"Rebecca Little and Colleen Long are journalists and childhood friends who both experienced pregnancy losses past 20 weeks. In the days, weeks, and months that followed, they searched desperately for information to help them process what they had been through. But they found nothing. So, Rebecca and Colleen began to research. Diving deep into the history, culture, and science around pregnancy loss, they discovered that the helplessness and loneliness they felt was not a coincidence. Over the past severaldecades, American culture has been placing more and more emphasis on the rights and life of the fetus--at the cost and well-being of the mother. Politics, history, racism, misogyny, capitalism, and medicine have been working separately and together to choke off grief related to pregnancy loss. In their first book, I'm Sorry for My Loss, Rebecca and Colleen weave together deep research into laws, pop culture, medicine, and history with powerful personal narratives to offer readers a comprehensive sociological look at how pregnancy loss came to be so stigmatized and what a system of more compassionate care could and should look like"--
A must-read investigation of reproductive health under fire in Post-Roe America.
More than a million people lose a pregnancy each year, whether through miscarriage, stillbirth, or termination for medical reasons. For most, the experience often casts a shadow of isolation, shame, and blame. In the aftermath of the 2022 decision to overturn Roe v Wade, 25 million people of childbearing age live in states with laws that restrict access to abortion, including for those who never wanted to end their pregnancies. How did we get here?
Rebecca Little and Colleen Long, childhood friends who grew up to be journalists, both experienced late-term loss, and together they take an incisive, deeply reported look at the issue, working to shatter taboos that have made so many pregnant people feel ashamed and alone. They trace the experience of pregnancy loss and reproductive care from America's founding to the present day, exposing the deep impact made by a dangerous tangle of laws, politics, medicine, racism, and misogyny. Combining powerful personal narratives with exhaustive research, I'm Sorry for My Loss is a comprehensive examination on how pregnancy loss came to be so stigmatized and politicized, and why a system of more compassionate care is critical for everyone.