Reviews: Losing Your Voice When Your Choice Has Been Snatched Away 🚺

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Ironically, our country is in a major election year and we are going to hear a lot about women’s reproductive rights. But let me put out this disclaimer, this post is not about a political agenda, but about a woman’s right to choose whether she wants to have children and not have someone else make that choice for her.

This discussion comes as a result of two books I read this summer, based on actual accounts about how a female’s ‘voice or decision to choose’ to get pregnant was taken away from them without them knowing about it, or even being consulted about it. Below, I spotlight two books, Vital Signs by Robin Cook which is the second time I read it, and Take My Hand by Dolen Perkins-Valdez, which was included in my post A Literary Roadtrip in July. I highly recommend both books, whether you’re interested in women’s reproductive rights or not.

I first read this book in 1991 when it was released. Vital Signs is truly a medical thriller laced with unimaginable conspiracies surrounding women patients being treated for infertility with IVF. As the story unfolds there is something deeper and more sinister about what’s behind women’s reproductive rights and the clinics covering up horrific secrets than you could imagine.

These clinics are sitting on a potential gold mine with their IVF technology and women have put their trust in these clinics to help them start a family. The IVF program was so successful that the players in the game needed to do something to maintain and grow revenue. They had to make sure that IVF wasn’t successful too quickly. So, at $10,000 per cycle, they wanted to run their patients through as many cycles as possible. Yet, ultimately they wanted all of their patients to conceive. That meant a better reputation for them. More business and money in their pockets by creating loopholes for profit!

The novel Take My Hand ranges from sadness to injustice, to infuriation, to redemption. Yet, there was no happy ending for the individuals involved. Inspired by actual, historical events, this novel is moving, meaningful, and quite uncomfortable.

The protagonist, Civil Townsend, a Black nurse in post-segregated Alabama, plans to make a difference in her community. She wants to help women make their own choices for their lives and bodies. She works for the Montgomery Family Planning Clinic which goes out to minister shots to girls in impoverished communities. When Civil discovers that she has administered the drug, Depo-Provera, also known as the birth control shot or the Depo shot, to two sisters, India and Erica, she suspects these injections are medically unethical, and she feels guilty and responsible for injecting them with the shot. She later learns that one of the sisters has not begun her menstrual cycle, and neither is sexually active.

When Civil questioned and launched an investigation on why the horrific forced sterilization of mostly poor, Black female recipients of welfare benefits without their consent under federally funded programs was being done, the case winds up reaching the federal government in Washington, DC, for a federal hearing.

Now, while I enjoyed reading both books, I can’t say I was not disturbed or angered by these stories which are based on actual past events. When I read Possessing the Secret of Joy by Alice Walker, I literally couldn’t sit down to read it when I read about the trauma of female initiation in the Olinkan culture that resulted in genital mutilation (or genital circumcision) on young girls. This was intended to suppress sexual arousal in females where ultimately men can barbarically have their way with them. Many activists are still trying to have this practice abolished today around the world.

While I personally find the female reproductive practices in these novels horrendous, it’s time to wake up, give respect, and bring the injustice to female bodies and the mental stress that accompanies these practices to an end, permanently. The muffled voices of girls and women who have cried and suffered from decisions made by someone else about their bodies is an injustice, shackles their voices and is a heavy burden they should never have to bear alone or at all. It’s interesting how we don’t see, talk about or hear about the scope of agony such practices are endured among males. May sensitivity, compassion, and humanity reign. May the voices that were lost rise again. (Image Credit: OlcayErtem/Pixabay)