Williams, G. H. "Religious Residues and Presuppositions in the Wishik, Samuel. "Population Programs and Policy." Villanova Wolf, Sanford R. and Elsie L. Ferguson. "The Physician's Young, Mary E. "Congress Looks West: Liberal Ideology and Zimmerman, Anthony. Catholic Viewpoint on Overpopulation. 1 Chapter 2 Legal Obstacles to Freedom of Choice in the Areas of Contraception, Abortion and Voluntary Sterilization in the United States by Harriet F. Pilpel Member, New York Bar and Peter Ames Member, Connecticut Bar ACKNOWLEDGMENT The authors are indebted to the Law and Population Programme of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy for their assistance with the verification of citations and references. COMMISSION ON POPULATION GROWTH AND THE AMERICAN FUTURE; RESEARCH REPORTS, VOLUME VI, ASPECTS OF POPULATION GROWTH POLICY, EDITED BY ROBERT PARKE, JR. AND CHARLES F. WESTOFF ABSTRACT The emphasis of this paper is on voluntarism, because freedom of choice in family planning has never been given a chance in the United States. A beginning has been made in the contraception field, although lack of funds and facilities continue to be a problem. As to abortion, in the overwhelming majority of states there is no freedom of choice; even the few states which have liberalized their laws have in most instances made the procedure difficult to obtain and surrounded it with legal and factual roadblocks. With reference to voluntary sterilization, policies and prejudices rather than laws are a major impediment, although here too there are trends in the direction of greater availability. This paper attempts to identify the legal obstacles to freedom of choice in family planning and to point to the affirmative steps that can and should be taken to remove them. Legal Obstacles to Freedom of Choice in the Areas of Contracep |