Review by New York Times Review
A memoir by a doctor who specializes in the contested field of women's reproductive health. ONE morning in January 1991, Susan Wicklund arrived at work wearing a heavy coat of makeup and a curly auburn wig pulled over her half-inch-long gray hair. It wasaget-up worthy of a double agent and it succeeded in helping Wicklund sup unnoticed across enemy lines, though not without feeling as if she'd stepped into a version of "The Twilight Zone." "Why do I have to do this?" she scrawled in her journal afterward. "WHY?" The price of concealment is the central theme of Wicklund's memoir, "This Common Secret," which offers a rare glimpse into the life of an abortion provider who, like her dwindling band of peers, learned to don an array of disguises over the course of her tumultuous and peripatetic career. Wicklund grew up in a small community in rural Wisconsin populated by gun owners and deer hunters. She went on to become a reproductive health specialist who helped staff abortion clinics in five states, mostly in the Midwest places that, by the late 1980s, had become veritable combat zones. Wicklund's daughter, Sonja, who contributes an epilogue in which she recalls breaking down every time she learned that another abortion provider had been shot saw her mother as a pillar of strength who never let the wrath of anti-abortion protesters faze her. As it turns out the stoic demeanor was as deceptive as the wig. The unstinting pressure-"Wanted" signs bearing her photo posted up around town, throngs of demonstrators amassed outside the places where she worked-often drove Wicklund to tears. She took to carrying a loaded .38-caliber revolver. She watched what she said to strangers, sometimes even to relatives, refusing for years to tell her grandmother she performed abortions out of fear she'd disapprove. When Wicklund finally divulged the secret her grandmother shared one of her own: at 16, her best friend had gotten pregnant most likely following an act of incest She'd tried to help her end the pregnancy with a sharp object and watched her bleed to death. "This Common Secret" does not attempt to offer a comprehensive account of the abortion conflict, much less an evenhanded one. Though Wicklund claims to respect those who harbor moral qualms about abortion, her book makes no effort to engage critics of Roe v. Wade. The narrative has a somewhat slapdash feel - a journal entry on one page, a flurry of statistics on the next - and, though recounted in the first person, lacks a distinctive voice, perhaps because the book was written with a co-author. Yet in setting down her story, Wicklund has done something brave, not only by refusing to cower in the shadows but also by recounting experiences that don't always fit the conventional pro-choice script Before receiving her medical training, Wicklund had an abortion herself. She was asked no questions, offered no advice and left the clinic feeling violated. Years later, she terminated the pregnancy of a woman who'd been raped and wanted an abortion. Afterward, Wicklund examined the product of conception and discovered the pregnancy had occurred two weeks earlier, meaning it was not a consequence of the rape. Both she and the patient were horrified. OPPONENTS of abortion might view such episodes as proof that abortion is evil. For Wicklund, they are what drove and inspired her to help each woman she encountered make an informed, truly independent choice. At a clinic she ran in Montana, this meant placing the emphasis on counseling, which sometimes strengthened a patient's resolve to terminate her pregnancy and other times led her to reconsider and bear the child instead. Wicklund may never convince the protesters who demonized her that women should be free to make such decisions on their own. But in sharing her secrets, she has shown why there is much honor in having spent a lifetime attempting to ensure they do. In setting down her story, Wicklund has done something brave. Eyal Press, a contributing writer at The Nation, is the author of "Absolute Convictions: My Father, a City, and the Conflict That Divided America"
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [October 27, 2009]
Review by Booklist Review
Whether one is pro-choice or not, there can be little doubt that the women Wicklund presents, who find themselves in an unplanned pregnancy, face a life-changing situation. Nor can there be little doubt of their need for someone, anyone, to offer compassion and wise counsel. For Wicklund when she was in the same situation more than 30 years ago, there was no one. She underwent a safe, legal abortion that was, however, totally lacking in human kindness, and that was when she determined to devote herself to women's reproductive health as a midwife and, later, a physician. Once out of med school, she practiced first at one Midwest abortion clinic, then another, and eventually traveled between three states and three different clinics, all the while dodging aggressive anti-choice activists who threatened her and her family members' lives. As Wicklund endeavors to demonstrate, though her story is harrowing, the stories of the women she serves are becoming even more so as the number of obstacles blocking their reproductive choices increases, thanks to ever more conservative legislators.--Chavez, Donna Copyright 2007 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
In rational, compassionate and honest language, Wicklund chronicles more than 20 years as a medical doctor and women?s health provider with a "fundamental commitment to patients and to the cause of keeping reproductive rights safe and legal," a commitment that would put herself and her family under direct threat from anti-abortion extremists, and cause her to adopt disguises and even a personal bodyguard in order to continue her work. Wicklund?s story is gripping and poignant, not only for its numerous personal accounts-including Wicklund?s own experience terminating her pregnancy-but in her consideration of current and proposed reproductive rights legislation; in addition to eye-opening statistics ("In 2006, 87% of counties in the United States had no abortion provider"), Wicklund provides a fine resource guide for further reading. Though a digression concerning her parents? unrelated health issues derails the narrative, and she fails to discuss abortion law in other developed countries, this topical memoir will make a compelling read for anyone interested in women?s health and reproductive rights in America. (Jan.) Copyright 2008 Reed Business Information.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
A longtime abortion provider relates her personal history, describes the opposition's ferocity, chronicles the corrosive effects of her profession on her family life and portrays herself as a White Knight in a Dark World. In 1980, Wicklund was a 26-year-old single mother on welfare. When a mentor advised her to become a doctor, she debated and then tried it, discovered she was a top student and zipped through college and medical school. Settling on a career in women's health, she devoted herself to traveling around the Upper Midwest performing legal abortions at various clinics. Her peripatetic professional activities shot down two marriages and introduced into her life a level of stress that is difficult to fathom: screaming protestors, threats of violence, frightening phone calls. At times she resorted to disguises to get by picketers; she packed guns while she performed operations. Her professional life became just about her entire life. Her most satisfying experience was the Mountain Country Women's Clinic she established in Bozeman, Mont., but she was forced to close it after five years in 1998 to help her sick and aging parents while working part-time at a corporate-owned facility in St. Paul, Minn. She returned to full-time work in Montana after her mother's death. All this is either admirable or reprehensible, depending on your position on abortion, but Wicklund and co-author Kesselheim have no doubts: She is eligible for sainthood right now. All the dialogue--and there is quite a bit--portrays her speaking in reasonable, well-structured paragraphs while her enemies bray in ignorant ugliness. She understands every case before her; knows when to touch, when to cry; converts a few naysayers; confronts the angry with calm courage; never makes a mistake in surgery. Two postscripts--one by her daughter, another by Kesselheim--provide further, embarrassing testimonials. In a genre known for self-celebration, this is Self-Celebration. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
