Book Description

Relationships, sex, pregnancy, and abortion are among the topics discussed with engaging frankness by sixteen women in this collection of oral histories. Our Choices: Women’s Personal Decisions About Abortion presents readers with the opportunity to understand the abortion choice in a way that statistics and abstract debate cannot. The accounts show how pregnancy and abortion are inextricably tied together in the complicated social and psychological lives of men and women. By exploring the women’s feelings about becoming pregnant unintentionally and the circumstances surrounding that occurrence, the stories reveal much about how men and women communicate with each other about sex, the effect of pregnancy and abortion on relationships, and how a woman’s upbringing has shaped her knowledge and attitudes regarding sex and abortion. Our Choices: Women’s Personal Decisions About Abortion includes stories of both legal and illegal abortions from the 1950s through the 1980s. The women included represent a variety of socioeconomic, cultural, and religious backgrounds, reminding readers that any woman can potentially be faced with the decisions surrounding unintended pregnancy and abortion. The issues raised cover the trauma of an illegal abortion, abortion versus adoption, abortion following rape, abortion as a medical procedure, and the role of family and partner support. Women who are considering abortion or who have had an abortion in the past will gain a deeper understanding of this complex and private experience; their partners, families, and friends will be better equipped to provide help and support. Professionals, including counselors and health care providers, will want to read this engrossing book and refer their clients to it. Students in women’s studies and health care programs, policymakers, ethicists, and others with an interest in women’s issues will find the book enlightening. It should be read by anyone wishing a more complete knowledge of abortion and the vast array of issues it encompasses. Our Choices: Women’s Personal Decisions About Abortion can be sold in family planning clinics to clients, used in pregnancy counseling training, and retained for reference by both public libraries and family planning clinics, reproductive rights organizations, universities, and women’s centers.