Plan A (YA fiction)

     "...Faith's words are on the screen, though, and  there's no way to avoid them.

     I'm sorry, but I can't accept the decision you're making.

     And then:

    Jesus asks us to hate the sin but love the sinner, but I'm struggling to find forgiveness in my heart. 

     And then:

     Abortion is murder, Ivy."

    In her Plan A Deb Caletti doesn't mince words or inconvenient truths. Ivy, a high school junior in a conservative small Texas she loves, the only one she's lived in, discovers that she's pregnant. For more reasons than one she can't carry the pregnancy to term. Abortion is the only solution...

     ...but it's illegal where she lives. 

     She does her best to keep her pregnancy a secret while she's trying to decide what to do. But a classmate finds out and the word spreads like wildfire. To her peers she's a joke, to the adults a cautionary tale.

     Her community expects her to do the "right" thing: drop out, marry the father, and fade out of sight. When she doesn't she's not only a loose woman but a murderer. 

     But she has some really important allies. There's her family who is one hundred percent behind her. There's Lorenzo, her boyfriend who is willing to take her to a state where the procedure is legal and let people think he's the father even though he isn't. And there are the women she meets who have had abortions for a variety of reasons who share their stories with her.

     Ivy is a candid, vulnerable, and believable narrator. With the religious right crowd having a dangerous impact on legislation a lot more people are going to be in similar plights. That's why Plan A is such an important book for people of all gender identities, both YA and adult, to have access  to. 

On a purrrsonal note, a pregnant woman I knew was given the news that her fetus had a brutal genetic defect. It would never have a moment of consciousness and would die in infancy. Her church which was basically her community and chosen family said they would kick her out forever if she aborted the doomed fetus. Can you even imagine?

A great big shout out goes out to the people who are, at personal risk, helping pregnant people have access to medical care. 

Jules Hathaway 

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