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Decision Point: An Impossible Choice
“You’re pregnant.” When seventeen year old, unmarried university student, Ellen Manery hears those words her dream of becoming a doctor vanishes. What should she do when every choice she has is bad?
Decision Point’s linked short stories look at the horrific options a pregnant young woman faced in 1969—shot gun marriage, a dangerous and often lethal back-alley abortion, being sent ‘away to stay with an aunt’ or to a home for unwed mothers and having your child disappear in the adoption mill of the day. The choices unwed Canadian women were forced to make left many with mental and physical scars they carried for life.
But Decision Point is also about positive events: women breaking gender barriers to attend medical school and become doctors; women supporting each other to get through difficult lives; the true story of the Women's March on Parliament Hill, a march which fundamentally changed the rights of women in Canada.
This is a historical novel for readers of all ages—a reminder of the struggle by Canadian women for equal rights and lives without oppression, and a warning of how fragile these hard-won rights under the law still are.
Editor’s note:
I was delighted to have this chance to work again with Donalda Reid and her new book, Decision Point. I was part of the movement that lobbied and fought for women to have the right to choice, the right to make decisions about their bodies and their lives. I was a young single parent before abortion was an option for women and I deeply understand the kinds of stories with which Donalda illustrates the terrible dilemmas facing a pregnant young woman before birth control and abortion were options.
I worry about how easily history can get lost, how easily people and governments will forget or cover over the long hard rocky road that so many women and men walked and fought and lobbied and wrote and protested in order for women’s rights, and human rights, to come into law.
There is legislation being proposed already, again, in parts of the United States, to criminalize abortion and roll back the right to choice. So being able to be a part of Donalda’s work has been, for me, very gratifying. I would hope that a copy of this book could work its way into every high school library in the land. The work of protecting women’s rights, human rights, is never done. This wonderful book is another tool in that ongoing struggle.
- Luanne Armstrong
Decision Point’s linked short stories look at the horrific options a pregnant young woman faced in 1969—shot gun marriage, a dangerous and often lethal back-alley abortion, being sent ‘away to stay with an aunt’ or to a home for unwed mothers and having your child disappear in the adoption mill of the day. The choices unwed Canadian women were forced to make left many with mental and physical scars they carried for life.
But Decision Point is also about positive events: women breaking gender barriers to attend medical school and become doctors; women supporting each other to get through difficult lives; the true story of the Women's March on Parliament Hill, a march which fundamentally changed the rights of women in Canada.
This is a historical novel for readers of all ages—a reminder of the struggle by Canadian women for equal rights and lives without oppression, and a warning of how fragile these hard-won rights under the law still are.
Editor’s note:
I was delighted to have this chance to work again with Donalda Reid and her new book, Decision Point. I was part of the movement that lobbied and fought for women to have the right to choice, the right to make decisions about their bodies and their lives. I was a young single parent before abortion was an option for women and I deeply understand the kinds of stories with which Donalda illustrates the terrible dilemmas facing a pregnant young woman before birth control and abortion were options.
I worry about how easily history can get lost, how easily people and governments will forget or cover over the long hard rocky road that so many women and men walked and fought and lobbied and wrote and protested in order for women’s rights, and human rights, to come into law.
There is legislation being proposed already, again, in parts of the United States, to criminalize abortion and roll back the right to choice. So being able to be a part of Donalda’s work has been, for me, very gratifying. I would hope that a copy of this book could work its way into every high school library in the land. The work of protecting women’s rights, human rights, is never done. This wonderful book is another tool in that ongoing struggle.
- Luanne Armstrong
192 pages, Paperback
Published September 24, 2019
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About the author
Donalda Reid
2 books8 followersToday, I’m a retired elementary school teacher and Principal with ancient degrees from The University of British Columbia - Bachelor of Education (Elementary), and Simon Fraser University – Master of Education (Administration). English and Fine Arts, my two academic majors, continue to be my focus.
I spent my teen years and began teaching at twenty in Salmon Arm, the small rural community in the interior of British Columbia which is the setting of my first Young Adult novel, The Way It Is. The book’s world is drawn from my memory of that place, though the characters are a product of my imagination.
As much as I enjoyed my thirty years working in schools throughout British Columbia, I love being retired. I paint and take photographs; I write; I travel. My first book, a memoir, Captive, a Survival Story, tells how I survived being captured by Rwandan Hutus when I was in Africa to see mountain gorillas.
Many of the photographs I take are the inspiration for my drawings and paintings. I’m a member of the Federation of Canadian Artists and have displayed my drawings and paintings at the Federation Gallery on Granville Island, Vancouver, British Columbia.
Coles Notes Biography
I was born. I went to school. I retired. Art and English were my best subjects in school, my majors at university, the subjects I taught and what I do now. If I were a cat I’d have six lives left. Writing books is how I investigate The Road Not Taken (Robert Frost, 1915).
I spent my teen years and began teaching at twenty in Salmon Arm, the small rural community in the interior of British Columbia which is the setting of my first Young Adult novel, The Way It Is. The book’s world is drawn from my memory of that place, though the characters are a product of my imagination.
As much as I enjoyed my thirty years working in schools throughout British Columbia, I love being retired. I paint and take photographs; I write; I travel. My first book, a memoir, Captive, a Survival Story, tells how I survived being captured by Rwandan Hutus when I was in Africa to see mountain gorillas.
Many of the photographs I take are the inspiration for my drawings and paintings. I’m a member of the Federation of Canadian Artists and have displayed my drawings and paintings at the Federation Gallery on Granville Island, Vancouver, British Columbia.
Coles Notes Biography
I was born. I went to school. I retired. Art and English were my best subjects in school, my majors at university, the subjects I taught and what I do now. If I were a cat I’d have six lives left. Writing books is how I investigate The Road Not Taken (Robert Frost, 1915).
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