My deepest thanks to those who have helped me along the way. To my editors at Beacon Press: Alexis Rizzuto, who saw the potential, and Rachael Marks, who brought it home, helping me hear my own voice and knowing precisely when to praise effusively and when to pause. Thanks also to the production team for continual and kind support.
To Santa Clara University and its Jesuit mission, which provided for all my needs: time, money, students, and intellectual freedom.
To Peter Handler and Ariella Radwin, more midwives than readers. You coaxed my stories out of me, comforting me when the telling grew hard, listening so closely you understood what I wanted to say long before I figured out how to say it.
To all those I met on my journey. Thank you for trusting a stranger with your stories. It was a gift to sit in intimate, earnest conversation. So different from the distorted rhetoric with which we fight our abortion war. Whether or not you’re mentioned, every conversation I had helped shape my understanding of the stories I’ve told herein. Your vision helped clarify my own. I carry you with me, and am grateful for the company.
To those in El Salvador, heroic in the face of struggles larger than any I’ve known. In particular, to the Agrupación Ciudadana por la Despenalizacion del Aborto, without whom I never would have taken this journey. To Hermana Peggy O’Neill and Centro Arte Para la Paz, for sheltering my body and feeding my soul. To the lay midwives of Suchitoto, “Las Estrellas,” Angeles, Darlyn, Johanna, Vilma, Zulema, and Yanira, for being my teachers.
To the folks at Oklahoma City University Law School, who opened doors and minds, most notably my own. In particular, I am indebted to Lawrence Hellman, Arthur LeFrancois, Andrew Spiropoulos, and Dr. Eli Reshef.
To Trisha Cobb, for deep insight and superb research assistance.
Thanks also to those who read drafts: Felice Batlan, Khiara Bridges, Suzanne Carey, Paula Dempsey, Father Paul Goda, Ed Goldman, Liz Klein, Art LeFrancois, Rachel Marshall, Lynn Morgan, Hanna Oberman, Sarah Roberts, Carole Joffe, and Andrew Spiropoulos. And to those who helped workshop my ideas: Tracy Weitz, Carole Joffe, and the Bixby Center for Global Reproductive Health, my colleagues at Santa Clara University Law, my students in Abortion & the Law (spring 2015), Chicago-Kent College of Law faculty workshop, American Bar Foundation workshop, and 2017 anthropology students and faculty at Mt. Holyoke College and Smith College.
Finally, to my friends and family. To Kathy Baker, Dina Kaplan, and Sarah Delson, for helping me shout down my demons. And to Larry Marshall, Rachel Marshall, Shlomie Marshall, Jaclyn Marshall, Yoni Marshall, Liz Klien, Hanna Obermen, and Noa Oberman, for letting me make abortion “table talk.” I am so very blessed by your presence in my life.
So many have helped, in so many ways, over the years I’ve worked on this project that I’m sure I’ve forgotten some names. These omissions belong alongside the other mistakes I’m sure to have made in these pages. Unintentional, and mine alone.