Killers of Roe: My Investigation into the Mysterious Death of Abortion Rights

Nation correspondent Littlefield debuts with a quirky yet hard-hitting inquiry into the overturning of Roe v. Wade. A fan of murder mysteries, the author frames her narrative as a whodunit in search of perpetrators, with the victims being Roe itself as well as women who died from botched abortions due to the slow, 50-year chipping-away of reproductive rights via policies like parental consent laws and the 1976 Hyde Amendment, which prevented Medicaid coverage for abortion. The result is a captivating character study of an oddball bunch, among them retired IRS attorney Paul Haring, who first approached Catholic bishops with the idea that would become the Hyde Amendment, and disgraced congressman Bob Bauman, who encouraged “jovial ass grabber” Henry Hyde to sponsor the amendment. Littlefield’s interviews with these individuals reveal their motivations—while some are political opportunists and others “identify strongly with the unwanted fetus,” most seem to be “true believers” who see their efforts as a ticket to heaven. Littlefield strives to humanize her perps rather than portraying them as villains—because being human means they can be defeated, she notes—while also critiquing the failure of the pro–abortion rights movement to more rigorously challenge early anti-abortion policies, like Hyde, whose primary victims were the poor and disadvantaged. The result is a dogged pursual of those responsible for women’s deaths. (Mar.)