NO CHOICE

A journalist for Mother Jones gathers personal and historical accounts of abortion and abortion activist experiences before, during, and after Roe v. Wade.

Andrews argues convincingly that the battle over abortion is part of a larger “war on women.” To demonstrate this, she spent three years talking to individuals who sought abortions. The three-part narrative she constructs from these interviews, which she interweaves with discussions of reproductive rights history, is profoundly sobering. In Part I, the author shows how misogyny and racism, along with the professionalization of medicine in the 19th century, created “motivation for powerful people to frame abortion as an evil comparable to murder.” By the 1960s, anti-abortion laws gave rise to semiclandestine organizations like the Society for Humane Abortion and Jane, which linked some of Andrews’ interviewees with abortion doctors both inside the U.S. and abroad. In Part II, Andrews looks at how, by the early 21st century, conservative backlash against Roe v. Wade, the law that transformed an “evil” into a protected right, made it increasingly difficult for pregnant people—especially disenfranchised ones—to get abortions. At the same time, it revealed the way a racist medical establishment ignored the myriad social and economic issues that women and people of color faced while trying to maintain their reproductive health. Andrews concludes her study in Part III, arguing that the demise of Roe in 2022 was not only inevitable, but perhaps necessary. Until the connection between the devaluation of women and White supremacist gender control is fully articulated—and the complacency that gave rise to its end is replaced with a grassroots commitment to seeking reproductive justice for all—abortion will always be regarded with fear, suspicion, and even outright hostility. Necessary in its racial and gender inclusivity, this thoughtful book will appeal to anyone looking to understand the way forward in a post-Roe world.

An important book on a timely topic.