Alida Brill

New York Times Review of Nobody's Business

Books of The Times; Two Views of Rights and Repression in the U.S.

By HERBERT MITGANG

Nobody's Business Paradoxes of Privacy By Alida Brill 197 pages. Addison-Wesley. $17.95.

… A more intimate look at the need for privacy in everyday life appears in Alida Brill's "Nobody's Business," a clarion call to respect freedom of choice and personal decision-making without state intervention. Ms. Brill, a social scientist, was co-author of "Dimensions of Tolerance," a study of what Americans believe about civil liberties. In a clearly written book that humanizes the right of privacy, the author discusses the array of choices in reproduction, in kinds of sexual love and in ways of dying. She emphasizes that in these fundamental matters, individual choice without legislative or judicial sanction should be inviolate. Writing of the Supreme Court's 1973 landmark abortion-rights decision in Roe v. Wade, Ms. Brill says, "We might say that women gave up their secrets in order to gain their privacy." In direct language, she adds, "In essence, the Court's decision said that a pregnant woman had a right to privacy by virtue of her pregnancy and not by virtue of her citizenship." Discussing "the paradox of the open bedroom," Ms. Brill treats homosexuality with sympathy. "To be pushed unwillingly out of the closet and into a society that still has so far to go with regard to its feelings about sexuality is at best hurtful and at worst tragic," she says. "Whether or not at the hands of a gay activist, this kind of invasion is a tool aimed at making an already vulnerable minority all the more frightened and vulnerable." On living wills and the right to die, Ms. Brill is consistent: "Perhaps it will be a long time before the right to die will be an easy or automatically guaranteed, universal right, because such fundamental ethical dilemmas are raised." But, she adds, a thorny issue doesn't make living and dying any less valid as a personal decision. Many voices and institutions have been heard on the opposite side of these complex issues of life and death. What Ms. Brill does well in "Nobody's Business" is personalize the arguments in favor of a word that does not appear in the Constitution but is implied in several of its amendments. The word is privacy. Click here for the article as posted on NYTimes.com

Editorial Reviews of Nobody’s Business 

Nobody’s Business: The Paradoxes of Privacy by Alida Brill (Addison-Wesley, 1990)

From Publishers Weekly Brill studies why individuals take public action to defend their privacy, faults Reagan-era trends that curtail civil liberties and argues that positions on controversial matters should not be the criteria for electing and appointing public officials and justices. The most bitterly contested issues, says Brill, are women's rights to abortion, gay lifestyles and the elderly's option to terminate their lives. PW called Brill's treatment "skillful . " Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal A women's studies and civil liberties scholar, Brill offers a personal essay about privacy and political struggles in the 1970s and 1980s to extend privacy rights. She discusses how privacy issues are related to prenatal rights, the right to die, and the AIDS crisis. Not surprisingly, Brill's emphasis is on female privacy, and she discusses pregnancy and abortion rights and questions whether new forms of reproductive technology reformulate the concept of pregnancy. While an often interesting and thought-provoking essay, this is somewhat limited by its personal focus. Not a necessary purchase. - Steven Puro, St. Louis Univ. Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc. –This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. Click here for Amazon.com page