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the_savannahhumphrey's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
sad
slow-paced
5.0
savvylit's review
emotional
informative
reflective
medium-paced
5.0
"However painful the decision-making process, however fraught it is with ambivalence and paradox, it is ours."
Abortion is an incredibly complex subject that is all too often distilled into a good/bad binary. However, there are so many reasons why someone might choose to have an abortion. From simply being unprepared to parent to life-threatening situations for mother and fetus to everything in between, Choice Words covers nearly every potential situation and the resulting spectrum of emotions as well.
For me personally, as a U.S. citizen, the most interesting and enlightening stories were those from countries outside of my own. Here in the States, so much of the national conversation is about the right to have an abortion. I believe that the right to choose to have an abortion is so incredibly important and something that every person with a uterus should have. Thus I have often considered all the reasons why it is absolutely necessary to have access to safe abortions. What I hadn't considered though, were the many reasons why someone would want the right to choose ~not~ to have an abortion as well. For instance, I knew that in parts of India and China, families are told that boys are the only children worth having. But I hadn't realized that thus many women are pressured and/or essentially forced to abort their fetus once the gender is revealed to be female. I really appreciate that Choice Words has such an all-encompassing, often global perspective.
Ultimately, this collection was equal parts empowering and devastating. Choice Words really ought to be required reading for anyone even slightly interested in having informed discussions about abortion. The essays, poems, and short stories in this collection humanize an issue that is all too often spoken about only in the abstract.
Abortion is an incredibly complex subject that is all too often distilled into a good/bad binary. However, there are so many reasons why someone might choose to have an abortion. From simply being unprepared to parent to life-threatening situations for mother and fetus to everything in between, Choice Words covers nearly every potential situation and the resulting spectrum of emotions as well.
For me personally, as a U.S. citizen, the most interesting and enlightening stories were those from countries outside of my own. Here in the States, so much of the national conversation is about the right to have an abortion. I believe that the right to choose to have an abortion is so incredibly important and something that every person with a uterus should have. Thus I have often considered all the reasons why it is absolutely necessary to have access to safe abortions. What I hadn't considered though, were the many reasons why someone would want the right to choose ~not~ to have an abortion as well. For instance, I knew that in parts of India and China, families are told that boys are the only children worth having. But I hadn't realized that thus many women are pressured and/or essentially forced to abort their fetus once the gender is revealed to be female. I really appreciate that Choice Words has such an all-encompassing, often global perspective.
Ultimately, this collection was equal parts empowering and devastating. Choice Words really ought to be required reading for anyone even slightly interested in having informed discussions about abortion. The essays, poems, and short stories in this collection humanize an issue that is all too often spoken about only in the abstract.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Medical trauma, Grief, Sexual violence, Pregnancy, Rape, Miscarriage, Medical content, Misogyny, Abortion, Child death, and Incest
l_isabella's review
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
reflective
slow-paced
4.75
Very challenging because of the isolating feeling each piece conveys in the first part of the book. I would read it again though.
mzjai117's review
4.0
A collection of stories,essays and poems that reinforce the need to keep abortion safe and legal. Too many woman have died and suffered just to have reproductive freedom!