It is time, forty years after Roe v. Wade, to finally demystify abortion. One-third of all American women will have an abortion by the time they are forty-five, and most will already be mothers when they do so. Yet the topic remains taboo. With this book, the author, a women's health advocate and writer identified as a leading pro-choice activist by Newsweek magazine, offers an antidote to the usual abortion debate. Involving issues of autonomy, privacy, and sexuality, the abortion debate remains ground zero for the culture wars in America. Yet there is more common ground than meets the eye, when so many American women of all political stripes have already chosen to have abortions and most want that choice protected. This book covers "abortion-recovery counseling," "crisis pregnancy centers," and the infamous anti-choice "black children are an endangered species" billboards; describes health care providers whose lives are threatened in this stigmatized field; outlines the outrageous legislative battles that have popped up all over the country; and takes to task pro-choice activists for allowing the terms of the debate to be controlled by anti-choice rhetoric (such as the term "pro-life"). The author returns the conversation to its rightful place, asserting abortion, unabashedly, as a moral and fundamental human right. -- From back cover.