No Other Choice

by Lissa Halls Johnson

Joann Miller hopes that moving to a new city and the approaching birth of her first child will enable her to escape the guilty nightmares she still has seven years after she had an abortion

191 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 1986

About the author

LISSA HALLS JOHNSON is the author of novels for teens, tweens and young adults. Formerly a book producer at Focus on the Family, she was the creator, editor and writer for the Brio girls series and for the Kid Witness book series. She has contributed to Reader’s Digest, Brio, Breakaway, Focus on the Family Magazine, TQ, and other periodicals.
She has written radio drama scripts and was previously a member of the ADVENTURES IN ODYSSEY creative team. She has contributed to a number of fiction and nonfiction books, and is the co-author of a book for parents of teens.

Lissa also speaks throughout the country.

When she’s not writing, she’s hiking, skiing, or snowshoeing in the Colorado mountains she adores with her husband, Rich and dog, Kyna.

Reviews

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

The whole time I was reading this book I was waiting for the hidden agenda (any book on abortion is going to make me wonder, especially from this author after reading Just Like Ice Cream). I am happy to report there was not a hidden agenda, at least not one I notice.

The three main characters covered the different spectrums of abortion, totally pro life, someone who had an abortion, and a past abortion clinic worker.

I would have liked more story about Carolyn. I thought the book dragged in the middle, but then ended abruptly.

[Catherine Prickett · Rating 1 out of 5]

This turned up in the lending library for which I volunteer.

Bland fiction interspersed with anti-abortion propaganda. The heroine feels guilty about a past abortion; an activist friend prods her into displaying her currently-pregnant self at anti-abortion protests. Part of the heroine's journey to spiritual healing also involves her and said friend starting up a "crisis pregnancy center". Pro-choice people are portrayed as the sort of childless straw-feminists who say that Down's Syndrome children shouldn't have been allowed to live. The rest is just kind of dull.

I was wryly amused by a bit in which one anti-abortion activist speaks favorably about contraception -- I suppose the author had no way of knowing, in 1986, that within the next few decades the "pro-life" lobby would be protesting against that, too.