BEARING CHILDREN

A debut memoir of motherhood that also offers a full-throated defense of abortion rights.

In 1981, Abrams was a volunteer pregnancy-options counselor. Two years later, she became a social worker in Philadelphia, working with families of abused and neglected children. Eventually, she moved to a suburb of Washington, D.C., and worked for Maryland’s Child Protective Services. Her work experiences made her see the consequences of bringing unwanted children into the world; at one point, for instance, she poignantly writes of meeting a poverty-stricken mother with five small children. In 1989, when she married Tom, a computer programmer, the two decided to take some time before having children. Later, however, starting a family proved difficult, and after a miscarriage, Abrams discovered that she would need fertility treatments in order to conceive. It wasn’t easy, but she eventually gave birth to a son in 1993, when she was 41. Conceiving a second child was even more difficult, so in 1997, Abrams and her husband adopted a Russian daughter. This book not only tells the story of a devoted mother, but is also about Abrams’ fervent desire for her children—and future generations—to have unfettered reproductive choices, including access to abortion. Abrams’ examples to back up her argument, however, are mostly anecdotal; she points to the fictional 1987 film Dirty Dancing as an example of the oppression of 1960s women, for example, and makes the assertion that abortions performed with dirty knitting needles, prior to Roe v. Wade, were numerous, without citing statistics. Some readers may find her tone a bit cold at times, as when she compares multiple abortions to multiple skiing injuries. However, Abrams’ prose style is smooth throughout. She does have a tendency to jump from topic to topic, though; for example, in the space of just a few pages, she discusses breastfeeding her son, getting over her snobbery about shopping at Kmart, contra dancing, and a disappointing babysitting co-op.

An uneven melding of memoir and passionate argument.