In <i>Scarlet A</i>, Katie Watson unpacks the complex issue of abortion in the U.S. and adds nuance to a highly-polarized debate. "Ordinary abortions" occur in all classes of women, but political taboo has caused a chilling effect on personal discussions, giving people a skewed perception of the realities of abortion. Many people believe that they don't know someone who would abort. Statistically, they probably do. According to Watson, we will not move forward until we can have real discussions with our family and friends about these personal decisions.

<i>Thanks to NetGalley and Oxford University Press for a digital ARC of this book. All views are my own.</i>

Abortion is a difficult topic to tackle. Everyone has an opinion, and almost everyone also feels very strongly about those opinions. I myself have always been a big proponent of women being allowed to make the choice that is right for them, which means that the government needs to make sure that healthy and safe options are available. But even though I have read other books about abortion before, Scarlet A offered a lot of new insights and was very well written. Thanks to Oxford University Press and Netgalley for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Key to Scarlet A is what Katie Watson refers to as 'ordinary abortion'. Initially I was confused as to what she was referring to, but once I got it I understood just how important it is to discuss. Watson is right when she says that most conversations around abortion are about those extraordinary cases such as rape, incest, or immediate danger to the well being of the mother and/or child. I myself have never had an abortion, but know friends who have, and not for the reasons mentioned just now. These are the ordinary abortions that Watson discusses in Scarlet A, the abortions that are done because the women aren't ready to be parents, or because they know they don't have the money for a child, or because they simply don't want children and made a mistake. These types of abortions make up the majority of abortion cases, yet they are also the ones that aren't discussed openly and that come with a lot of shame. It is incredibly important that books like Scarlet A address the experiences of these women, especially when they do it as well as Watson does.

Watson accomplishes something almost miraculous with Scarlet A, which is making the abortion debate accessible and, as far as possible, understandable. As an academic, she makes sure to either explain her jargon or to avoid it as much as possible. She shares her own interest and thoughts throughout the book, without influencing her readers, which makes Scarlet A feel more personable than many other books out there. She includes to stories of many different women, and men, about their experiences with abortion, the shame they felt, or that they didn't feel, the anger they faced, the support they received, how their thoughts have evolved since the abortion. Scarlet A also looks into the different Supreme Court cases since Roe vs. Wade that addressed abortion, discusses the terms used in the abortion debate, and much more. I walked away from Scarlet A with a lot more information than I had before, but also with a new perspective on a number of related issues.

Katie Watson manages to make Scarlet A an incredibly accessible book, opening up a debate that is famously tricky and full of loopholes. I'd recommend that everyone interested in knowing more about abortions, about the stories of people who have gone through one, about the politics and the ethics around the debate, read Scarlet A.

A powerful and well-researched look at the politics and silence surrounding "ordinary" (non-emergency) abortion in the US. This is not a book that argues the pros and cons of abortion, per se, but rather looks at how the conversation--or lack thereof--surrounding abortion in the US keeps us from understanding the issue and prevents us from making necessary, rational decisions concerning a subject that is often guided by emotion and reactionary responses rather than clear and balanced reasoning. Katie Watson's perspective as a bioethicist provides a wide-ranging and multidisciplinary approach that is missing from a lot of contemporary books about abortion, which tend to be overtly political and over-simplified.

(A longer review will be featured in Herizons Magazine [print only, Canada], Spring 2017)

In Scarlet A, Katie Watson has managed to create an incredibly accessible and comprehensive introduction to the abortion debate, both to both sides of the arguments and to the individual experiences of people who have had abortions. Because of this, I think that I would probably have gotten more out of the book if I had known absolutely nothing about the subject going into it, as it gives even the least informed a well-reasoned argument - although perhaps in such a way that some parts of it are incredibly simplistic and honestly, some of the writing feels as though it was directed at children.
But I believe, when it comes to the topic of abortion, the most important thing that people can do is to introduce new people to the argument, instead of listening to the same voices; to inform the wider community and make everyone more aware, instead of just the people who have already come into direct or indirect contact with abortion.
This is something that Scarlet A succeeds incredibly in, with it truly managing to break the stigma and taboo surrounding the topic, and in the future, it will be one which I will be pointing anyone who wishes to know more about abortion in the direction of.