title: At Women's Expense: State Power and the Politics of Fetal Rights
author: Cynthia Daniels
description: Daniels (political science, Rutgers Univ.) explores fetal rights vs. women's rights, a controversial subject that increasingly has become an issue in the last decade. Divided into five essays, this book asks provocative questions that in a nutshell summarize the political debates and systematically answers them. A careful review of case law involving fetal rights and of the media's personification of the fetus and dehumanization of the woman is provided. Each chapter addresses a different scenario, ranging from forced medical treatment of pregnant women and protectionism in the workplace to the prosecution of pregnant addicts. Daniels is to be applauded for cutting to the heart of this controversial issue, exposing the backlash against women and offering solutions. An excellent legal treatise; recommended for any academic library.<br /><i>- Paula N. Arnold, Norwich Univ. Lib., Northfield, Vt.</i><br />Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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  > > > > > _For my parents_
  
   **INTRODUCTION**
  
   **I** n 2013, I joined an international organization working to protect the
  interests of children and families at the United Nations. During my first
  exposure to UN proceedings in New York City, I didn’t expect to see proposals
  for the construction of “national care systems” to house all the children of
  the world. But I did. I didn’t expect to hear pregnancy called a “career
  interruption” or abortion called a “therapeutic interruption of pregnancy.”
  But I did. I didn’t expect to hear the director of UN Women rally the General
  Assembly to “dismantle patriarchy,” or to hear educated professionals call
  prostitution an “informal economy,” or to hear people passionately campaign
  for legalizing “sex work.” But I did. Most of all, I didn’t expect to sit
  nose-to-nose with people unabashedly promoting “sexual rights” for children.
  
  But I did.
  
  There is power churning at the United Nations and in legislatures,
  parliamen