The book is thick with testimonies from dozens of clinic escorts, but none of them stick around or stand out enough to give the text an emotional or narrative core. Details of the escorts’ histories run together, in part because their work is, by nature, repetitive ... With the great breadth of case studies she conveys, Rankin leaves little room to explore the thornier questions she glances past ... Rankin implies that lawmakers should impose greater penalties and restrictions on demonstrators, but she never lays out exactly what the ideal set of laws would be, or how they would balance the competing rights of patients and protesters.
[Rankin] does not shield the reader from the 'antis’ endless haranguing and uses clinic-escort and patient interviews from around the country—including her own experience as an escort—to stress the importance of this purpose-driven work. An ode to her fellow volunteers and a rallying cry for the fundamental rights that now hang so perilously close to abolition.
... timely, engaging, and full of compassion ... This sweeping history will leave readers wanting to learn more. It is both a celebration of devoted volunteer clinic escorts and a call to action to improve the circumstances under which people seek health care.
Rankin’s passion for women’s health blazes on the page, and she is adept at connecting disparate events to create a cohesive historical narrative. At times, the plethora of profiles makes it difficult to keep track of the principals, but this is an important book nonetheless ... A stunning, compassionate history of an overlooked element within the abortion-rights movement in the U.S.
