Privacy

Rights to privacy in the United States have been heatedly debated in issues such as abortion, especially for minors, and the personal conduct of candidates for or persons elected to high political office. These concerns form the basis of two novels by the best-selling author Richard North Patterson: No Safe Place (1998) and Protect and Defend (2000). Underpinning a fast-paced narrative on electoral pressures, congressional trade-offs, abortion, adultery, domestic violence, and presidential privacy is thorough research on U.S. law and the advocacy of parties on all sides. Despite his even-handedness, the author comes down strongly against a bill requiring parental permission for the late termination of a minor's pregnancy in Protect and Defend. The fictional bill is defeated in the novel; three years later, President George W. Bush signed a similar bill into law.