Before Roe: Abortion Policy in the States

Acknowledgments

Acknowledgments In writing this book I drew on the support, commitment, and dedication of many people. Ted Lowi’s enthusiasm and interest sustained me throughout. Another supporter was Elizabeth Sanders, who read the manuscript and offered several suggestions that improved it immeasurably. Martin Shefter’s work and Benjamin Ginsberg’s ideas about American politics influenced the way I approached this issue. My colleagues at Rutgers gave me a manageable teaching load that helped me to finish the book. Scores of people generously agreed to be interviewed, giving me insights into this issue that were unavailable from secondary sources: Constance Cook, Lawrence Lader, Aryeh Neier, the Reverend Paul Gehris, Ruth Cusak, Lucinda Cisler , the Reverend Howard Moody, Thomas Noone, Howard Fetterhoff, Pat Miller, Dick Durand, Mary Winters, Jane Arnold, Ellen Willis, Marion Faux, and the women at CHOICE, People Concerned for the Unborn Child, and the Committee for Progressive Legislation. Their commitment to this issue deepened mine. I would also like to thank the unnamed activists on both sides of the debate who enhanced this analysis and helped me reach an understanding of its numerous dimensions. Special thanks to Glen Halva-Neubauer, whose research on post-Roe abortion politics in Pennsylvania enriched mine, and who generously gave me the names of various people who helped me in different ways. One of these was Morgan Plant, whose political connections helped me locate ix the people and information I needed across the state, and whose hospitality made my trips to Harrisburg more enjoyable . I am also grateful to Doris Braendel for her suggestions on how to revise the original manuscript. All these people contributed to this book, but any errors of interpretation or fact are mine alone. Julie Copenhagen and the rest of the reference staff at Olin Library at Cornell University provided me with outstanding assistance, regardless of the request, from start to finish. My thanks to the Schlesinger Library at Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University, for permission to quote from its Family Planning Oral History Project Records. I also wish to thank Claudia Morner at the Dimond Library at the University of New Hampshire, who extended full privileges to me during the summers while I was working on the book, and to the law firm of Burns, Bryant, Hinchey, Cox, and Rockefeller for the use of their library. My thanks to Stacey Young, Tim Byrnes, and Martha Jurchak for their e-mails, advice, phone calls, and visits, and to Martha Raimon and Nancy Ries for reading chapters of the manuscript as well. My sisters Christine and Virginia, my brother Joe, and my cousin Ness were invaluable as I struggled to come to terms with my mother’s death, which occurred while I was putting the manuscript together. This book is for her. Finally I thank my husband, Michael Scammell, whose dedication to this book was second only to mine. From reading chapters and commenting on the manuscript to making dinner three nights a week, his support and commitment never wavered, and for that I am deeply grateful. x Acknowledgments Before Roe ...