This book provides a useful overview of the abortion issue from several different viewpoints, including a gender approach dealing with socialization of males and females. Whether one agrees or not with the author's ideas, there is much highly thought-provoking material that goes far beyond causing a simple, visceral reaction to a difficult topic. The author is careful to include data that can be checked and to point out the problems related to data gathering. An excellent complement to this book is "The New Civil War" by Beckman and Harvey, APA Press, which provides the reader with a meta-analysis of the important studies to date on abortion.

Pardo takes on a difficult project and makes it accessable to a broad audience. Her analysis of race, class, gender and neighborhood politics is excellent. We learn that neighorhood context has important ramifications for how local politics are expressed, but still, grassroots activism emerges where inequality is found. The only weakness in this book is the occasional redundancies in the discussion, particularly where latter chapters seem to repeat earlier ones. But, as a book that expands the discussion of both gender and race in the context of urban social movements, this is one of the best. It balances case studies and well developed grounded theory well. Moreover, the book appeals to a broad audience in academic settings and the broader public.

I am impressed with this book and am considering using it as a text book for my legal issues in special education course. The book serves to personalize the abstract concepts of the law and allows individuals to connect concepts with scenarios. The breakout of the various chapters and case studies reflects those issues of special education law that are critical to the professional practice of teachers. The one drawback to the book is that each of the case study chapters is based on a subject of law, but the subject is not presented. It remains up to the reader to determine the concept of law from the interpretation of the case. All-in-all I found this book to present an insightful and thoughtful approach to common issues of special education that are directly impacted by the process of law.