Description

A brave account of the social and political forces that threaten a woman s right to choose, this emotionally affecting memoir from a doctor on the front lines of the abortion debate reveals what s really at stake in the Supreme Court In America the reproductive justice debate is reaching a new pitch, with the Supreme Court weighted against women s choice and state legislatures passing bills to essentially outlaw the practice of abortion. With This Common Secret, Dr. Susan Wicklund chronicles her twenty-year career in the vanguard of the abortion war. Growing up in working-class rural Wisconsin, Susan made the painful decision to have an abortion at a young age. It was not until she became a doctor that she realized how many women shared her ordeal of an unwanted pregnancy. . . and how hidden this common experience remains. Now, in this raw and riveting true story, Susan and the patients she s treated share the complex, anguished, and empowering emotions that drove their own choices. Hers is a calling that means sleeping on planes and commuting between clinics in different states — and that requires her to wear a bulletproof vest and to carry a .38 caliber revolver. This Common Secret reveals the truth about the reproductive health clinics that anti-abortion activists mischaracterize as damaging and unsafe. This intimate memoir explains how social stigma and restrictive legislation can isolate women who are facing difficult personal choices — and how we as a nation can, and must, support them.