Daniel K. Williams, “Defenders of the Unborn: The Pro-Life Movement Before Roe v. Wade” (Oxford UP, 2016)

In Conversation: An OUP Podcast · Apr 1, 2016 · 1h 2m

Daniel K. Williams is an associate professor of history at the University of West Georgia. His book, Defenders of the Unborn: The Pro-Life Movement Before Roe v. Wade (Oxford University Press, 2016) offers the origins of the pro-life movement not as reactionary and anti-feminist, but rather as a New Deal-inspired crusade for human rights and part of a progressive Catholic social agenda. Pro-lifers saw themselves as crusaders for the “right to life” appealing to natural law and the constitution of the United States. In the 1930s they stood against the utilitarian views of abortion…