I Had an Abortion

Gillian Aldrich and Jennifer Baumgardner's I Had an Abortion takes a refreshingly honest look at the stigma and secrecy surrounding abortion, driving home the importance of choice in women's lives through the individual stories of several women. With stories spanning seven decades, the interviewees—of various ages, religions, classes, and cultures—talk candidly about their decisions to have one or more abortions, discussing the specific circumstances of their lives at the time, emotional responses before and after, reactions of family members and partners, and the effect that freedom of choice has had on their subsequent individual life paths. Interviewees include activist Gloria Steinem, who recalls how her abortion was central to her life's work in championing women's rights; an elderly African American woman who recalls her 1938 abortion when she was a runaway living on the city streets; a Catholic woman who participated in pro-life demonstrations, until her inability to place her mixed race baby with an adoption agency turned her pro-choice; and a woman whose particular background—she was kidnapped and raped and then denied a scholarship to college because she had a child—informed her later choice to have an abortion. These stories, among others, plus an inspired conclusion in which dozens of women appear onscreen to say, simply, “I had an abortion,” reminds us that this taboo topic concerns women from all walks of life. Recommended. Aud: C, P. (A. Cantú)