Culture Wars: The Struggle To Control The Family, Art, Education, Law, And Politics In America

A Riveting Account Of How Christian Fundamentalists, Orthodox Jews, And Conservative Catholics Have Joined Forces In A Battle Against Their Progressive Counterparts For Control Of American Secular Culture. Pt. 1. Introduction. Cultural Conflict In America. The Anatomy Of Cultural Conflict -- Pt. 2. The New Lines Of Conflict. The Historical Roots Of The Culture War. Competing Moral Visions -- Pt. 3. Cultural Warfare. The Discourse Of Adversaries. The Technology Of Public Discourse -- Pt. 4. The Fields Of Conflict. Family. Education. Media And The Arts. Law. Electoral Politics -- Pt. 5. Toward Resolution. Moral Pluralism And The Democratic Ideal. James Davison Hunter. Includes Bibliographical References And Index. In Articles of Faith, veteran journalist Cynthia Gorney presents the first balanced political and social narrative of the most significant years in the abortion conflict, told from the perspective of the people who fought the battles on both sides. Focusing on the battle in Missouri, which mirrors the deepening abortion conflicts around the country as American states first begin changing their century-old criminal abortion laws. Gorney draws from more than five hundred interviews and previously unseen archival material to create the first narrative history of the modern American abortion conflict ever written. The central characters, whose evolving personal stories and eventual confrontation in the U.S. Supreme Court form the narrative drive of Articles of Faith, are two passionate, strong-willed leaders from opposing camps in the city of St. Louis: Judith Widdicombe and Samuel Lee. Judith Widdicombe is a registered nurse who runs the abortion underground in Missouri during the illegal-abortion days of the 1960s, and who then goes on after Roe V. Wade to set up almost singlehandedly the first legal abortion clinic in Missouri. Samuel Lee is a young pacifist and would-be seminarian who arrives in St. Louis to begin his formal religious studies and finds himself instead drawn to the more compelling and immediated work of the right-to-life movement. Their battle culminates in 1989, when the provocative abortion bill Sam eventually lobbies through the Missouri legislature becomes the centerpiece of William L. Webster v. Reproductive Health Services - the most intently watched Supreme Court case of the late 1980s, because it is the very first case to challenge Roe v. Wade directly before what is generally assumed to be an anti-Roe court. The Reproductive Health Services of the Webster case, the lead plaintiff in this nationally anticipated litigation, is Judy Widdicombe's St. Louis abortion clinic.

Nominated for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, Articles of Faith is a powerful exploration of one of the most divisive issues in our recent political history, and the only book to portray the passion of both sides of the abortion conflict.

Drawing from more than five hundred interviews as well as previously unseen archival material, Cynthia Gorney has written a compelling narrative that explores the years between Roe v. Wade (1973) and William L. Webster v. Reproductive Health Services (1989), the first case to challenge the Roe decision before an anti-Roe court.

Meet Judith Widdicombe, the registered nurse who runs the abortion underground in 1960s St. Louis and then the first legal clinic after Roe v. Wade. And meet Samuel Lee, a young pacifist and would-be seminarian whose provocative abortion bill becomes the centerpiece of William L. Webster v. Reproductive Health Services. The Supreme Court case brings the two advocates head-to-head.

Examines the ideological conflicts and controversies that divide the country and demonstrates how different sides have endeavored to gain control over such areas of conflict as the family, education, law, and politics WHAT HAPPENED in Sedalia was not a thing that Robert Duemler talked about: not the place, or the smell, or the low sick feeling that came to his stomach when he thought about it afterward. Draws on more than five hundred interviews and archival materials to create a living history of the abortion conflict in America through an examination of the struggle in Missouri The various conflicts presented in the prologue, and the lives that give them flesh and blood, will not be totally strange to most Americans.