Overview

A look at abortion in four genres: poetry, fiction, and essays, written by novelist, poet, and essayist Judy Juanita. Beginning with her mother's Depression-era decision not to abort, Juanita traces how shame, faith, and morality shape women's choices to abort or carry to term. Brief essays highlight the personal and political challenges women faced with the decision to abort. The book reveals the complexities that arise for black women, black activists, and women in general. In 1968, while balancing her studies at San Francisco State and work with the Black Panther Party newspaper, the narrator discovers she is pregnant. She faces the stigma and fear surrounding abortion. Desperate and isolated, she attempts unsafe self-induced methods before learning about California's new Therapeutic Abortion Act of 1967, which allowed her to obtain a legal abortion. Juanita, reflecting on her roles as both participant and witness in the revolutionary movements of the era, challenges the tendency to minimize women's sexual and emotional contributions, arguing that their bodies and emotional labor were essential to sustaining revolutionary work. Two appendices include (1) an abridged history of abortion, and (2) 45 anonymous personal testimonies from the online site ""Shout Your Abortion"" by women who chose multiple abortions. The theme of mortality appears throughout. In several testimonies, women reflect on their experiences with abortion and how it made them think about how fragile life is. Some women faced life-threatening pregnancies or situations of abuse that endangered their health, forcing them to make decisions for survival. Others mourned the emotional weight of their choices while recognizing the importance of valuing their own well-being. Choosing to abort is not simply a political or moral issue of right and wrong, but one tied to safety, survival, and the meaning of life itself. The fiction, poems, essays, and testimonies raise the question: Is morality subjective to the individual, or is it established for the individual by society?

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9781732609815

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Judy Juanita's plays have been produced in the Bay Area, Los Angeles, and New York City; her poetry and fiction are published widely. Born in Berkeley, raised in Oakland, she attended San Francisco State. While a junior, she served as editor-in-chief of the Black Panther, the newspaper of the Black Panther Party. Virgin Soul, about a young student becoming gradually radicalized and joining the Black Panther Party (Viking, 2013) is her semi-autobiographical novel debut. Juanita's writing is archived at Duke University in The John Hope Franklin Center for Interdisciplinary and International Studies, alongside the archives of student activists from the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. Eleven of her plays are archived at the Jerome Lawrence & Robert E. Lee Theatre Research Institute, Ohio State University (OSU), where her full-length play ""Theodicy"" was a prizewinner in the Eileen Heckart Senior Play Competition in 2008. Her poetry collection, Manhattan my ass, you're in Oakland, won the American Book Award in 2021. Her collection of short stories, The High Price of Freeways, won the 2021 Tartt Fiction Award is published in 2022. Her poem ""Bling"" was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2012. Her essay, ""The Gun as Performance Poem,"" was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2014. Her short story/novel excerpt, ""The Black House,"" was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2022.

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