1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910808271503321

Autore

Dombrink John

Titolo

Sin no more : from abortion to stem cells, understanding crime, law, and morality in America / / John Dombrink and Daniel Hillyard

Pubbl/distr/stampa

New York, : New York University Press, c2007

ISBN

0-8147-8514-X

0-8147-2024-2

Edizione

[1st ed.]

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (345 p.)

Altri autori (Persone)

HillyardDaniel <1962->

Disciplina

170.973

Soggetti

Social values - United States

Social problems - Moral and ethical aspects

Social ethics

United States Moral conditions

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Description based upon print version of record.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references (p. 269-309) and index.

Nota di contenuto

Changing moralities : shifts in American attitudes and law in the moral values debate? -- Painless prosperity : the spread of legal gambling -- Abortion : contestation and ambivalence in the long era of Roe v. Wade -- Gay rights : beyond tolerance and privacy to equality -- Assisted suicide : the road to new rules of dying -- Stem cells : framing battles and the race for a cure -- Conclusion: To form a more purple union?

Sommario/riassunto

Read the Authors' Op-Ed on the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Sin No More offers a vivid examination of some of the most morally and politically disputed issues of our time: abortion, gay rights, assisted suicide, stem cell research, and legalized gambling. These are moral values issues, all of which are hotly, sometimes violently, contested in America. The authors cover these issues in depth, looking at the nature of efforts to initiate reforms, to define constituencies, to mobilize resources, to frame debates, and to shape public opinion—all in an effort to achieve social change, create, or re-write legislation. Of the issues under scrutiny only legalized gambling has managed to achieve widespread acceptance despite moral qualms from some.Sin No More seeks to show what these laws and attitudes tell us about Americans’ approach to law and morality, and about our changing conceptions of sin, crime



and illegality. Running through each chapter is a central tension: that American attitudes and laws toward these victimless crimes are going through a process of normalization. Despite conservative rhetoric the authors argue that the tide is turning on each of these issues, with all moving toward acceptance, or decriminalization, in society. Each issue is at a different point in terms of this acceptance, and each has traveled different roads to achieve their current status.