Publications and Periodicals
Legacy of Life , a 12x12 limited-edition, hardback, commemorative book, holds fifty tributes written by fifty respected leaders, honoring the greatest founders, builders, strategists, and innovators of the pro-life movement from 1973 to the present such as Jack Willke, Phyllis Schlafly, Francis Schaeffer, Dr. James Kennedy, James Bopp, Henry Hyde, Joe Scheidler, Ronald Reagan, Mother Teresa, Cardinal O'Connor, as well as living leaders who have labored in the cause to end abortion in America. With powerful leaders at the helm, pro-life advocates have tirelessly worked to save millions of precious lives. This momentous book not only highlights legacy leaders in the pro-life movement, but also tells inspiring personal stories of these heroes that have not been told before. The book's purpose is three-fold: to honor those who have dedicated their lives to the pro-life cause, to educate the public about the history of the pro-life movement, and to inspire the next generation of leaders. Ben Shapiro's foreword delivers a powerful message that will empower readers to action. The collective hope and prayer of the team of authors who assembled this work are that it will inspire generations of new leaders in the greatest human rights struggle of the last century. Contributors include: Albert Mohler, Robert George, Alveda King, Star Parker, Marco Rubio, Mike Farris, Bob Vander Plaats, Tony Perkins, Jeff Myers, Craig DeRoche, Kevin Roberts, Alison H. Centofante, Bob McEwen, Alan Sears, and many others. Purchase Legacy of Life here.
Dollars for Life: The Anti-Abortion Movement and the Fall of the Republican Establishment, The modern Republican Party is the party of conservative Christianity and big business—two things so closely identified with the contemporary GOP that we hardly notice the strangeness of the pairing. Legal historian Mary Ziegler traces how the anti-abortion movement helped to forge and later upend this alliance. Beginning with the Supreme Court's landmark decision in Buckley v. Valeo, right‑to‑lifers fought to gain power in the GOP by changing how campaign spending—and the First Amendment—work. The anti-abortion movement helped to revolutionize the rules of money in U.S. politics and persuaded conservative voters to fixate on the federal courts. Ultimately, the campaign finance landscape that abortion foes created fueled the GOP's embrace of populism and the rise of Donald Trump. Ziegler offers a surprising new view of the slow drift to extremes in American politics—and explains how it had everything to do with the strange intersection of right-to-life politics and campaign spending. Purchase Dollars for Life here.
Abortion and Law in America, With the Supreme Court likely to reverse the landmark abortion decision Roe v. Wade, American debate appears fixated on clashing rights. The first comprehensive legal history of a vital period, Abortion and the Law in America illuminates an entirely different and unexpected shift in the terms of debate. Rather than simply championing rights, those on opposing sides battled about the policy costs and benefits of abortion and laws restricting it. This mostly unknown turn deepened polarization in ways many have missed. Never abandoning their constitutional demands, pro-choice and pro-life advocates increasingly disagreed about the basic facts. Drawing on unexplored records and interviews with key participants, Ziegler complicates the view that the Supreme Court is responsible for the escalation of the conflict. A gripping account of social-movement divides and crucial legal strategies, this book delivers a definitive recent history of an issue that transforms American law and politics to this day. Purchase Abortion and Law in America here.
Men's Reproductive Rights: A Legal History, This Article offers the first legal history of men's procreative rights, filling a gap in scholarship on assisted reproduction, constitutional law, and social movements. A rich literature addresses women's procreative rights in contexts from abortion to infertility. By comparison, we know relatively little about the history of the de- bate about reproductive rights for men. This void is particularly troubling at a time when the law of reproductive rights is increasingly up for grabs, especially in the context of assisted reproduction technologies (ART). Read Men's Reproductive Rights: A Legal History here.
We the Corporations chronicles the astonishing story of one of the most successful yet least well-known “civil rights movements” in American history. Hardly oppressed like women and minorities, business corporations, too, have fought since the nation's earliest days to gain equal rights under the Constitution—and today have nearly all the same rights as ordinary people.
Exposing the historical origins of Citizens United and Hobby Lobby, Adam Winkler explains how those controversial Supreme Court decisions extending free speech and religious liberty to corporations were the capstone of a centuries-long struggle over corporate personhood and constitutional protections for business. Purchase We the Corporations here.
The Intimidation Game: How the Left is Silencing Free SpeechFor nearly 40 years, Washington and much of the American public have held up disclosure and campaign finance laws as ideals and the path to cleaner and freer elections. This book will show, through firsthand accounts, how both have been hijacked by the Left as weapons against free speech and free association, becoming the most powerful tools of those intent on silencing their political opposition. The Intimidation Game provides a chilling exposé of political scare tactics and overreach, including:
- How Citizens United set off a wave of liberal harassment against conservative politicians
- The targeting of Tea Party groups by the IRS
- How Wisconsin prosecutors, state AGs, and a Democratic Congress shut down political activists and businesses
- The politicization by the Obama administration of a host of government agencies, including the FEC, the FCC, and the SEC
Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right: In her new preface, Jane Mayer discusses the results of the most recent election and Donald Trump's victory, and how, despite much discussion to the contrary, this was a huge victory for the billionaires who have been pouring money in the American political system.
Why is America living in an age of profound and widening economic inequality? Why have even modest attempts to address climate change been defeated again and again? Why do hedge-fund billionaires pay a far lower tax rate than middle-class workers? In a riveting and indelible feat of reporting, Jane Mayer illuminates the history of an elite cadre of plutocrats—headed by the Kochs, the Scaifes, the Olins, and the Bradleys—who have bankrolled a systematic plan to fundamentally alter the American political system. Mayer traces a byzantine trail of billions of dollars spent by the network, revealing a staggering conglomeration of think tanks, academic institutions, media groups, courthouses, and government allies that have fallen under their sphere of influence. Drawing from hundreds of exclusive interviews, as well as extensive scrutiny of public records, private papers, and court proceedings, Mayer provides vivid portraits of the secretive figures behind the new American oligarchy and a searing look at the carefully concealed agendas steering the nation. Dark Money is an essential book for anyone who cares about the future of American democracy. Purchase Dark Money here.
Movement Litigation and Unilateral Disarmament: Abortion and the Right to Die:The use of courts to achieve social change has long been criticized on the grounds that judicial victories tend to provoke unwanted political backlashes. Backlash arguments characterize controversial rights-protecting judicial decisions as counterproductive, in the sense that courtroom victories provoke political counter-mobilization that is likely to leave advocates worse off than they were at the outset. These accounts generally assert or imply that if movement litigators had relied on democratic rather than judicial politics, their policy victories would be more stable and better insulated from opposition. That empirical claim has been challenged by a number of scholars, but we argue in this article that even if it is true, the backlash thesis wrongly implies that the unilateral decision by a group of movement advocates to eschew litigation will necessarily lead to a reduced role for courts in resolving the relevant policy and political conflicts. To the contrary, such a decision will often result in a policy field with judges every bit as active, but with the legal challenges initiated and framed by the advocates' opponents. We document this claim and explore its implications for constitutional politics via a counterfactual though experiment, rooted in two historical case studies of litigation seeking a constitutionally protected right to life. Read the paper here.
After Roe: The Lost History of the Abortion Debate: Forty years after the U.S. Supreme Court handed down its decision legalizing abortion, Roe v. Wade continues to make headlines. After Roe: The Lost History of the Abortion Debatecuts through the myths and misunderstandings to present a clear-eyed account of cultural and political responses to the landmark 1973 ruling in the decade that followed. The grassroots activists who shaped the discussion after Roe, Mary Ziegler shows, were far more fluid and diverse than the partisans dominating the debate today.
In the early years after the decision, advocates on either side of the abortion battle sought common ground on issues from pregnancy discrimination to fetal research. Drawing on archives and more than 100 interviews with key participants, Ziegler's revelations complicate the view that abortion rights proponents were insensitive to larger questions of racial and class injustice, and expose as caricature the idea that abortion opponents were inherently antifeminist. But over time, “pro-abortion” and “anti-abortion” positions hardened into “pro-choice” and “pro-life” categories in response to political pressures and compromises. This increasingly contentious back-and-forth produced the interpretation now taken for granted—that Roe was primarily a ruling on a woman's right to choose. Purchase After Roe here.