What Comes After Roe? With abortion rights on the ropes, feminists can't give up on the law.

• Author: Mutcherson, Kimberly
• Position: Without Apology: The Abortion Struggle Now - Book review

Without Apology: The Abortion Struggle Now

by Jenny Brown

Verso, 208 pp.

In a move that dismayed those who have long battled to protect abortion rights in America, the Supreme Court recently decided to hear arguments in June Medical Services v. Gee. In that case, the state of Louisiana seeks to prove the constitutionality of a restrictive abortion law virtually identical to the Texas law that the Court struck down in 2016. That the Court would revisit the same issue in such a short period of time can be attributed to the fact that Justice Anthony Kennedy has since retired and has been replaced by Brett Kavanaugh. The Kavanaugh/Kennedy swap signaled the end of the slim 5-4 majority that has saved Roe v. Wade in case after case since 1973.

Now that the Court appears poised to overrule Roe--or, perhaps more likely, to keep the decision on the books while stripping it of any power--Jenny Brown's book Without Apology seeks to offer an alternative to the losing battle over abortion rights being waged in the courts. Brown harks back to the fractured abortion rights movement of the 1960s and '70s, in which some pro-choice advocates argued for reform of restrictive abortion laws while others argued vigorously for their repeal. This split remains in the modern mainstream reproductive rights discourse, which, as Brown describes it, embraces arguments about privacy rather than freedom. In Brown's view, the privacy argument buttresses other "unhelpful" mainstream arguments about abortion, including that it is a matter of individual choice rather than a matter of politics.

Brown does not want abortion to be shrouded in secrecy. Seeking to reignite a radical voice in feminist politics and activism, she wants women to talk about their abortions and not be ashamed of them. She wants women to have free access to abortion on demand and to use abortion as birth control if they want. Most of all, she wants the mainstream abortion rights movement to be bolder in its call for full reproductive freedom for women, including broad access to abortion, birth control, and pregnancy care.

In laying out her argument, Brown takes direct aim at the legal strategy that has been at the heart of mainstream reproductive rights advocacy since the Roe decision in 1973, which she views as a pyrrhic victory. In Roe's majority opinion, written by Justice Harry Blackmun, the Supreme Court held that the Constitution contains a right to privacy broad enough to protect the right to...