WE CHOOSE TO

Boyd and Halvorson-Boyd offer a dual memoir chronicling their experiences as an abortion provider and abortion counselor, respectively.

The authors—Boyd, a nationally regarded abortion provider, and Halvorson-Boyd, a counselor, consultant, and trainer—jointly administered abortion clinics in Texas and New Mexico for more than 40 years, and were leaders in the National Abortion Federation. Alternating narration duties, they present their intensely personal intertwined stories of how they came to share both their professional and personal lives with each other, during the eras before and after abortion was legal. While both stories are deeply engaging, Boyd’s account of being an abortion provider is in some ways the more compelling, defying the stereotype of the creepy pre-Roe v. Wade abortionist and correcting assumptions about how and why illegal abortions were performed in that time (“In my youth, women didn’t get abortions even if someone was willing to provide one, because they couldn’t afford it”). Halvorson-Boyd’s story is also very illuminating, focusing on her evolving feminism and gradual adoption of a more nuanced approach to both abortion patients and their partners over her long career practicing abortion counseling. This book is valuable for the ways in which it moves discussion of the abortion issue beyond the aphorism “the personal is political” to show how the inverse is also true, providing a fascinating analysis of changing attitudes regarding the fraught subject. The authors cogently explain why most legal abortion has moved outside of the hospital system—and why it should perhaps stay that way. Boyd and Halvorson-Boyd also refreshingly leave room for the role of religion in approaching decisions about abortion and sensitively consider patients’ ambivalence about the procedure (while still affirming the rightness of their decisions). This work is a thoughtful reckoning with the recent history of abortion in the United States.

A well-crafted medical memoir exploring the nuances of abortion in modern American history.