Customer Reviews

Behind Every Choice Is a Story

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Too much of the debate around abortion and reproductive choice have missed the real issue: individual lives and choices are complicated and the freedom to make the right choice is what is at stake. This book describes real people making real, difficult decisions. It reminds us why the Supreme Court was right in recognizing that reproductive freedom is one of the most basic, fundamental rights of our citizens. Read Behind Every CHoice is A Story and remember that this is what it is all about: real people, real lives, and real choices. If you want to learn more about what the struggle is about, read this book.

I have never read a book as insightful and human than this book, and what it expressed.
It doesn't press the ideals of pro-choicers (for those of you who are pro-life), but instead, it gives a face to the people affected by these vary issues that so many people argue about today; people who have never and will never go through what so many woman have gone through.
All too often we forget that there are people (and their stories) behind such things as abortion, adoption, birth control, health care, child care, ecetera.
[...]
This book give a voice and a familiar face to the millions of women (the "common everyday woman")who you never get to hear speak on or during political debates.
It's a must for anyone who wants to understand the real dynamics of issues that pertain to, and affect women.

Finally, a book that transcends the shrill debate about abortion and reproductive rights. Gloria Feldt cites "living human documents" -- real first person stories -- to support her thesis that people are best left alone from intrusive "big brother" government or ecclesiastical "father knows best" edicts to make their own personal decisions about bringing a child into the world. The power of her ground breaking narrative (including references to her own life) is to lift the level of discourse from ethereal realms to the day to day struggles of women, teens and families living out their values in shifting, ambiguous contexts. The last thing they need is to have their consciences be accountable to a "higher authority." Gloria Feldt's "Behind Every Choice Is a Story" may serve as a welcome elixir to energize the pro-choice movement at this momentous time; ironically, it may also provide a bridge for opposing factions to dialogue about these stories of people who don't fit into neat black and white categories and perhaps seek common ground on the need to promote realistic sex education.

This book really showed why choice is important. Not only did it talk about abortion rights, it talked about making sure women have access to contraception to abortion as rare as possible. Basically, the pro-choice philosophy is this: Give people the education and access to contraception needed to prevent pregnancies that are not wanted. Also, treat sex as what it is: a normal part of life. Doing this will reduce unintended pregnancies, which will reduce abortions and give children a better quality of life overall because they were wanted and/or planned. The government has no right to tell you when to carry a pregnancy to term, just as they have no right to tell you to abort.
There were a few things about the book I didn't like:
1. I thought each chapter was going to be a separate story from a woman who faced an unplanned pregnancy. Instead, the book is mostly writings about Gloria's life and things relating to the pro-choice philosophy. There are many quotes in between where women talk about their choices.

2. I felt that some of the women quoted didn't know what they were talking about and made pro-choicers look bad. For instance, one woman said that at the age of 15 she became pregnant. She thought she was ready to be a parent, but she ended up having an abortion with her mother there to support her. Now she has a teen daughter, and her daughter knows that "teen pregnancy will not take place in this house." To me, that sounds like if the girl gets pregnant, she is going to try to make her have an abortion. That makes me a little upset because, the whole "choice" philosophy is to make the individual woman decide for herself.
Another woman said that she was in college and became pregnant and had an abortion. She became a doctor, and she says that without abortion, she wouldn't have been able to become a doctor. I find that upsetting too, because shouldn't women be able to have children and also be successful?
But I did keep in mind that these were individual opinions and not always what being pro-choice was all about. I recommend this book if you are unsure of what being pro-choice means, or if you want to hear personal accounts of people and their reproductive rights.

Anyone who is interested in this topic, whether pro-choice or pro-life, should (needs) to read this book. It is written by Goria Feldt, the president of Planned Parenthood so there is a bias. Yes, this would be considered a "prochoice" book. However, it transcends the whole debate because it shows that every choice is a story. This book consists of average women telling their various and very different stories about abortion. Why they had one, the emotions they went through, etc. It is a very useful book, especially since the abortion debate is a hot topic. A must read for everyone!!! It will open your eyes to the debate because it puts real stories to a sometimes obscure topic.

The author of this book makes an almost moving case for keeping abortion legal. Still, she never really adresses the life of the unborn child. She gives a lot of anecdotes which basically make a point that every thinking person has already thought about and never addresses the dilemma of the life of the unborn human. Pro-life people don't doubt that "behind every choice is a story," nor do they doubt the difficulty of the choices that people have to make. Rather, pro-lifers believe that while no outcome is ideal, the unborn human has the right to a chance at life.

Like most pro-choice authors, this author fails to make any comment on that pivotal issue in the debate. Like too many commentators on both sides of the abortion argument, Gloria Feldt make a lot of emotional appeals while dodging any ideas which might be inconvenient to her side of the issue.