In this era of telephone and electronic communication, we are in danger of losing the history of our movement. The paper trail of letters, books, speeches, and diaries from the early women’s movement that fortified our work simply does not exist for this wave of the feminist movement. By losing the legacy of our successes and failures, we condemn the next generation of feminist activists to wasting precious time "recreating the wheel."A Private Matter rescues the abortion rights movement from this fate. Larry Lader, who has devoted the past thirty years of his life to expanding and preserving women’s access to abortion, does a great service to the women’s movement with A Private Matter. Through his autobiographical discussion of the evolution of the abortion rights movement, Lader describes the leaders, the organizations, and the tactics that launched and sustained the abortion rights movement. Lader’s book makes the movement for abortion rights come alive.
Most importantly, A Private Matter -- unlike far too many studies of the abortion issue -- exposes the opponents of abortion rights. In vivid detail, Lader chronicles the Catholic Church’s ongoing efforts to deny women reproductive rights. He documents the tremendous power the Catholic Church wielded in state legislatures as abortion rights activists worked to repeal laws restricting abortion access. He discusses delays in the worldwide distribution of RU 486 caused by the threatened boycott by Catholic hospitals of medical products produced by RU 486 manufacturers. The Catholic Church’s obstructionist role at the 1994 International Conference for Population and Development in Cairo, Egypt also is outlined in A Private Matter.
His case study of Abortion Rights Mobilization, the organization he founded and has led since 1975, illuminates the difference a small group of committed activists can make in the course of feminist history. The Leona Benten story is a case in point. Lader’s challenge to the Food and Drug Administration’s import alert on RU 486 in which Leona Benten with ARM’s assistance brought the medication into the country from Great Britain put the RU 486 story on the front pages of newspapers and helped galvanize the demands for bringing this medical breakthrough to American women.
A Private Matter is a call to action for current day activists to preserve the movement’s history. This examination of cutting-edge strategies that have played a role in securing reproductive freedom for women will help guide us as we move forward in the struggle for women’s equality.