The Unnatural in Pursuit of the Unreal

A Defense of Abortion
by David Boonin
Cambridge University Press, 2002
(350 pages; $23.00, paperback)

reviewed by Anne Barbeau Gardiner

The blurb on the opening page informs us that Daniel Boonin has written, in A Defense of Abortion, “the most thorough and detailed case for the moral permissibility of abortion yet published.” The book evolved from a college course on abortion that the author has taught since 1995, and it is one in a series of “Cambridge Studies in Philosophy and Public Policy,” recommended for students of applied ethics and bioethics.

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Anne Barbeau Gardiner is Professor Emerita of English at John Jay College of the City University of New York. She has published on Dryden, Milton, and Swift, as well as on Catholics of the 17th century.

more on abortion from the online archives

30.3—May/June 2017

Known Trespassing

on the Misuse of Property Rights to Justify Slavery & Abortion by Robert Hart

26.1—Jan/Feb 2013

The Destroyer of Peace

on Abortion as a Matter of National Welfare by W. Ross Blackburn

24.1—January/February 2011

Sanger's Victory

How Planned Parenthood's Founder Played the Christians, and Won by Allan C. Carlson

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