General Discussion

All the oceans of verbiage and tons of newsprint on the subject of abortion boil down to one simple question. That question is not whether we will have abortions but what kind of abortions we will have. It is a question framed in stark human terms in Patricia Miller's The Worst of Times, which introduces us to dozens of ordinary Americans who have had firsthand experience with illegal abortion: women who survived the pain, humiliation, shame, and terror; motherless children of women who died; doctors who treated the terrible consequences of botched abortions; the abortionists themselves - barbers, midwives, mechanics; and the cops, coroners, and DAs charged with upholding the law. Abortion is a complex issue, but it is not an issue that exists abstractly in the eyes of ethicists or theologians. It is an issue that exists in the flesh - in the flesh of women with complicated lives and large responsibilities and a whole web of personal, familial, and moral concerns. As The Worst of Times makes powerfully and painfully clear, it is a question that women must be allowed to answer for themselves.