Intended Consequences: Birth Control, Abortion, and the Federal Government in Modern America

In Intended Consequences, Donald Critchlow outlines how postwar federal family-planning policy came to be a political hot potato costing over $700 million a year. The 65 pages of footnotes to the book reveal the welter of data--much of it previously unexamined or recently released--he draws on to create this meticulously detailed monograph. The study operates at many levels and focuses primarily, though not exclusively, on the United States. Critchlow examines how "birth control" became "family planning" and discusses the fight over whether to include abortion under that rubric. He traces the ways in which federal family-planning policy has been influenced both by individuals like John D. Rockefeller III and by mass mobilization of public interests such as the pro- and anti-abortion lobbies. And he sets all this in the context of changing social, political, and cultural norms and mores on sex, family, women's rights, and the role of government. Recommended reading for interested scholars and policymakers. --Julia Riches