Birth Control Books

I am a reunited Mom and as I was reading this book I felt the shame begin to lift from my soul. I have been asking myself why I didn't fight harder to keep my baby and after reading "Wake up Little Susie" I see there was a conserted agenda of our government, religious institutions,and those of the adoption industry to separate our children from us in the name of what others deemed was for the best.In truth it was both a punishment for female sexuality and also we were used to provide children for couples unable to procreate. The problem is those same people did not have to live with the wounds of us Moms and our children when they decided that unmarried woman were not worthy to parent their own flesh and blood in the marketting of our children.I am freeing my shame and I am now putting it where it belongs on those that profited off of the hearts of woman and children. Shame on them! And thank you Rickie Solinger for your honest account on what was done to us . Linda Webber

When I first read Ricki Solinger's book I could not believe that she had hit upon the same phenomenon as I had discovered in my doctoral research. I found her work thorough, scholarly yet biting. In no way is it restricted to those women who lost their babies to the adoption industry, but is an insightful view into the repressed '60s which many like to think of as "swinging' and sexually free. Read Solinger's work along with Wini Brienes' "Young, White and Miserable" and Susan Douglas's "Where the Girls Are" and you will get an accurate picture of what the '50s and'60s' were *really* like. I know - 'cause I was well and truly there.

Neither "tiresome", "repetitive" nor "dry" (as stated by one reviewer). On the contrary, this book is exciting and refreshingly insightful. Only a "birth" mother can attest to the truth and honesty of the experience Ms. Solinger painstakingly, courageously and historically details in "Wake Up Little Susie".

This book is essential reading for every member of the adoption triad, most particularly adoptive (or prospective adoptive parents)like myself. Many parents who seek to adopt are told literally hundreds of times that if they are lucky enough to adopt, it may take them many years to do so. Sometimes we hear this so often it becomes almost a tired mantra.

What Wake Up Little Suzie offers is the explanation for why adoption was so prevalent in the 1950's and 1960's and why it disappearing in recent times. Ricki Sollinger recounts the many pressures on women pregnant out-of-wedlock to relinquish children for adoption in years gone by. One story that has stayed with me, is the account of a father who rather than admit his daughter was away from home in a home for unwed mothers, instead chose to tell his friends and neighbors she was dead.

Ricki than describes birthmother homes which functioned as mechanisms to pry babies out of the reluctant arms of their mothers and into the hands of the adoption industry. Most of these homes have long since shut down, but they were a fixture of the fifties and the sixties.

One of the more shameful (and sickening) aspects of the whole process was the way that non-white and their children were treated. Unlike white women, they were discouraged from trying to place their children for adoption because they were told that "no one will want your baby". Adoption agencies had little use for children other than healthy white infants.

Finally, Ricki describes how the sexual revolution of the sixties is what ended the pro-adoption climate.

My major criticism of the book is that I think, at times, Ricki offers an incomplete picture. She talks about how the system coerced women into relinquishing, but fails to deal adequately with the fact that even in these times, fewer than 50% of all women pregnant out of wedlock placed children for adoption. Despite, the stigma that existed, more women than not ended up keeping their children. She places too much blame on the adoption industry. It sometimes seems as though the adoption industry created the entire problem. In fact, the adoption industry arose because social mores in white middle class America were very much against single white women keeping babies and raising them. The industry offered an alternative, rather than being part of a conspiracy.

Ricki deals little with the role that religion and moral values played in the whole adoption scenario. Morality and the shame of being pregnant out of wedlock (whether there should have been such shame or not)drove the whole process.

I recommend the book because its scathing and accurate portrayal of how the adoption industry functioned in the 1950's and the 1960's is history that no one involved in adoption should ever be allowed to forget. For adoptive parents like myself, its often painful, but necessary reading.

Markg91359@aol.com

This book helped me understand my mother's surrender of her right to raise me. It has helped tremendously in the reunion between my mom and me. I was especially interested to find that giving away the rights to raise one's child was more of a European-American phenomenon than an African-American one. I remember taking a class once with an African-American woman who was trying to research her family tree. I felt a great kinship with her because my own roots were severed, by adoption rather than slavery. How cruel for society and the adoption industry to coerce mothers into making their babies commodities. I would like to believe that practice has stopped, but even though the maternity homes are no longer there, the coercion still is. Reading Solinger's book made me think and do even more research into the adoption industry. I'm so thankful to Solinger for writing it!

Abortion: Questions and Anwers is unlikely to sway a prochoicer to the prolife side. However, for the prolifer it is a valuable resource. The style is frank and straightforward, and abundant references are provided for further study. This book is a must-buy for those on the prolife side of the abortion battle. For those in the middle, it is an excellent summary of prolife philosophy and the data that supports that philosophy. For the prochoice, it is a thought-provoking challenge. Add it to your library today.

This book changed my mind on the abortion issue. I am now Pro Life. The pictures told a thousand words, just look at the photos and read the the facts and you will change your mind on this issue. I am now an active Pro Life advocate because of this book. This book changed my life, thanks Dr.Wilke.

This is the book that told me the horrible truth about abortion. The pictures in the back expose the truth that you won't see on the nightly news. This is a great resource for getting quick facts to questions one might have about abortion. It gets right to the point of the matter. I am so glad I read this book.

I found this to be an excellent source of information about abortion. If you want the facts about abortion, this is a good read. I was pro-life before I read the book, but am now extremely pro-life after I read it. This book considers both scientific facts and biblical truths when explaining the terrible tragedy of abortion. I have ordered copies for friends and family to read, also.

Abortion: Questions and Anwers is unlikely to sway a prochoicer to the prolife side. However, for the prolifer it is a valuable resource. The style is frank and straightforward, and abundant references are provided for further study. This book is a must-buy for those on the prolife side of the abortion battle. For those in the middle, it is an excellent summary of prolife philosophy and the data that supports that philosophy. For the prochoice, it is a thought-provoking challenge. Add it to your library today.

Provan has done a great deal of work compiling historical references pertinent to birth control. In fact, a huge portion of this book consists simply of quotes from Reformers and other honored historical figures. Regardless of one's theological conclusions on the subject of birth control, the book is worth the money simply for this data.

Unfortunately, when one looks up the original works from which most of the quotes were drawn, one finds that the quotes have been misrepresented or taken out of context. More often than not, the authors quoted were not making the points Provan implies or states they were making. Some few historical quotes do, indeed, support his interpretations of Scripture, but by no means is the case as clear as Provan would like us to believe. In those cases in which the authors do agree with Provan, there are generally clear exegetical errors on the part of the historical figures.

Part of Provan's goal in this book is to demonstrate that Protestants at large have traditionally rejected birth control, which brings us to another shortcoming of the book. Specifically, Provan fails to recognize/admit that the authors he quotes do not speak for the traditions they represent. Rather, they are simply examples of people within those traditions, who may or may not represent the broader views of those traditions, but who in any case do not represent any "official" positions of those traditions. Many Protestant churches are confessional and/or present formal documents of their official stances. No such formal documentation is presented to offer an official stance for any church prior to this century, whether for or against birth control. Other denominations are not confessional and/or present no formal documents on their positions, so that these denominations also lack any official positions on birth control.

Another large portion of Provan's argument depends, of course, upon his exegesis of relevant Scripture. Here he assumes a hermeneutic conducive to his conclusions, but not one that can hold its own against solid biblical scholarship. More careful analysis of the Scriptures in question yields conclusions quite different from Provan's and even from those of many of our traditional heroes. Our heroes were often right about the big things, but they got a number of the details wrong. Then too, they weren't fighting battles over birth control, so they were frequently happy to accept the inherited status quo (i.e. the Roman Catholic position) on such relatively minor issues.

After reading this work carefully and looking up a vast number of the sources quoted, I was confirmed in my belief that the case against birth control is not grounded upon solid exegetical principles, and that the historical case against birth control has not been established.

Provan's book makes a very good case against contraception and the contraceptive mentality. "Very good" is an understatement -- "airtight" is more fitting.

His presentation is excellent and his provision of church leaders to prove that prior to the 20th century *all* Christians new that contraception was sinful.

Unfortunately, I have a hard time getting people to read the book. They will dismiss it apriori by saying that the world "needs" contraception, or that "scripture doesn't specifically forbid it" (which is semantic dancing), or "since contraception didn't exist in biblical times, it can't have said that".

I fear for those who dismiss Provan's arguments based on the thought of the worldly. They may call themselves Christian, but they are not following God or Christ.

Provan builds a great case for the Biblical teaching against contraception, utilizing scripture, the testimony of Protestant church fathers (Luther, Calvin, Zwingli and the like), and the testimony of various Protestant church councils.

What one finds most tragic, though, in reading this book is that nobody in the Protestant church is listening. This is the fruit that the Protestant reformation has sown. In rejecting the teaching ministry of the Church in favor of Sola Scriptura, the individual Protestant can look at the scriptural arguments Provan makes and say "nice exegesis, but I don't agree". Likewise, the individual Protestant can look at the testimony of the Protestant fathers and Protestant Councils and say "well, they're not infallible".

Another irony...Provan takes great pains to show his readers that he's no Catholic, by including several anti-Catholic quotations. Yet here he is, reinventing the wheel on an important Christian doctrine, on which the Catholic church's teaching has been consistent. If he is right in his exegesis, and the Bible forbids contraception, his next question should be "what church teaches this? Where I will find the truth?" When he finds that there is only one church that teaches this, he would know that that is the church that God established, one, holy, catholic and apostolic...

In making his case against contraception, Provan ultimately makes a case for the Catholic Church and against the Protestant Reformation. And thats a case that needs to be made, again and again, until once again the Christian church can stand unified before the world.

While I agree with a previous reviewer that there are some instances in which a quote is clearly taken out of context, the overall thematic elements in the book show a true consistancy: Prior to the early 1930's no Christian Church accepted contraception.

One must ask then, regardless if they are Catholic, Orthodox, or Protestant, did the Christian Church, for 2000 years get it wrong? Are we only now 'discovering' truth in the Bible?

Or perhaps being 2000 years removed from the time of Christ, it is those who embrace the culture of death that have it wrong.

Look up the very first command that God gave to man in the book of Genesis directly after mans creation. I'll share it with you here: "Be fruitful". Now find in scripture where it states that God's command to be fruitful is fulfilled or superceded by another command. There is none.

http://www.flyfreeministries.org/forum/ http://phorum.phatmass.com

Provan's book is as fresh and challenging today as when it was first written nearly two decades ago. That the work of Provan and other defenders of Christian tradition has not been in vain is seen in the most recent Open Embrace (by no means pure, however - the Torodes accept the papistic rhythm method, for instance). Provan has moreover inspired an army of Protestant writers who are now keenly aware of the inconsistency of being pro-life when it comes to abortion but pro-choice when it comes to contraception.

Provan's task is to show that both the Scriptures and the Christian tradition are on the side of openness to children. That the first denomination to capitulate on the issue was the Anglican Church (founded on divorce, the religion with more doubts than beliefs, home to Bishop Spong, etc.) and only as recently as 1930 is more grist for Provan's mill.

Provan walks the reader through a careful re-examination of the traditional "prooftexts" against contraception ("Be fruitful and multiply," "Children are an heritage from the Lord," the example of Onan) and finds modern exegesis falling woefully short of the standards set by Luther, Calvin, Chemnitz, et al. As Melanchthon argued in the Apology for the Augsburg Confession (a confessional document, incidentally, Ra McLaughlin), that God's command, "Be fruitful and multiply," applies only to Adam and Eve is akin to saying "Let the land produce vegetation" applies only to the plants in Paradise. The command holds for all who share the nature of Adam and Eve, i.e., all mankind.

And far from making the case for Roman Catholicism, Provan shows that Protestants have historically been more faithful to God's Word on the issue of openness to children than Roman Catholicism - a point which the Roman Catholic historian and jurist John Noonan concedes in his monumental study, "Contraception." Indeed, as John Noonan argues, there is not a little to the conjecture that the pope would have gone the way of Margaret Sanger back in the sixteenth century had it not been for those stalwart Reformers (Jerome had already given the Church the argument that "Be fruitful and multiply" was no longer relevant).

Every Christian should want to live in accordance with the will of Him who sent His son to die and rise for us. That His will includes a true openness to the gift of children rather than a false "stewardship" which commodifies children and views birth control as medicine (what does that make the child whose existence the medicine of contraception is used to prevent?) is a point Provan helps us recognize. In short, a must read for all conscientious Christians.

I would not read this if you are looking for abortion information. It is a history book, and it may poison you to use these recipes.

Looking for information about birth control options is frustrating. This book tantalizes the reader with the possibilities but unfortunately, as the author points out, it is impossible to find real methods without trial and error, which is not an acceptable risk for most of us! It is fascinating to learn that birth control was possible even before vulcanized rubber and the pill, and there are possibilities out there that haven't been touched by the medical community. This book and its companion (Eve's Herbs) are well worth reading and I recommend them to anyone interested in not only family planning of the ancients' but also the history of the western world's attitude toward fertility, especially contraception and abortion. Physicians especially could learn a lot from this book.

John Riddle provides a comprehensive and compelling examination of contraception and abortion through history. An excellent reference, and the only source that shows the historical underpinnings of the contraceptive and abortive agents we use today.

Fern Reiss (fernreiss@aol.com), author of "The Infertility Diet: Get Pregnant and Prevent Miscarriage"

This is a fine reference book for botanists, pharmacists, academics, writers, and, I suppose, those who want to make the point that abortion and contraception have been around a long, long time. It is clearly written, if a little disorganized, and recipes are given, though the reader is well advised NOT TO TRY THIS AT HOME.

An outstanding work of scholarship. Riddle has gathered buried historical evidence of reproductive control through the ages. A must read for those who feel that we live in the most "enlightened" age, in regards to reproduction. Riddle will prove you wrong. Women have been in control of their reproduction for centuries. Readily available herbs have been more effective than "modern science" throughout society.

As a person who enjoys the study of social history (how people lived) and herbal medicine, this book exceeded my expectations on both counts.

Riddle is an historian, so the scholarship in the book is historical scholarship. He moves deftly between conflicting theories of demographics and actual family sizes, at home with his contemporaries and able to argue his somewhat novel opinion on a level playing field. Not surprisingly, historians tend to go along with modern medical thought that there were no effective systems of personal or professional health care prior to our own allopathic tradition in the past few centuries. Herbalists, homeopaths and the like are still fighting for legitimacy against exactly this mindset.

What surprised and delighted me was the thoroughness of Riddle's information on the herbs in question. It must be noted that he does NOT provide recipes for readers to use at home. He isn't playing (herbal) doctor. Regardless, a person with some experience in herbalism or access to alternate texts can easily take the list of herbs from this book and find appropriate dosage and other how to information from that other source--including the important caveat that herbs are not always safe and shouldn't be taken without professional advice or lots of research. Riddle's emphasis is on pointing out which plants have been indicated, by whom in the ancient world, and what science has (or has not) done to test for actual efficacy.

One interesting side note for readers who allow for the possible effectiveness of today's most revolutionary complementary medicine modalities is Riddle's reporting of the fact that, historically, chants (magic) were often listed together with the herbs (medicine) in any given herbal recipe. Riddle is careful and respectful of the potential for narrow-mindedness when he admits that, to our Western minds, there can be no believing in the usefulness of the magic side of the equation, but he makes no disparaging remarks and he allows for future scientific work to prove said "magic" effective. Of course, to a modern practitioner of Reiki or any other mental/spiritual healing system, it is certainly possible to suppose the intent of the healer and/or patient was a necessary or beneficent part of the ancient cures.

I expected to enjoy this book's subject matter, but I was actually delighted by how well Mr. Riddle covered both aspects of the topic, and even more so by the easy readability of his style. Any person who enjoys reading well-written history for pleasure will find this a work worth spending some time with.

If you are looking for do-it-yourself abortion information like I was, this is not a good book for that. It is a history book. It's good, but not an abortionary (abortion dictionary).

The best book out there thus far on herbal contraception and abortion.

I found this book to be well written, easy to read and very informative. As a post-abortive Christian I could relate to the points made concerning the "safety" of church in revealing the secret of abortion. I agree with the author that every pastor ought to read this book and embrace the idea of making God's house what it should be, a place of safety and healing for those struggling with any sin. It is a must read for anyone claiming to be pro-life in an effort to fully understand the far reaching negative impact abortion has on our society.

No book could be much clearer and more resolute to debate such a controversial theme like the one of abortion. And the reason for such a clear and comprehensive way of exposing this argument is related to the point of view of those who have been experiencing (and suffering!) a post abortion process; women, men and their families, most of them members of Christian churches. And because many members of churches have been involved at least in one or more abortions, the author intends to address her own words to the churches themselves, so that they can understand the real sufferings of post aborted women, and defeating some "myths", whereby for example the one that only pro abortion women would have abortions.
The author also points out the lack of knowledge being around this matter, the reasons why churches have misunderstood post aborted women, and finally she gives some very useful and practical suggestions to Christian communities if and whenever they are intended to promote a ministry of help and inner healing inside them (that is the organization of the volunteers, their training, the proposal and the promotion of the eventual ministry).
What is more, all the subject of this book is dealt with an international perspective; the suggestions given in the volume could be also adaptable outside the US, in the western world. In fact the ways Christian churches have faced the consequences of abortion are almost similar in several countries and so the reading of these pages are also suggested to non-Americans. At the end of "Secret Sin" you can also have some useful names of associations to whom you can turn to in case of need after abortion(s).
Of course the book itself does not exhaust all the problem (it's just the beginning of it!), but it recommends some very good readings by which you can start researching or getting informed in this field, and/or feeling compassion and understanding for those who aborted. So finally the book is highly recommendable to pastors, priests, leaders or volunteers of whatever churches, Christian groups and associations to whom this trauma matters deeply.

Sabrina Pelazza

I volunteer at a Christian-based Pregnancy Support Center so the title of this book caught my eye. It is a quick read and contains some interesting and useful statistics. However, I found myself skipping over several sections because the same info was repeated, just in a different format. This is definitely a topic that warrants attention but this book didn't offer enough substance for me in relation to the money I spent.

"Secret Sin" is a fast read that packs a punch in the face of the Church's last taboo, reaching out to the post-abortive women and men in their midst. Sitting in the pews Sunday after Sunday are a huge number of people who have been affected by abortion. Yet as a pastor of a large mainstream denomination told me, "You'd be hard pressed to find many people in the church who are compassionate towards those who have had abortions". And that's just a shame.

As you can see by my name, I may be somewhat biased in writing this review. Yet I assure you that no such bias exists. Mary has done a tremendous job of writing a book that handles the issue both passionately and with great delicacy. Rather than being a political call to action, she takes great pains to state that while she is obviously pro-life, her direct mission is not to save babies... but rather to bring awareness to the church that the post-abortive can also receive the love of Jesus Christ to transform their lives and turn their pain into promise. It is about offering love and forgiveness to those who have chosen to abort.

Making the case that abortion actually causes far more long-term problems than it solves, we discover that no less than one in three women in the church have had at least one abortion. And many of the problems that women face, such as eating disorders, drug and alcohol dependency, relationship problems and suicide actually stem from a past abortion.

The pro-life movement has spent the last 40+ years focusing on the lives of the babies that are lost, while neglecting the victims who continue to walk amongst us all... and in great numbers. The author contends that by making the Church a safe place for the post-abortive to find healing, it is the voices of those who have received this healing that will mount in number and be able to state boldly and without shame, "abortion hurt me". And when the voices begin to be heard, then and only then will the abortion holocaust become a thing of the past.

It is time for Pastors and layleaders to step up and open their hearts to those who are suffering from their choice to abort. It is time for the Church to be the hands and feet of Jesus Christ, just as he would do were he physically walking amongst the post-abortive in our churches today.

Kudos to Mary for writing this important book which I believe will be a groundbreaking effort towards bringing healing to the hurting and turning the tide of abortion in our culture.

A book which explains why contraception is wrong, and much more. Exposes the abortifacient nature of most contraceptive devices. Very valuable indeed.

John Kippley, both in this book and with his his organization, the Couple to Couples League International, has done a great service for Catholic couples during our age of high dissent. To get an idea of how powerful an argument this book gives, I may mention that this was the book that started Scott Hahn on his path to Catholicism (his review appears on the inside back cover).

Kippley proves his case from every conceivable angle; from scriptural covenant theology, from the Magisterium, and from scripture directly. While he is presenting his case, he does a wonderful job dispelling objections, handling the hard cases, and putting an end to the propoganda that our liberal society pits against what they like to call "Papal roulette", or Natural Family Planning.

I very highly recommend this book for couples, singles, and teachers who are interested in this topic. Whether you are unconvinced but are sincere in following God's will (Catholic or Protestant), or if you are already convinced and would like a more effective tool with which you can share this teaching with others, this book is for you.

As a mathematics teacher and engineer, I appreciated the straightforwardness, the logic and above all the thoroughness of this book. All married couples, couples contemplating marriages, teachers and ministers, that have any belief in God, should read it. Detailed history is presented on the use of contraceptives and why they were feared not only by the religious leaders of all faiths but also the general public. Calvin, Luther and other prominent Protestants as well as Roman Catholics are quoted. The insights of the religious leaders of by gone years are phenomenal in that these people predicted that the use of contraceptives in marriage would lead to the break down of marriage, the abuse of women and wide spread promiscuous behavior. Mr. Kippley also shows the readers, in a very lovely way, many aspects of marriage. These aspects along with a healthy and sacred view of conjugal relations will help all couples over the tough times and lead to a more loving and caring society.

Book makes some excellent points on marriage and sexuality but it reminds me of the saying "marriages are made in heaven but lived on earth". Author has some outdated theories that catholic couples still feel that they have to have intercourse with each other because they have given the gift of themselves to each other. Very hard to do sometimes when you have several kids and are worn out. Does have some good points in it, but I wonder if the author is married?

In this book, Teri Reisser, a marriage and family therapist and a pioneer in the field of abortion aftermath and healing, has presented an outline of the aftermath of abortion and its resolution in a "reader-friendly", gentle fashion. This is an excellent book for someone trying to make sense of an abortion experience. Working in the field of abortion healing myself, I know that many women have found this book most helpful to them.

This book definitely takes a religious perspective on the issue of abortion. As someone who is not a Christian, I found much of the advice to go contrary to my own religious beliefs about life and conception. If you are a Christian person who has been through an abortion, this book would probably be helpful to you as you recover. For me, many of the suggestions about thoughts and activities for healing just did not fit the situation. The book, like many others on this subject, also does not do much for women like me who needed a therapeutic abortion due to medical reasons. I am still waiting for someone to write a book that deals with the pain of having to abort a wanted pregnancy.

Reisser does a great job of exposing and describing the silent epidemic of pain and suffering that many post abortive women are experiencing. I found this book to be right on track with describing the feelings I have experienced 10 years or more after my abortion. It does a very good job of recognizing the importance of one's spiritual perspective and family situation in the healing process. From my perspective, it is not overly "Christian" in perspective.

This book is a god-send to the post abortive woman. I have suffered from this "solitary sorrow" for 17 years. This book, along with the study, Forgiven and Set Free, has changed my life.

I was one of the ones who believed I could never be healed from this terrible "choice". Please buy this book if you have had an abortion - your life will change dramatically.

I really like the premise of this book. Not all pregnancies are planned, and not all unplanned pregnancies are the sort of thing that happen to teenagers in the back seat of a car. Sometimes the pill fails, or the condom breaks, and people who never intended to be pregnant suddenly have a whole lot of decisions to make.

I also really like that the first section of the book is an open and blunt discussion of the first decision: to keep the baby or not. If you're staunchly pro-life, it may be useless, but for the rest of us who don't have that unwavering moral imperative, a little guidance from an unbiased source can go a long way.

Beyond those two points, though, the book is of questionable utility.

The chapters on financial concerns and friend loss are incredibly valuable. If you didn't mean to be an expectant parent, you probably haven't done the budgeting to accommodate the vast expense of pregnancy and parenting. And if you're pregnant while all of your friends are still leading their independent and child-free lives, you'll suddenly find yourself with a lot more free time (which you'll probably spend sleeping anyway, but that's not the point). What To Expect and its ilk, while so very useful, don't cover these concerns.

Then there are the chapters that cover the author's own experiences with symptoms or complications that are extremely rare. The digression regarding what i'll rename in this venue to 'raccoon posterior' was functionally useless. The chapter on Diastasis Symphysis Pubis would only be relevant to the 1 in 30,000 women who suffer through it while pregnant (a statistic she provides in the book). Reading about the author's trials and tribulations has its value, but i'd rather she'd spent the words and pages on more common problems that would apply to more of her readers.

(And if you're the sort who doesn't want to read about urinary or fecal incontinence, you should probably just skip the book, but you're going to have a hard reality to face later in your pregnancy.)

There's also an issue with the book itself. Flipping open to the first page of the introduction, it was clear that this had not been produced by a major publishing house. The margins are too small, the font too big, the spacing too wide, and the formatting questionable. It's not that i need insets and pictures, but it can be a little hard to take a book seriously when the text practically runs off the pages sometimes. Also, a spell-check would have been a good idea ('fourtenn', for example, should be picked up by even the most basic checkers), and a quick proof-reading for grammar and punctuation would have improved things.

So, all in all, i don't feel that i wasted my money buying this book, nor that i wasted my time reading it, i just don't feel like i got much from it except some consolation that i'm not the only person in the world dealing with an unplanned adult pregnancy.

I'm a mom of two kids in my mid-thirties. I picked up this book during my second pregnancy, which was a surprise. I thought I had a pretty good handle on stuff, since I'd already had a child, but Surprise Motherhood had a *lot* of great information that I wished I'd had the first time around.

The section on the FMLA and maternity leave really helped. Every other book gives you the same standard stuff- contact HR, tell your boss, be flexible, etc. Surprise Motherhood told me about the laws in my state, how to keep good boundaries while I was off work, and how to tactfully and professionally deal with my pushy boss. It was great knowing exactly what I was entitled to, and how to get it without seeming rude.

The postpartum depression part was also really helpful for me. I'd struggled after my older child was born and had been worried about having issues again. This book taught me the difference between normal mood swings and actual postpartum depression, and gave me a lot of info about postpartum OCD, which I'd never heard of before. I passed it on to my husband, which helped him understand.

The other great section was the birth control, which you wouldn't expect from a pregnancy book. My God, I never knew I had so many options. It was a great help because I was sick of the pill but wasn't sure about alternatives beyond condoms. Now I know about a huge number of choices, and I eventually went with the cervical cap (which I like).

Overall, this book is really helpful, both in regards to a sudden pregnancy and general girly issues like sex and birth control. Even if your pregnancy was planned, this is probably still a good book for those reasons alone.

I am a twenty-something woman, hoping to be a parent someday but with no kids on the horizon just yet. I knew Ophelia in passing in college, and when she became pregnant with her first child, I read her website eagerly, squirreling away her insights on pregnancy for the future. She told the truth about pregnancy, even when it wasn't pretty (no more taking bladder control for granted!). When I found out she was writing a whole book about pregnancy, I was eager to read it.



This book was just what I was hoping for. It's written informally, with humorous anecdotes and useful information about pregnancy and motherhood. I appreciate Ophelia's honesty; she isn't afraid to talk about things that many pregnancy-related publications gloss over, like postpartum depression. The book touches on a range of topics (including alarming and unexpected physical changes that occur during pregnancy, how to deal with your employer during and after pregnancy, and which baby products are essential) with references provided for more in-depth information.



Should I ever become pregnant, in addition to reading the traditional baby tomes, I'll keep this book on hand for a frank and informative look at pregnancy and motherhood.

I read this book cover to cover in almost one sitting and loved it. I'm a brand new dad but I connected with the "mommy" in this book over and over again.

The author dispenses with needless formatting of concepts and expectations and simply gives the nitty-gritty facts and details that one needs to expect and be weary of while pregnant and during the first months/years of parenthood. Ophelia Austin-Small incorporates her own life experiences and those of others into a feel-good storytelling format that allows the reader to lower their guard and feel okay about themselves while also being given insight and tactics to be empowered to deal with life-bearing and life-altering decisions.

Although language and topic can be coarse at points in the book, it helps emphasize that the author is not trying to sell a false, "PC" image but focuses on the often overlooked low-points and uncomfortable topics of motherhood, and parenthood in general.

I picked this book up 10 months after my first child was born, and I'm the father, yet it still held useful information for me and gave me solace knowing others have had similar experiences. Had this book been available two years ago, I would have worn the pages thin by now.

Kudos to this first time author and two time mother in being able to take her own daunting life-bearing experiences and produce a piece of literature that can help others make it through their own experiences with a bit more hope and self-respect.

Luker should be commended for her tremendous contribution with this book. _Abortion and the Politics of Motherhood_ tackles a phenomenal project, namely, charting the history of attitudes towards abortion. She does through a thorough analysis of historical sources (concentrating mainly on attitudes and later legislation in the US but starting with ancient Western philosophies) and continues through the present day where she begins to interweave personal stories of women (both pro-life and pro-choice) with her narrative. I was continually impressed with both Luker's fine writing as well as her skill in being able to analyze philosophy, history, the law, and oral history and meld it all into a gripping narrative.

The authors provide an intelligent perspective of the abortion issue. They were quick to identify few readers pick up a book on this subject without attempting to determine the slant. It was refreshing that the authors went to some effort to present the issues from the perspectives of those involved rather than a rant on justifying the author's position over the reader's. This is neither an editorial or a novel but a good reference for those on either side of the abortion issue to learn another perspective and not get assaulted in the process.

This is a great book about abortion. The author tried to be as even-handed as possible by using extensive interviews from both pro-life and pro-choice people. Ms. Luker also draws on many public documents as well so this book is thoroughly researched. This is a great, informative book for anyone (pro-life, pro-choice, don't know) because it does show all sides to the debate. In this day and age where the abortion issue is front and center, this is a book everyone should read at least once.