No Real Choice

KATRINA KIMPORT is an associate professor in the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Reproductive Sciences and a research sociologist with the Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health (ANSIRH) program of the Bixby Center for Global Reproductive Health at the University of California, San Francisco. Her books include Queering Marriage: Challenging Family Formation in the United States (Rutgers University Press).

• 1. No Real Choice 2. Policies, Poverty, and the Organization of Abortion Care 3. Privileging the Fetus 4. Seeing Irresponsibility and Harm 5. Fearing the Experience of Abortion 6. Choosing a Baby 7. Toward Reproductive Autonomy Methodological Appendix AcknowledgmentsReferences Index

"No Real Choice marks the definitive end of arguing for a 'pro-choice' America by proving how policies, assumptions, and histories of medical injustice often make abortion utterly unchooseable. Collecting voices from those who considered abortion but went to term anyway, Katrina Kimport charts the logistical obstacles to terminating unwanted pregnancies and illustrates the need for promoting the right to parent for low income individuals and people of color. The lived reality of racism shapes these ethnographic stories of struggle over reproductive possibilities and impossibilities to affirm abortion not as an option but as a necessary element of a just society." - Carol Mason (author of Killing for Life: The Apocalyptic Narrative of Pro-life Politics) "For those skeptical that there’s anything new to say about abortion, Kimport’s book is a must-read. Her careful analysis shows-startlingly-that many women give birth because abortion is 'unchoosable.'"  - Lisa Harris, MD (University of Michigan) "Kimport’s discovery of women receiving prenatal care who have not 'chosen' to have a baby offers a revelatory corrective to the way we talk about abortion, childbirth, and choice in America." - Katie Watson (author of Scarlet A: The Ethics, Law, and Politics of Ordinary Abortion) "No Real Choice offers important insights into the reproductive experiences of women, especially poor women of color. The result is a reframing of the choice for women, from one of deciding between abortion and the continuation of pregnancy to one of deciding whether or not to have an abortion." - Nazli Kibria (author of Becoming Asian American) "I came away from the book appreciative that Kimport had collected and shared so many moving and important stories of women whose voices are otherwise unlikely to be heard."  (Nursing Clio) "Chocolate Opera Cake and No Real Choice with Prof. Katrina Kimport" (Proofing and Lies podcast) "The Femtastic Podcast with Katie Breen: interview with Katrina Kimport" (The Femtastic Podcast) "We Need to Do More Than “Protect Roe'" by Katrina Kimport (The Nation) "Kimport’s book will be of interest to scholars of reproduction, social movements, legal studies, and social inequalities. It is written in accessible prose that makes the book a suitable text for both graduate and undergraduate courses as well as the broader public. As the United States stands at the precipice of a dramatic change to laws governing the right of pregnant people to reproductive autonomy, No Real Choice is a must-read."(Gender & Society)