Birth Control Books

Katie Roiphe searched for the pulse of sexuality in America. She interviewed high school and college students and came to the conclusion that everyone's scared of sex and AIDS and they all resent the fact that they missed the sexual revolution.

But Roiphe only interviewed students from elite schools which mimicked her own upbringing, almost to validate her own fears and sexual hang-ups. Her sister is HIV positive, so naturally, she is consumed with thoughts of AIDS. But instead of taking ownership for these feelings, which should be the case in a first-person book, she projects those feelings on the country. She's not comfortable with people having sex with multiple partners at once, so she gloms on to the fact that this may be how Magic Johnson got AIDS.

If Roiphe regrets her own promescuity, that's a valid feeling and an interesting topic for a book. But assuming the country's morals automatically align with hers is arrogant, and probably inaccurate

She does have a point, but the problem is not definable. The nations growing social conservative mood has no true definable center, it is a movment of two seemingly diffrent forces, a need for a force beyond lust (yet is also a part of lust) and a love of preaching what is "right". The virus of the SAFE is covered here with Kate's eyes wide open.

It's been about two years since I read this, but I remember the book as being dark, brooding, meandering and questioning rather than preachy. Rophie should be admired for not pretending to have all the answers on this difficult and complicated topic.

I read the book in one sitting, the writing was that good. I know it's hard to find a positive review of this book on the I-Net, but I liked it a lot even if I'm left now with an impression rather than specific info gleaned. I'll definitely read her next book because even if I disagree with her on some points I think she's an important writer worth listening to.

There's something deeply creepy about the use the Roiphster is making of her sister's HIV+ status. Never a writer in control of her effects, Roiphe weeps crocodile tears but you see her between the lines, choreographing the step she'll dance on her vanquished rival's grave. "Ha-hah, you're dead and I'm a famous writer and handbag model, ha-hah, now I've got mommy all to myself." Till that day, she can still spin a buck out of the situation. Other than that, I have no idea what the point of this book is meant to be.

I purchased this text for an Indepdendent Study course, figuring I could at least flip through the book and gain a summary idea of the case's depths and legal foundation. Although I prided myself on a good grasp of Roe prior to this point, reading the expansive text gave me a greater understanding and appreciation for the case.

While this book might be better suited for policy wonks and/or those with some legal training, the substantial read is definently worth it. Even if it is not as animated or lively as other histories of the historic 1973 Supreme Court decision, it is essential to understanding that case in the larger context of constitutional law and public policy. The right to privacy had gradually been building prior to the Roe case, and did not happen in a vaccum as some opponents would later claim.

The book concludes with an equally impressive account of the years following Roe and the combined impact of subsequent/rulings and legislation. Because this book does not rely on the "interest groups/grassroots" perspective, individuals in search of such information need to be prepared for further research.

what was mr. garrow thinking when he wrote this book? obviously he wasn't thinking about the well being of the country. his book is one sided and uninformed. i think he should do some real research before writing a book. anyways, what can he say about abortion? he's a man! it's certainly something he'll never have to deal with.

Absolutely unreadable. Worse than a bad encyclopedia.

This book is a must read for anyone exploring the law surrounding reproductive rights in this country. I would highly recommend it to anyone with an interest in the law, in the legal right to privacy, and who is willing and eager to learn. It is by far the most enlightening and simply outstanding book I have read on the subject.

Published in 1986, this is an interesting little 8 page booklet. The author, Willa Shaffer, is an experienced midwife and herbalist who conducted a study of the effectiveness of wild yam used as a natural form of birth control on several women since 1981. If taken the way Willa Shaffer describes, she purports the method to be very effective as a means of birth control. Needless to say, I have recently started on her program and have been taking the wild yam supplements. The only complaint I would make about the book is that the author is vague in some of her descriptions about the study she conducted and I would prefer to know more details. In general though, this is a great book to check out if you're interested in natural forms of birth control.

The information was ok and interesting but it was written by a layperson. There is no information about what species of wild yam was used, so people could use the non therapeutic one and wonder why they are getting pregnant. Also no information was given to how much milligrams of wild yam was in each capsule. A person could use a capsule that contains a smaller mg's of the product than this lady trialled while still consuming the number of capsules they recommended because the trials capsule were 200mg of wild yam where their's was only 150mg capsules. They may be potentially at risk of pregnancy. Therefore more research needs to be done to get the exact amount and species used. As a practitioner (Naturopath) I find this information very risky and contentious, however worth pursuing for further research....

Make sense, wild yam for birth control. I started taking it right away, but I had to kind of "just do it." She doesn't give dosages in milligrams, so I am taking 1,500 mg twice a day. Why? She says 3 capsules twice a day, and GNC sells 500 mg capsules. I guess I'm taking enough--I have no idea, but so far, so good, and no side effects...

I had high hopes for this booklet, and for Wild Yam as a method of birth control, but this booklet left me with more questions than answers.
Shaffer makes a great argument in favor of Wild Yam and offers an interesting history of the herb, while warning that if not taken as prescribed, pregnancy can (and in her examples, usually does) result.

Although Shaffer says to take "three capsules in the morning and three at night" she never says what size the capsules are (those of us who take lots of vitamins know that capsules come in a wide variety of sizes!). This to me is the biggest failing of the booklet. How does a woman who's not willing to experiment with dosages (i.e., possibly get pregnant) figure out how much to take? In my mind, Schaffer should have at least said something like, "Take 75 milligrams in the morning and 75 milligrams at night." Anything else just boils down to guesswork on the part of the reader.

Also, I was disappointed in the value for the money. It seems a bit much to pay $3.95 for the booklet and at least that much for the shipping and basically get a slim 8 page brochure in return.

On page 27 of this otherwise good book, there is a serious factual error. Referring to the 1996 bombings in Atlanta, Mason writes "The bombs killed no one but injured many."

Actually, Ms. Alice Hawthorne of Augusta, Georgia, was murdered at Centennial Park when she was hit by shrapnel. She died in the presence of her teen-aged daughter. There was one other death, a Turkish photo journalist, Melih Uzonyol, who died of a heart attack in the same bombing.

Carol Mason's book, provides example after example to explain her thesis on the apocalyptic nature of pro life politics. The was throughly researched and is consistently surprising in the amount of details present in the book.

On a personal note, Dr. Mason has been my women's studies professor for a year and a half; never once has she ever pushed her agenda/political beliefs/personal opinions on her students. In fact, she never even mentions them, she always gives BOTH sides of what we are learning and we figure out what we believe through our own papers. Just thought I should mention that because of what the the other reviewer said.

In thirty years there have been 7 shootings/bombings at abortion clinics/abortion doctors in the US AND Canada that resulted in homicides. A tiny number of vandalisms(maybe another 7). The fringe that does this (Army of God and ACLA) could fit in a booth at Dennys. And Carol Mason writes a book that claims that pro-life literature creates homicidal maniacs? Is Carol mason just desperate to make money or is she really this morally confused?

Take a good look folks. This is who is teaching our kids in college. It is her ilk and people like Ward Churchill and those 9/11 truth scholars that have ruined our colleges and universities. Truly the closing of American Minds.

In this now-famous book, probably the expert on Pro-Life activism shares his vast experience and practical know-how on preventing abortions, either directly or indirectly. He explains what works and what does not. Writing 2 and 3 page chapters and approaching the problem from scores of angles, he includes "Sidewalk Counseling," "TV & Radio Editorial Rebuttals," "Starting a Pregnancy Help Office," "Strategies for Closing Abortion Mills," "Getting Pro-Life Information into High Schools," and dozens of other ways - with, of course, prayer being the cornerstone of the whole work. The author also discusses "How to Stay Optimistic" and "Having Fun" in the struggle. Overall this is a tremendously positive and extremely valuable book to help other win Pro-Life victories as great as and even greater than Joe Scheidler himself has won! Practical and right to the point!!

This is a very disturbing book, in more ways than one. The author has spent a great deal of time, energy, and effort trying to come up with twisted ways of closing down abortion clinics and stopping abortion altogether, without acknowledging that the only way to decrease or stop abortions is to stop unwanted pregnancies. Closing an abortion clinic won't stop abortions. Finding 100% effective and accessible methods of birth control might, just as establishing totally acceptable social and financial supports for women who are unexpectedly pregnant might.
The author, and the pro-life people who support the kind of manipualtive and useless methods of 'stopping' abortion that are outlined in this book, ought to focus their energies on supporting the women who have carried their unwanted pregnancies to term. They, along with all other pro-lifers, should focus on providing homes for the thousands of children up for adoption, lingering in foster care. They will never stop abortion with these techniques. This book is very twisted and disturbing.

This book was very appualing, it was not up to the caliber of the books I usually read. There was not very much controvercy, that you would expect from a book like this. Although the complexity of the few decent stories that they had, it was very easy to understand. My son got ahold of this book, and was soon asking me all there questions about abortion. I thought it to be very unappealing. It offered a weak collection of essays from both side of the operating table. But, my friend, Brad Bucholtz (who lives in Berlin, WI) liked it very much, he bought 10 copies of this book for his whole family!

I'm an M.A. student in philosophy who has found this collection very useful and representative of the current state of the issue in American ethics. It contains landmark essays by landmark people and could be of much use both to the lay reader and in ethics classes. One must conclude that the gentleman who found the volume 'appualing' [sic] would be best served by english instruction and higher education before stumbling into untranslated Anglo-American philosophy.

I'll be honest. This CD is not my favorite. But my 3-year-old LOVES it. LOVES LOVES LOVES it--because throughout the whole CD, JLC talks to her. For her, the narration is perfect. The tone is perfect. The content is perfect. And she loves that JLC asks her questions and tells her stories.

For that reason, I highly recommend it.

I bought the book "it's hard to be five..." because the book was describing my own son...this book is great,full of real life scenarios for a 5 years old boy. Then I saw "The jamie Lee Curtis Audio collection" and I thought: It should be good and great...Huge mistake!

First of all...Mrs.Curtis narration is B-O-R-I-N-G Boring, boring, boring.
She just can helped it. I did not like it at all. All the tracks on this CD are very bad narrated but the worst part is when she is reciting "When I was little" her voice is lifeless,dull, very very emotionless and of course.. not interesting for little ones. She should listen "The cat on the hat audio collection" By Dr Seuss in order to get an idea about what exactly is to be working having on mind little ears.

I wish I could get my money back!!!!!

I read this trash-book, here in Brazil.It is available, for free reading on many internet sites.This bad book was writen, on 1920 decade, on a time when nazism, fascism and communism were on the newspapers.And this bad book has nothing against communism, fascism and nazism.This book claims that menaces to the "future" were the negros, the poors and the sicks.Please, this book is ridiculous, racist, eugenicist and bigoted.The ony value on reading this book is to see how bigoted, racists and eugenicists were american riches in 1920 decade.

This is a valid reprint of THE pivotal book written by the eugenicist founder of the Birth Control League - renamed Planned Parenthood when the world found out what her elitist-racist thinking came to in Germany in WWII. Every human being in the country and the world really should know exactly what that crackpot's plans for reengineering humanity meant, and what her followerd are intent on, even as you read this.

I am shocked that my prestigious university never exposed me to this book. I am even more shocked that I only recently came across it in my dilettantish study of important philosophical and socio-political ideas

But perhaps I shouldn't be. After all, the Christian Right has linked her name with baby-killing (she founded Planned Parenthood, although this book at least never even discusses abortion, only contraception), and our other thought police--the politically-"correct" left--must be aghast at her blatantly discussing human genetics, and the role that selective (mis)-breeding plays in determining the future of the human species.

This is not merely a "good" book. It is a great book, an important early 20th Century historical/political document, one that is almost as relevant today as it was in the 1920s.

The battle that she waged to legalize birth control, and make it readily available (especially) to poor women has been won, but not the battle to remove religious zealotry from the equation. Because sex is still seen as evil, most if not all of the concerns she eloquently (if in language that will seem old-fashioned to many of today's readers) raises haven't changed.

Read it, and be prepared to confront unsettling topics like the application of natural selection to human breeding, and the right of women to exercise dominion over their own bodies. There is, in fact, a little something to offend every rigid idealist of the 21st Century.

I found it inspirational, and it was wonderful to see my own conclusions expressed far more eloquently than I ever could.

As an aside, I have heard Ms. Sanger accused of racism. This book holds not even the barest hint of her distinguishing between the indiscriminate breeding taking place among impoverished whites from that taking place among impoverished non-whites.

One final note, this particular edition of the book has a "text-book" feel to it, meaning the type is small and unappealing, and not particularly easy to read.

Sanger wrote in Pivot of Civilization, "Colored people are like human weeds and are to be exterminated."

Eugenics: The study of or belief in the possibility of improving the qualities of the human species or a human population, esp. by such means as discouraging reproduction by persons having genetic defects or presumed to have inheritable undesirable traits.

Yes this is an important book, important for racists.

The great strides of the women's movement of the 1970's has created a conservative counter-reaction for the return of fundamentalist views on the 'proper' role of women, a cause taken up by the religious right of America and by the clerics in almost every Middle Eastern country.

If social progress is two steps forward followed by one step backward, Ann Farmer tries to take a lively step backwards in the cause of maintaining the traditionally male-dominated Christian cause of keeping women barefoot,pregnant and subservient to the men. This book - with its essential message that liberating women has been nothing more than a pinko, godless plot - will be celebrated by the least progressive leaders of the Roman Catholic Church, and by those Protestant denominations that still embrace the concept of male authority over women.

This book really opened my eyes to the birth control movement. I was amazed at the ruthlessness of its founders and their aims to wipe out poorer people and minorities using contraception. Unfortunately for them, it was the wealthy who typically used their services.

Farmer traces the control these people tried to have over family choices to the control now exerted over families, from not being able to spank your own child lightly when they're naughty to controlling their education and overtaking parental consent on so many issues. It's all part of the one agenda, removing the authority of parents over their own families in favour of the state. Frightening stuff. Please buy this!