Choice Reads began as a bimonthly book club in Boston from March 2007 - June 2008. A small group would meet and hold lively discussions about issues of reproductive choice. View a list of the books we discussed.

 

In September 2008, we relaunched Choice Reads as an online book-of-the-month club. Every month or two, we post a new book suggestion with a mini reader's guide. View past books with their reader's guides.

 

If you would like to recommend a book, receive book suggestions directly, or meet to discuss books, please contact Pem at pem@prochoicemass.org or 617-556-8800 x14.

 

 

This Common Secret: My Journey as an Abortion Doctor
by Susan Wicklund

 

 

In This Common Secret, Dr. Susan Wicklund chronicles her emotional and dramatic twenty-year career on the front lines of the abortion war. Growing up in working class, rural Wisconsin, Wicklund had her own painful abortion at a young age. It was not until she became a doctor that she realized how many women shared her ordeal of an unwanted pregnancy—and how hidden this common experience remains. Through these intimate, complicated, and inspiring accounts, Wicklund reveals the truth about the women's clinics that anti-abortion activists portray as little more than slaughterhouses for the unborn. As we enter the most fevered political fight over abortion America has ever seen, this raw and powerful memoir shows us what is at stake.

 

1. Dr. Susan Wicklund makes many personal and professional sacrifices in the course of her career. In your opinion, which one required the most strength and conviction on her part?

 

2. What are some of the ways in which legislated medical policy interferes with the author’s intentions of giving the highest quality and compassionate care to her patients? Choose one of her patients as an example of this conflict.

 

3. Describe two or three of the common misconceptions disseminated by anti-choice activists and crisis pregnancy centers in the book. Do any of these ideas persist today?

 

4. The author starts the book by recounting Flower Grandma’s shocking story. However, it is a tale that she never shares with her daughter until she finishes writing her memoir. Family secrets are sometimes the hardest ones to divulge.  Do you keep secrets from members of your family and why?