Choices
– My Secret
Thomas
Wade Bounds
Reviewed
by Jaimie Bell
With the movie Juno
out and receiving so much acclaim, I was very interested to read a
small
book for young pregnant girls trying to make the right choices. I am
all for
reducing the number of abortions and was eager to see some new ideas.
The
situation of a summer romance with unexpected consequences seemed a
plausible
starting point for what I thought would be a compassionate and
informative
read.
I was so wrong.
This book not only had an incoherent plot, but also lacked the most
rudimentary
knowledge of unplanned pregnancies, a young girl’s mental and emotional
state
at that time, and does nothing besides use standard gross out scare
tactics to
manipulate vulnerable girls into feeling more awful then they already
do.
The beginning,
middle, and end of this book’s focus is to not kill babies. Period. It is total old school guilt trip
stuff. Rachel receives no counsel from
friends or family. The young father is not present and she is
completely
isolated from any sort of community. She is simply supposed to make the
decision on her own which seems very punitive to me. A large part of
the story
is how she imagines (dreams?) that her child is there and grown up,
even to the
point where he is older than Rachel is now. It was the strangest thing
and
unrealistic to the point of creepy.
No help or
reassurance is offered this girl. However when she prays and makes the
right
decision her world suddenly rights itself with a pie-in-the-sky ending
as
family, friends, and even boyfriend return to give support. Oh and his family is delighted.
“His family is helping out with everything. He
also said
that when he finishes college, we will see how things work out for the
three of
us.” Millions
of single mothers would raise their eyebrows at that one no doubt.
Some common issues not brought up:
Parents insisting daughter get an abortion
Boyfriend insisting girl get an abortion
Violence threatened or done to girl by father of baby if she
does not get abortion
Violence threatened or done to girl by own family
Girl kicked out of home for refusing to get an abortion
These are issues that come up regularly in the real world
but are completely ignored in favor of Bound’s fantasy one.
More things never mentioned:
Adoption or adoption services
Health care/Insurance
Social Services, WIC,
Homes for Unwed Mothers
Infant Care
Correspondent Schools or equivalent
These are easy
things to google and I assumed would be a standard for any book
discussing
pregnancy. But the only listing Bounds included was two websites for
ultrasounds videos and pictures. I decided to take a look and as I
suspected,
they showed pictures of aborted fetuses. Nice.
The fact is not a
single practical idea is brought up or discussed. My
guess is that if a pregnant girl got a
hold of this book, her unborn baby would not stand a chance. Forget about care and compassion, the love of
Christ does not reside here. The only positive thing I read was under
the
copyright. “The views expressed in this book are not necessarily those
of the
publisher.”
Thank God for that.
Author
Web Site