cover image Bitter Fruit: Women's Experiences of Unplanned Pregnancy, Abortion, and Adoption

Bitter Fruit: Women's Experiences of Unplanned Pregnancy, Abortion, and Adoption

Anne Perkins, Ann Perkins. Hunter House Publishers, $12.95 (286pp) ISBN 978-0-89793-090-1

Townsend, a family counselor, and Perkins, a writer who had an abortion at age 18, bring together personal stories, poetry and art by women about their unplanned pregnancies and the consequences. Ranging in age from 15 to 39 when they became pregnant, these women express similar feelings of sadness in having to come to terms with a pregnancy that they hadn't consciously chosen. One woman could not bring herself to undergo an illegal abortion in unsanitary conditions; forced back to work too soon after the birth, she suffered a hysterectomy and gave her son up for adoption because she could not support him. Another woman chose an abortion after she discovered the fetus had spina bifida. And another tells of her struggle to raise her three children with neither emotional nor financial support from their father. Whether they opted for abortion (as the majority did), adoption or childrearing, many of the women express strongly contradictory emotions about their decisions, emotions that belie the myth that there is an easy solution to the problem of unwanted pregnancy. Illustrations not seen by PW. (Feb.)