Abortion Confidential

Abortion Confidential is one woman's experience of delivering abortion and birth control services in an Ohio community bent on preventing such services. Like the canary in a coal mine, abortion rights in America are a focus of U.S. women's status in society as it fluctuates between that of chattel to full equality. The book can be read as a case study of social change, both from a societal perspective and from an individual woman's perspective. It is a study of anti-women discrimination and prejudicial behavior from not only a societal but also from a personal perspective. It also opens an insider's view of the character and upbringing that motivated the author's role in advancing social change and the motivation and tactics used by those who seem to prefer a mediaeval view of society. The daily struggle of dealing with employees, medical service providers, patients and abortion opponents who all seem to revel in making life difficult punctuates a story that includes actions on the national stage that defined abortion rights through the 1980s. This book personalizes the delivery of abortion services prior to the legalization of abortion, during its legalization, and then through all the attempts to thwart such services legally and illegally over a span of more than 20 years. It predicts the diminishing ability to provide legal abortions as the pendulum of change swings backwards all in the propagandistic terms of "preserving" the health of the woman. It is a truth that whatever happens to one person happens to many others in a society. While at least 20% of women have had abortions, few are willing to become a protective political force for other women because, as this book demonstrates, women think their reproductive choices are unique and based on different criteria than those made by their sisters.
About the Author: Canadian born Norma Goldberger grew up in Downsview, Ontario, a suburb of Toronto. She received a Bachelor and Master of Arts degrees from the University of Toronto and attended graduate programs at the University of Michigan, Brandeis University, and Boston College. Specializing in Medical Sociology she worked as a volunteer problem pregnancy counselor and a director of problem pregnancy counseling. From researching demographics to finding suitable venues for abortion services to serving as a clinic coordinator she went on to found Akron Ohio's largest and most successful abortion clinic. As one of four plaintiffs in the landmark Supreme Court Decision Akron Center et. al. v City of Akron she was instrumental in shaping the legal landscape for Abortion in the United States. She has been happily married for almost 47 years, has three accomplished children and one delightful grandbaby.