IF I SHOULD DIE BEFORE I WAKE. . .

by Jerry Falwell ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 1986

An emotional report by America's most controversial preacher (the ""Moral Majority"") on his 10-year battle against legalized abortion. Although Falwell's name stands alone on the title page, he had a coauthor: Jennifer Simpson, a young woman whose firsthand account of two devastating teen pregnancies punctuates Falwell's narrative. Alas, Simpson has enrolled in the paperback romance school of prose: boys have ""blue-blue eyes,"" girls shed Niagaras of tears. But beneath the gush, her tale delivers a wallop: one pregnancy (from a rape) ending in abortion and despair; a second pregnancy concluding happily at one of Falwell's Christian maternity homes with the birth of a baby boy. Falwell makes the most of Simpson's story as he slips on a doctor's gown to explain the process of embryonic development and the gory details of a D & C, suction, and saline poisoning; dons a judge's robes to summarize the judicial history of pregnancy; and wraps himself in stars, stripes, and biblical allusions as he recounts his reluctant entry into national politics. Some readers, be they pro-life or pro-choice, will be impressed by Falwell's grasp of pro-abortion arguments as well as his ferocious industry on behalf of pro-life causes: in addition to flooding the nation with antiabortion propaganda, he has labored to establish a network of Liberty Godparent maternity homes and Save-A-Baby crisis telephone lines to help young women carry their babies to term. But many readers will also be put off by Falwell's moral smugness, his barnstorming for the Moral Majority, and his crude comparison of abortion to the Holocaust. Guaranteed to drive some readers to the pro-life camp--and others to distraction.

Pub Date: March 1, 1986

ISBN: 0840755082

Page Count: -

Publisher: Thomas Nelson

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1986

Categories: NONFICTION