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LIBERTY AND SEXUALITY

THE RIGHT TO PRIVACY AND THE MAKING OF ROE V. WADE

Pulitzer-winner Garrow (Bearing the Cross, 1986, etc.) offers a vast and ponderous narrative history of the 50-year struggle to establish abortion rights. Garrow's long story begins in 1920's Connecticut with the establishment of the Connecticut Birth Control League and its battle for birth-control rights. Using an 1879 state law prohibiting the use of contraceptive devices, Connecticut authorities attempted to close down clinics operated by the League, ultimately persuading the Connecticut Supreme Court in 1940 to uphold the statute. Garrow then recounts both political and legal battles by birth-control proponents to change the law. In 1961, the US Supreme Court decided Poe v. Ullman, a collusive suit in which two married couples claimed they had sought contraceptive advice from a physician who had withheld his advice for fear of prosecution. By one vote, the Court decided that since there was no immediate threat of prosecution, it would decline to decide the case. Encouraged by the closeness of the vote, birth-control forces now tried a direct challenge to the Connecticut law. The result was Griswold v. Connecticut (1965), in which the Supreme Court finally struck down the Connecticut law as unconstitutional, basing its analysis on a previously unarticulated constitutional ``right to privacy.'' As Garrow shows, Griswold's privacy doctrine had far- reaching implications: it became the basis for challenging anti- abortion laws not just in Connecticut but throughout the country. Garrow tells of the long political battles to legalize abortion, of the first abortion cases in 1969, and, finally, of Roe v. Wade itself; here, basing its analysis on the privacy right it found in Griswold, the Court found a federal constitutional right to abortion. Finally, Garrow covers post-Roe privacy cases, as well as judicial and legislative attempts to chip away at the privacy doctrine. His account culminates in Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992), with the Supreme Court reaffirming Roe, seemingly for good. Exhaustive and exhausting.

Pub Date: Feb. 1, 1994

ISBN: 0-02-542755-5

Page Count: 942

Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 1993

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NUTCRACKER

This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)

Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996

ISBN: 0-15-100227-4

Page Count: 136

Publisher: Harcourt

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996

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TO THE ONE I LOVE THE BEST

EPISODES FROM THE LIFE OF LADY MENDL (ELSIE DE WOLFE)

An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.

Pub Date: Feb. 23, 1955

ISBN: 0670717797

Page Count: -

Publisher: Viking

Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1955

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