The
Chickasaw
Home Short Stories Poetry Articles Humor Links
This Common
Secret by Susan Wicklund
Reviewed by John R. Guthrie
A Report From
the Front of the Abortion War
Susan Wicklund, M.D., states that
one the best kept secrets in the nation is the fact that some 40% of women in this country have
an abortion at some point. “Equally important and revealing,” says Wicklund,” is the fact that women
who have abortions come from every level of education, every income bracket,
and every age from puberty to menopause. They are Catholic and Jewish,
Protestant and Buddhist, agnostic and atheists. They are, in truth, our
sisters, aunts, grandmothers, music teacher, neighbors and best friends.” Some
patients were also the young victims of rape or incest.
Women
seeking an abortion may or may not be anti-abortion. Wicklund
recounts performing an abortion on a woman she’d first seen among the
protesters outside her clinic or in another case the terminating the pregnancy
of a young woman who remained the president of her university’s student
anti-abortion organization.
In
enunciating her support for abortion, Wicklund notes
that “before 1973 and the passage of Roe vs. Wade, an estimated 1.2 million
women had illegal abortions in the
Her
personal story is one of remarkable determination and is likely to have a
particular human appeal for many. At age 20 she had an abortion in surroundings
that were hostile and intimidating. She was moved by this emotionally rending
experience to help other women and first became a midwife. After being inspired
by an encouraging comment from a near stranger, she began the long and arduous
journey through undergraduate and medical education. By then, she was a single
mother. She prevailed, incorporating her daughter (who wrote a postlogue to the book) into the process.
While
she believes late-term abortions should be legal, Wicklund
restricts her practice to the termination of pregnancy in the first trimester.
This means that in some cases she must turn desperate women away. In some
instances, she says, patients face real danger because of the pregnancy. She
feels “it is up to us to recognize their plight and provide resources.”
After completing her medical training, Wicklund
traveled a circuit of abortion clinics in the
Dr.
Wicklund characterizes such assaults as “insensitive
actions and outright lies spewed by the protestors.” Some of her patients,
particularly younger ones, were terrified by having to traverse such a
gauntlet, one made up primarily of men.
Her
home was invaded in her absence. Both muddy boot prints and anti-abortion
pamphlets were left behind. Her driveway was barricaded with barrels of
concrete to keep her from going to work. Threatening phone calls and letters
arrived regularly. Her daughter’s school was invaded and the child harassed to
tears. She endured the death of colleagues who were gunned down by
anti-abortion zealots. On occasion local authorities were indifferent to her
plight, so an armored vest and a .38 caliber revolver became part of her clinic
attire.
Wicklund also comments on “Crisis Pregnancy Centers,” groups
typically operated by one fundamentalist group or another. One of her patients
recounted her experience as follows:
I thought I’d be able to get an abortion there….They looked like doctors
and nurses with their white coats. They told me they were giving me a pregnancy
test and put me in a room for two hours. There was a television playing an
awful video in there. I couldn’t leave….They told me my test was positive, then
started saying that there was a good chance I’d bleed to death (from an
abortion)…That I ought to consider keeping the baby. That I’d regret this the rest of my life.” The CPC staff also told the young
woman that she’d “probably never have children after having an abortion,” that
Dr. Wicklund was “not a real doctor” that she could
“Get AIDs from the other patients in the abortion
clinic….
Breast
cancer is also commonly, and demonstrably falsely, associated with abortions by
CPC personnel. CPC’s, Wicklund states, have received
more than thirty million dollars from the federal government between 2001 and
2005. “It isn’t uncommon for me to have to disabuse patients (who’ve been to CPCs) of the notion that they will be ‘scraped with a
razor.’” Dr. Wicklund notes that the complication
rate for abortion is less than that of the extraction of a molar,
and eleven times less dangerous to the mother than childbirth.
In
recent years there have been numerous murders and attempted murders of abortion
providers, dozens of bombings, arsons, acid attacks, anthrax threats,
kidnappings, and burglaries as well as less lethal but still chilling forms of
harassment by abortion protesters. This Common Secret indicates that
while some protesters limit their actions to guilt-inducing misinformation and
invective, some endorse—and commit—crimes up to and including homicide. As a
quote from one anti-abortion group, “The Army of God” manual states:
We, the remnants of the God-fearing men and women of the
This Common Secret provides a summary of some of these occurrences that are justified by
maintaining that a fetus is “an unborn child.”
Susan
Wicklund has succeeded in putting a human face on a
procedure that is controversial enough for some. It has provided a divisive and
emotional political wedge for Christian Fundamentalists. Riveted by the
confirmation of what I had witnessed during my years as a family practitioner,
this reviewer found it difficult to close Susan Wicklund’s
This Common Secret until I’d read the final page. Aside from the
central issue of abortion, for many this book is also likely to provoke a
consideration of what constitutes our cherished right of legitimate protest and
what crosses the line into disorderly conduct,
havoc, and more serous illegal behavior.
This Common Secret: My
Journey as an Abortion Doctor
by Susan Wicklund
and Alan Kesselheim
ISBN 1586484807
Public Affairs, 272 pp.
Hardcover, $24.95
The above first appeared in a somewhat different form in California Literary Review, January
2008.
The
Chickasaw
In accordance with
Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the above articles are distributed without profit
to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included
information for research and educational purposes. The Chickasaw
"Go to Original" links are provided where possible as
a convenience to our readers and allow for verification of authenticity.
However, as originating pages are often updated by their originating host
sites, the versions posted on the
Home Short Stories Poetry Articles Humor Links