Giving Sorrow Words: Women's Stories of Grief After Abortion [Paperback]

Melinda Tankard Reist (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 2000

I wish someone had said, 'There would be losses having a baby, but don't underestimate the loss of having an abortion.'

Abortion has been presented as a simple procedure that allows women to put the crisis of an unintended pregnancy behind them. The women in this book were told they'd be able to get on with their lives after abortion. But their lives would never be the same.

Giving Sorrow Words includes the personal accounts of 18 women who had abortions and draws on the experiences of more than 200 others. These women share their stories of personal suffering and loss -- stories that have often gone unheard in a society eager to dismiss abortion-related trauma.

Australian journalist and women's rights advocate Melinda Tankard Reist examines the experiences of women, including the lack of resources and support, the misinformation and lack of informed consent, and the intension pressure and coercion often applied by partners, parents and society in general to force women into unwanted abortions.

--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Giving Sorrow Words gives voices to women who have been silenced too long, those who have experienced abortion. Their grief is a sign of the wrenching pain this procedure has imposed over the decades --Frederica Mathewes-Green, author, Real Choices: Listening to Women, Looking for Alternatives to Abortion

A moving, engaging, and ultimately liberating collection of women's stories. Compelling reading for everyone, no matter their position on abortion. --Dr. Renate Klein, founder, Spinifex Press --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

About the Author

Melinda Tankard Reist is an Australian writer and researcher with a special interest in bioethics, women's health and medical abuses of women. She trained and worked as a journalist in Victoria and was awarded a Rotary Foundation scholarship to study journalism in the United States. Her work has been published in newspapers and journals and broadcast on radio programs in Australia and overseas. Melinda has worked as a political advisor and is a founding director of Women's Forum Australia, an independent women's think tank. She is also involved in advocacy and support for pregnant women. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: Duffy & Snellgrove (July 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1875989676
• ISBN-13: 978-1875989676
• Product Dimensions: 7.7 x 5 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,422,129 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars giving sorrow true meaning, April 9, 2003

By 

"jennweber" (australia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Giving Sorrow Words: Women's Stories of Grief After Abortion (Paperback)

I would like to commend Melinda Tankard Reist for her courage in her care to detail in recounting the experience of women
and abortion.

Her book gives an insight into the real damage, of both the physical and psychological pain women have encountered through
their experience of abortion.

Reist also exposes the coercion, the inadequacy of current pre-abortion counselling practices, the lack of informed consent, and more deeply troubling pro-choice ideology that does nothing to promote the true rights of women and their unborn children.

I believe that Reist successfully challenges the attitude that talking about abortion and the grief is politically incorrect. Afterall there remains an element of pro-choice ideology that would have us still believe that women should be grateful for their so called right to choose. Thankfully Reist's critique restores the balance in promoting the dignity of women and the real tragedy of abortion.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Pro Woman., August 20, 2005

By 

Bookeesh - See all my reviews

This review is from: Giving Sorrow Words: Women's Stories of Grief After Abortion (Paperback)

Like the woman of days gone by, who were encouraged to forget about their stillborn children, "Have another baby", "you've already got children", this is a hidden grief that can't be reolved unless it is acknowledged.

Some women who miscarry are given such unhelpful information, and other gems such as "you're grieving for the baby that would have been" (so then, what was the mother pregnant with, if not a baby), and "it's normal to feel a bit sad for a while" (doesn't really cover the shuddering waves of grief some women experience). Generally, though, miscarriage management has come a long way in the last few decades. hopefully when this generation of women is elderly, we won't be nursing distraught old ladies who are still struggling with a miscarriage or stillbirth that they were told not to talk about. But we may well be nursing women at the end of their lives still struggling to come to terms with the abortion they weren't allowed to talk about.

No matter where our politics lie, it is clear that abortion is a womans issue. Any unresolved grief is too much, and we need to be open about this issue.

It's too easy to dismiss this book as "pro-life", rather than challenge our idea that abortion is easy.

A brave, woman- centred approach.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars First-hand accounts of an unspeakable sadness, March 14, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: Giving Sorrow Words: Women's Stories of Grief After Abortion (Paperback)

This book leaves a lasting impression, but is hard going emotionally and can only be read one chapter at a time, one woman's story at a time. The genre of a personal account of suffering is refreshingly sincere and to the point. These are clearly ordinary women-next-door and the emotional devastation they suffer after abortion is likely to be the same story for a hundred thouseand similar women whose stories will never be told. So the idea of giving them a voice is a worthy one, and hopefully has helped them work through their grief.

Many readers will identify with some of these stories. The creation of a place of death in a woman's body where there should be a place of life must be the most profoundly disturbing physical and psychological event. The act - however excusable in terms of pressures and panic and ignorance - of ending the life of one's own offspring is not one that can be forgotten, but only forgiven - and that search for transcendent forgiveness is the one ray of hope in this otherwise inconsolably sad book.

There may never be a document like this one. It is a book of insight and first-hand truth about an emotionally "subterranean" catastrophy in our midst.