A Woman's Book of Choices: Abortion, Menstrual Extraction, Ru-486

Authors Chalker ( The Complete Cervical Cap Guide ) and Downer (charged in 1972 for practicing medicine without a license after applying a yogurt antidote to a yeast infection) may have written the ultimate guerilla guide to reproductive choices. In an era when a woman's access to health care is determined increasingly, and arbitrarily, by age, race, health insurance, socio-economic status and geography--as of 1990, 82% of the counties in the U.S. did not have an abortion provider--this book helps to even the odds. It tells you how to find and evaluate an abortion clinic, where to go for low- or no-interest loans to finance an abortion and what a woman's options for ending a pregnancy were before 1973. Personal accounts of doctors and women here depict some harrowing pre- Roe experiences and some inspiring grassroots initiatives, such as the group of University of Chicago students who launched a clandestine abortion referral service in a dorm room in 1964. In the final chapters of the book, Chalker and Downer look to the future of RU-486, the controversial abortifacient, and cover a selection of dangerous folk remedies that don't work, as well as some herbs and remedies that do, according to the authors. (Oct.)