BOOK REVIEW: ABANDONED, The Untold Stories of the Abortion Wars, by Monica Migliorino Miller, Ph.D.

Having been a pro-life activist from 1984 to 1992, I have a very keen interest in collecting books that cover the History of pro-life activism or what is being more commonly referred to by pro-life and pro-abortion authors as the “abortion wars.”  As informative as most of these books that I have are, there is one feature that Abandoned has that these other books don’t.  Abandoned was written by a fellow pro-life activist and I find that to by very appealing.  The author and I share a common bond.  We both have had the experience of being arrested at an abortion mill and seeing the inside of a jail cell.  So for me, the fact that Dr. Miller was an actual pro-life activist gives her book a higher level of credibility than the other books that were written by the non activist authors.

Abandoned is essentially Dr. Miller’s memoirs covering part of her distinguished career as a pro-life activist from 1976 to 1994, primarily in the Chicago/Milwaukee area during that time.  Her post graduate education and background as a college professor is quite evident in the way she compiled her research and arranged her material.  But even beyond that, Dr. Miller can just FLAT OUT WRITE!  Her syntax and writing style is superb.  Not only did Dr. Miller accurately give an account of the events she was involved in, but she wrote her book in such a way that holds her readers’ attention as they glide through the pages.

Abandoned reads like a Tom Clancy novel, as Dr. Miller so brilliantly captured the drama of the events that she wrote about.  Whether it was her interaction with the women that she sidewalk counseled, the police, the judges and lawyers, her jail mates, or her pro-life comrades while retrieving dead babies at the abortion mill dumpsters or planning rescues, Dr. Miller was very thorough in illustrating the demeanor and attitudes of the various characters she engaged.  She has a way of drawing in her readers and making them feel as if they we right there as it happened.  Dr. Miller has done some acting and she has a Bachelors degree in Theatre.  I am guessing that her background in the arts might be one of the reasons she can illustrate drama so well with her words.  I think Dr. Miller would probably be successful if she were to cross over and write in the fiction genres such as novels.

The parts of Abandoned that I found especially interesting were the accounts of the rescues (sit-ins at abortion mills).  Here are some of them:

·         The first rescue in Chicago at the Concord “Medical” Services on March 11, 1978;

·         The first rescue in Milwaukee at the Bread and Roses abortion mill on March 8, 1986.

·         The Interstate Bank Building rescue in Milwaukee on June 8, 1989;

·         The Wendy’s overpass rescue on April 25, 1991;

·         The driveway rescue at abortionist, Neville Sender’s house on June 21, 1993.

As the one who invented the lock and block system for rescues, I especially found the lock-in rescues that Dr. Miller wrote about quite interesting.  Even though the Milwaukee rescuers didn’t use blocks per se as we did in the Houston rescues, they did devise their own unique techniques and apparatuses that achieved the same effect that a block would have.  Such as rescuers using kryptonite bike locks and locking themselves to junk cars or to each other inside a junk car.  Then there was a rescuer that attached himself to barrel filled with cement with a PVC pipe.  It just goes to show that there is more than one way to lock yourself to an object in order to slow down the arrest process.

As I read about Dr. Miller’s experiences during the rescues she was in and her time in jail, I found myself recalling similar experiences during my time as an activist.  As of the time I began to read Abandoned, I was already in the process of writing my own book that will chronicle my History as a pro-life activist.  Also, I spoke with two other pro-life activists who are planning to do the same.  After reading Abandoned, I am inspired more than ever to finish my book.  Suffice it to say Dr. Miller has set the bar very high for all the other pro-life activists who want follow in her path.