BOUNDLESS

A California women’s health doctor reflects upon her medical training and the complex physical, ideological, and emotional issues surrounding abortion.

Henneberg, born in Palo Alto, California, was raised by two accomplished parents. Her father was an engineer; her mother worked in foreign aid, which took her away from home for extended periods. In her first year of college, the author met Mo, her future husband. His parents, successful doctors living in Sacramento, were the first in their family to emigrate from India. “Mo,” Henneberg writes, “fit in easily with my family, as he did everywhere, adapting to our quiet rhythms.” She, in turn, was welcomed warmly into his large, boisterous family. Her essays, which amble between past and present—sometimes chronologically, other times randomly—focus on the grueling years of residency. Henneberg recounts exhausting, doubt-ridden days. In addition to the well-known stresses of the final slog in medical training, she was depressed she had no time to write. She thought of quitting, but she chose to stay. And “choice” is the controlling theme in a memoir that reads like a series of deft short stories—the choices made by Henneberg (e.g., whether and when to have a baby) and the choices made by her patients. In her second year of residency, Henneberg continued her training to perform abortions. She found her calling. She felt a clarity in her role: to treat the patient “with respect and dignity…confirm that she is sure of her decision, and then…perform a procedure that is as safe, short, and painless as possible.” In the mix of autobiographical tales and musings and poignant patient stories, Henneberg devotes several chapters to detailed descriptions of every step in the medically “simple” but, in fact, complex procedures for first- and second-trimester abortions. While these sections will be disturbingly graphic for some readers, they are highly informative, making clear the level of skill and training necessary to end a pregnancy safely as well as the chilling consequences of removing legal choice.

Engaging, thoughtful, and tragically timely.