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Absolute Convictions: My Father, a City, and the Conflict that Divided America

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Only in America does the controversy over abortions rage so openly and bitterly, never seeming to be settled or pushed off the front page for long. Long ignored by everyone except medical practitioners (doctors and midwives) and those who needed their services, it was thrust into the national public eye by the Roe v Wade decision January 22, 1983 when the U. S. Supreme Court ruled that states could not prohibit abortions in the first trimester and also allowed for certain abortions in the second and third trimester. But before that time, the issue had come to a head in several states including New York.

"Absolute Convictions, My Father, a City, and the Conflict That Divided America" by Eyal Press tells the story of Eyal's father Dr. Shalom Press at the center of this controversy in Buffalo during the turbulent 70's, 80's and 90's. The book describes Dr. Press as anything but a fighter for a cause. He is more like the worker who shows up every day, day after day, because it is the thing to do. And his patients need him. He did not go into medicine to perform abortions but to deliver babies. Abortions simply came with the territory because some women would have other wise chosen unsafe, illegal abortions or suicide to terminate their pregnancies.

The book explores the wide gulf that exists between pro-choice and pro-life groups and the small but significant beliefs they share: women should be treated with respect and the fewer abortions, the better. The book also explores the tactics of right-to-life groups and how those tactics sometimes escalate the actions of a fringe element to commit murder to "prevent murder". For being so intimately tied to one side, as his father could easily have been one of the few doctors who have been killed for performing aborions, Eyal Press does a marvelous job in presenting both sides.

I found the book an outstanding example of telling the history of abortion in America in the late 20th century. And it makes a good case for why the issue won't soon fade into the past.

I know Eyal Press. I know his father. I was there. All of the analyses from people who think this thing about abortion, that thing about feminism, something else about the religious right - none of that comes down to earth half so well as Eyal's book does for those of us who lived it. And who live it still.

Absolute Convictions tells the human story of the Press family's experience with the sheer hell that became Buffalo. No one realized in the early days that Buffalo was 'Ground Zero' in this battle. Who think Buffalo is central to anything? But it was the third hardest-hit city in America because it was Randall Terry's home turf by proxy - he had many a good friend in that town, and he and they made as much political hay as they could out of it. The venom and divisions they fostered ultimately erupted in a violence of such magnitude the city and the friends of Bart Slepian are still reeling 8 years later.

Only Eyal could find and ask those on the periphery of this virulence whether they have culpability in the butchering of a man who wasn't evil - just different from them in terms of where he placed his value for life. No one has asked the anti-abortion zealots that before, and the very question may have altered some of the future choices and actions these people make. Abortion opponents are ultimately low-sacrifice people: they think they are brave for giving up a few hours on Saturday morning or shivering in the cold, but they have remained merely smug finger-pointers. They are without reflection on their own morality, their own culpability, their own need to examine values and conscience. Eyal made at least one face up to the consequences of her actions. Perhaps more will follow.

Eyal makes it clear: Doctors who respect women's health and their right to choose the course of their lives are pro-life, too. They value adult, sentient human beings over what for them are still only potential humans. And on the turn of this difference, real people are dying.

Absolute Convictions lets us see inside the fanatacism, and it becomes frighteningly clear: no matter what happens to Roe, either the nation or the states with strong pro-choice positions will erupt once again. Absolute convictions don't just go away.

Eyal Press is a gifted writer, free lance. This is his first book.

In less than 300 pages he tells of his home town Buffalo, New York where with his father he once routed for the Buffalo Bills.

He tells of the city which like so many in the 'rust belt" came on hard times. As a child he came from Israel with his parents. His mother surived the death camps of Hitler. HIs father,educated in medicine served the military.

Doctor Press moved to Buffalo and set up practice in OB/BYN along with a new colleague, Dr Barnette Slepian would later die in his home, shot by a Right to Life zealot Jams Kopp.

For those who insist that the abortion of a fetus is no less murder than this murder of a physician, husband and father--this book may be rejected. But I found it very fair, with compassion for all of us who care about our country and this awful division on such a personal matter.

ABSOLUTE CONVICTIONS is a surprisingly good book. It's thorough, fair, and well-written.

Mr. Eyal Press tells the story of abortion in Buffalo, New York. He tells the story of his Jewish family. He tells the history of Buffalo including the economy and politics and industry. He then weaves all this together with the abortion battle and how Buffalo was to became "the next big thing" in the abortion battle.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the "Rescue Movement" was actively blocking abortion clinics and using civil disobedience to stop abortion. After the massive "Summer of Mercy" protests in Wichita, Kansas in 1991, Pro-Life leaders set their sights on Buffalo. The Union-supporting Democrat mayor of Buffalo was Pro-Life and actually invited Operation Rescue to town to shut down the abortion clinics. A showdown followed during the 1992 "Spring of Life". But this time, the proabortion side would not be caught off-guard as they had been in Wichita. Things didn't got well for Pro-Lifers in Buffalo.

This book is amazingly fair. The author is the son of an abortionist, yet he is fair and honest and open with Pro-Lifers. Mr. Press doesn't demean or misrepresent the motives or dedication of Pro-Life activists... even those who blockaded his own father's abortion clinic. And Pro-Life activists were candid with him. This speaks volumes about the author's character. I am a Pro-Life activist, and I know how tightlipped we have learned to be when "journalists" want to interview us. Mr. Press had to earn the trust of Pro-Lifers which he obviously did.

Mr. Press talks about the shooting of a Buffalo abortionist in 1998, but he doesn't try to convey culpability upon those who were not involved... as some have vainly tried including Phyllida Howe who has also reviewed this book.

If you're seeking a self-affirming proabortion rant, then please look elsewhere. If you're wanting to read stale proabortion slogans, then buy something else. If you want to view the abortion battle through a warped, paranoid lens, then buy some other book. There are plenty proabortion books like that for sale.

I recommend this book for any abortion activist whether Pro-Life or proabortion.

A male reviewer writes: "But as for the rest of the circumstances (which are largely the result of 'convenience,') I'd like to see it stopped." ... "So I'm a 'Christo-Fascist' for thinking that people shouldn't have abortions because their baby is the wrong sex, and because I think that partial birth abortion is wrong."

No, and you are not a Christo-fascist for thinking so little of women and understanding so little about the realities of women's lives that you would actually say any abortions are "largely the result of 'convenience.'" (For example, how long has it been since you were a young, single mother of two young children, on your own with a low-paying job, facing the "inconvenience" of losing that job because you were pregnant?)

Nor are you a Christo-fascist for regarding an insentient developing embryo as a "baby." An acorn is not an oak tree. When a developing embryo, then fetus, becomes a person that is anyone's business other than that of the woman deeply within whose body it resides is a philosophical issue upon which rational people reasonably differ, not a fact upon which law should rest.

You have a right to think whatever you think.

You ARE a Christo-fascist (assuming you derive your thoughts on this issue -- or have swallowed what has been spoon-fed you -- from your interpretation of Christian mythology) because you want your thoughts -- your religious beliefs (note: beliefs, NOT facts) -- transformed into coercive law on all (regardless of what THEY believe) that would have horrendous consequences for women, teenage girls, and their families.

That previously quoted male reviewer, perhaps as naively as the late Senator Pat Moynihan whom he quotes, resorts to the hackneyed fallacy of so-called "partial birth abortion." The deceptive and inflammatory term, "partial birth abortion," invented by "pro-life" propagandists, has no medical meaning and is not a medical term. This deliberately misleading and inflammatory term refers very loosely not to third trimester, or late term, abortion at all, but to a specific technique of abortion that is usually employed, when at all, infrequently in the second trimester and only very rarely in the early third trimester in order to reduce the risk of surgical injury to the woman, although its meaning has become progressively more blurred in the deceptive attempts by "pro-life" lawmakers in various state legislatures and in Congress to write prohibitions of it in wording that could be used to criminalize all abortions. The term itself is inaccurate and misleading because it carries the false implication that fetuses aborted by this procedure are normal, healthy fetuses that are far enough along in development that they could simply be born instead, which is never the case. If such a law ever stands, it will prevent no abortions at all unless it is so ambiguously written and so liberally interpreted that it might lend itself to effectively banning all abortions. If clearly written and strictly interpreted to apply to only one technique of abortion, it will merely require physicians to use other methods that in some cases will present greater risks to the women involved.

Lest we forget:

The World Health Organization has estimated that in those parts of the world in which abortion is illegal, more than 70,000 desperate women and teenage girls die every year from illegal attempts to abort unwanted pregnancies. That is more than one every 10 minutes DEAD because they are prohibited by law from accessing a reputable legal clinic for a safe, legal abortion. Many times that number are seriously injured and maimed for life.

In addition, every minute, night and day, no holidays or weekends off, around the world, one woman dies of complications of pregnancy and childbirth (every minute), ten teenage girls undergo unsafe abortions (every minute), thirteen infants under twelve months old die (every minute), fifty seven people contract an STD (every minute), eleven people are infected with HIV (every minute), and the already-burgeoned-beyond-the-planet's-capacity-to-sustain human population increases by one hundred fifty more people (every minute), all sanctioned, encouraged, and even required by our Republican-dominated (currently "Christo-fascist") government through international interference with and withholding of funding from worldwide reproductive health programs.

There are 525,600 minutes in a year. You do the arithmetic. The numbers are so huge as to be virtually impossible to contemplate, but those are the kinds of numbers we deal with when describing events in a world population of 6.5 billion individuals that is growing exponentially toward the point of severe degradation or even destruction of the biosphere upon which all life depends.

Is that what you want the United States of America to become?

In the United States we are vastly more fortunate. About 3,500 to 4,000 women (out of a population of nearly 300,000,000) every day have abortions in the United States that are legal and therefore extremely safe. More than 1/3 of all adult women in the country have had an abortion. You just never hear about it because they keep it secret. It's one of those taboo subjects people don't feel free to discuss.

Abortion was not always so safe in the United States, because it was illegal here, too, until January 22, 1973, when the United States Supreme Court issued its decision in the case of Roe vs. Wade. Prior to that momentous decision, which declared unconstitutional, and therefore unenforceable, all state laws prohibiting abortion, the statistics in the U.S. were similar to those quoted above, and there are today those tragically misguided persons and their narrow and uncompromising political, legal, and religious organizations in this country who are fervently struggling to throw history into reverse and turn back the clock to those horrific times.

Opposition to safe, legal abortion is often speciously supported by references to a few bad outcomes that are presented with extreme dishonesty and in sensationalized, exaggerated form in antiabortion propaganda as commonplace. In reality, there is no form of medical or surgical treatment that is absolutely safe. All medical and surgical interventions carry some degree of risk of bad outcome, and this is no more or less true of abortion than of any other medical or surgical procedures. The risks of abortion when provided legally and thus openly and relatively extremely safely are possible, but extremely rare - and the risks are much higher with continuing a pregnancy and giving birth, the one and only alternative, than they are with abortion.

Abortion carries, qualitatively, essentially the same risks as continuing a pregnancy and giving birth, the difference being that, quantitatively, the risks are many times less likely and less severe with abortion. Additionally, there are risks of later pregnancy that are avoided by abortion, such as pregnancy-induced hypertension, the aggravation of some chronic diseases, and a serious convulsive disorder known as eclampsia or toxemia of pregnancy, as well as the possibility of major abdominal surgery if a cesarean section is needed.

By misguided law in several states physicians are required to tell women considering abortion that there is a possibility of an increased risk of breast cancer later in life for women who have had an abortion. However, there is no medical evidence to support this idea. In fact, this has been taken very seriously and proven by medical research not to be so.

Another well-known claim made in anti-abortion propaganda to shame and frighten women and demonize abortion and abortion providers is the specious assertion that all, or a large percentage of, women who have abortions of their own free choice will have subsequent serious psychological-emotional problems directly caused by the abortions. Extensive surveys and objective psychological studies have firmly established that the vast majority of women who have had abortions adjust well and absolutely do not subsequently suffer significant psychological or emotional problems, and that in those who do, the emotional dysphoria/dysfunction is not simply the result of the abortion per se, but of the totality of the complex and varied circumstances surrounding unwanted pregnancy and the decision to have an abortion, including religious belief-induced fear, shame, and guilt.

I don't think it is a tenet of American law that freedoms should be restricted because some might later regret their exercise of these freedoms. If it were, of course, one of the first of MANY freedoms to go would be the freedom to get married. Think about it.

The false notion is advanced in antiabortion propaganda that "family values" would be supported by abolishing, by means of broad-brushed restrictive laws that actually prohibit families from exercising their autonomous rights, the choice of the alternative of abortion for unwanted pregnancies. It is obvious that such governmental interference in family matters would actually seriously reduce the abilities of individuals and their families to make such momentous personal decisions on their own in consultation with their own doctors and in consideration of their own religious faith and moral values. Taking the fate of any individual or of any family out of their own hands and placing it into the hands of the laws of politicians and government influenced by the narrow religious views of others does not strengthen or support families or family values. It weakens them, often with tragic results, as I have personally witnessed many times.

The book is remarkably rational, reasonable, informative, and balanced. I can't imagine how a better balance written by a rational person could be attained when faced with an unflinchingly fanatical movement bent upon subjugating all to the tyranny of uncompromising religious dogma. Freedom still has a place in this country.

At least, I hope so.

One might expect a one-sided polemic from the son of an abortionist, but this book is even-handed and accurate. People on both sides of this crucial issue would gain insight from Press's account. As one of the attorneys who helped defend pro-life demonstrators in local and federal courts in Buffalo, I have my own point-of-view and tales to tell. This ongoing controversy continues to rage in spite of court rulings and the murder of abortionists. After thirty plus years, it continues to divide America.

One of the questions the author poses is: "Why is abortion in America so polarizing that those that want to stop it murder doctors?".

The answer may lie in the falsehoods espoused by Christo-facists that include terms such as "sex selection abortions" and "partial birth abortions".

Having lived in Buffalo for many years with a vivid memory of the events in the book, I clearly remember how valued the "Right to Lifers" respect women.

Simply put, they don't.

Eyal Press has done his home town proud with a great telling of the events surrounding the murder of Dr. Slepian and how it effected his family.

Thank you Eyal Press for telling this important story.

"The book is remarkably rational, reasonable, informative, and balanced."

Mr. West you might have kept your comments more focused. While I agree with you in large part you do a disservce to your opinions. I am not sure what incidence of VD has to do with what the otherwise admirable group of stats that you have gathered. Or for that matter, why you would bother dwelling in what is a murky a clearly impossible to settle personhood argument or an off-topic and probably paranoid Malthusian worry is beyond me. Nor are the reports that most women who have abortions free of psychological trauma any consolation to those that do.

Your key point deserves emphasis: the making of coercive law on the basis of the beliefs - mostly religious - of a subset of the population has no place in a free society. It would be nice though if we really lived in a free society.

Of course Mr. Press views the abortion industry as an honorable profession. This book is an extremely biased justification of a horrible "procedure". I actually couldn't even finish the book.