idea that what everyone really wants is a tradition family focused on child-rearing

- media representations of women seeking abortions and the very few instances in popular media where women choose abortion as a valid and positive option.

Erdreich concludes her examination of abortion with a critique of established pro-choice organisations as bureaucratic, inflexible, and not prepared to make effective use of modern communications and social media in organising. She stresses the need for more aggressive planning and action by pro-choice organisations and supporters to turn the tide of increasing barriers and restrictions on abortions, and advocates greater grassroots involvement. Finally, she talks about something every pro-choice supporter can do - help to normalise the idea of abortion rights by discussing it in the same way as any other public policy issue. Ending the atmosphere of shame and secrecy about reproductive choices is, Erdreich argues, a major step toward being able to see contraception and abortion as normal life issues.