Eyal Press has written a rambling history of his father's reproductive health care work in Buffalo. A stoic, quiet veteran, Dr. Shalom Press came to the US for medical training and ended up staying to open his own OB/GYN clinic. After his colleague Dr.Slepian's murder in 1998 (just the latest in a long string of clinic bombings, provider shootings, and general terrorizing), Dr.Press became the only abortion provider to live in Buffalo.

It contains some great tidbits, because he has intimate access to his father, but it doesn't contain anything particularly new. There isn't even much about Dr.Press himself that one couldn't get from any other reporter. I wish it had been more focused on the struggle between the pro and anti-choice sides, because far too much was caught up in Eyal Press's own reminiscences about Bills games or tangents into the founding of Buffalo or Amherst College. He lived through the Spring of Life and he doesn't even talk about that much!

That said, even as unfocused as this book is, it does provide a window into the extreme efforts anti-choice activists went to from the 70s on. Press chronicles as they go from picketing clinics, to chaining themselves to the doors or equipment, to harassing doctors, escorts and patients at their homes and schools. Activists sent letters to abortion providers' neighbors, complete with pictures of the providers, their exact address and phone number. They set up billboards with the same information. They picketed and shouted outside abortion providers' homes. Providers were shot. Clinics received threats, anthrax, bombs, and some actually blew up (one activist called his bombings on Christmas Day a birthday present to Jesus. Way to go, dude!). Finally, after years of escalating violence and police and judges who dragged their feet, the situation got so bad that the Clinton administration passed the FACE act and Janet Reno heightened security for providers like Dr.Press. And hilariously, once actual fines and jail time started being associated with harassment and getting inside the buffer zone, the number of protestors dropped like a stone.

Press also points out the impact of high unemployment and low union membership--he posits that unions used to provide an emotional high and community-building, but as unions lost power and people got poorer, people in Buffalo turned to churches instead. I'd buy that interpretation, although I wish he laid it out a little better. I really wish this whole book was tighter, because it's a fascinating subject that deserves more attention. ( )

A very apt subtitle. Part of the book covers Dr. Press, who provides abortions in Buffalo, NY and the murder of his close associate, Dr. Slepian. The remaining material contains historical perspective, observations and even interviews with clients of Press's clinic.
One thing this book put into perspective for me is that many women in the 1950s and 1960s focused on abortion as a civil liberty issue. Which makes sense considering the socio-political climate of that time. As a young adult, abortion was presented to me purely as a moral issue. And even though I knew it was called a 'woman's right' or a 'woman's choice', I never followed the dots to the civil rights movement before. In fact, this book gave me a lot of clarity. Not about abortion necessarily but to the fact that I don't give my personal liberties enough thought.
Press has a calm, conversational tone. It's a heavy subject but it doesn't weigh down the reader. ( )

don't need a balanced look at anti-abortion extremists

Press tells the history of a doctor who was killed by a man sure of his belief that the removal of a fetus was more wicked than the murder of a grown man performing a service to society. His family came from Isreal. The part about the differences of culture was thought provoking. ( )