In the dynamic Abortion: A Personal Story, a Political Choice, Pauline Harmange (I Hate Men) defuses arguments on both sides of the abortion rights issue by presenting an intelligent, heartfelt understanding of what matters most. Twenty-three-year-old Pauline and her husband chose an IUD as their method of birth control. The method failed. The young couple wasn't economically ready to support a child and, 10 days after her doctor confirmed she was pregnant, Harmange had an abortion. Her choice wasn't easy or simple--just the only one for her at the time.
Physical and emotional trauma followed the abortion, along with some surprisingly tone-deaf comments, such as: "Isn't it mostly welfare chicks that get married young, then pop out a ton of kids?" Another such comment came from her husband: "Maybe it will never really be healed for us until we have that child we wanted, that we could have now." Rather than be shamed by the experience, the author resolved to speak about it. The more she shared, the more she discovered the crux of the problem: everyone was shouting at one another over the issue, but very few were talking about the physical and emotional healing necessary after having an abortion. Pauline Harmange makes a compelling argument to change that.
Much more could be written on the subject, but the succinct 96 pages of Abortion, translated from the French by Caitlin O'Neil, prove weighty in their own right. It's a solid, thought-provoking read that proves to be a noteworthy effort to open a much-needed discussion about a societal taboo. --Paul Dinh-McCrillis, freelance reviewer