In the opening pages of this book, Katha Pollitt tells readers that her mother had an abortion in 1960. Her mother’s FBI file, which Katha read after her death, said she was in the care of a physician for “gynecological problems.” Pollitt says her father never knew about the abortion and neither did she, which made her angry “the way one can be angry at one’s mother for having a life outside her child’s ken.” (Yes, she manages to equate abortion with “having a life.”)
It’s unclear why she is convinced that unspecified “gynecological problems” meant her mother had an abortion instead of all the thousands of other things it could mean, but it’s an early indication of the way the book will jump to conclusions, focus on abortion as a moral good, and make claims that seem more fantasy than reality. A few pages later, Pollitt says she daydreams about “shiny and empty uteruses,” where clearing the womb is just another form of housekeeping. Her very last paragraph finds her dreaming of a future feminist heaven where “there will be abortion.”
Comments