“Perilous Times” Press Release

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: MAY 20, 2013

Media Inquiries, Interview or Excerpt Requests Contact: Eva Zimmerman, Publicist evalmzimmerman@gmail.com 510.292.8678

A must-read as the raging debate over abortion continues

Perilous Times: An Inside Look at Abortion Before—and After—Roe v Wade

“… rich in her trademark blend of stories, history, knowledge and passion. I join [Fran Moreland Johns] in the belief that almost nothing could be more important to address and fight for than women’s reproductive rights. This book is an important contribution to that discussion, for which I thank and admire her greatly.” –Anne Lamott, bestselling author Bird by Bird, Operating Instructions, and Traveling Mercies

According to the World Health Organization, each year, nearly 42 million women faced with an unplanned pregnancy have an abortion, and about 20 million of them resort to unsafe abortion. The matter of unsafe abortion in the United States led to the legal proceedings of Roe v Wade in 1973, which legalized abortion, but since then the contentious debate over abortion continues.

Perilous Times: An Inside Look at Abortion Before – and After – Roe v Wade (YBK Publishers, Inc./May 20th, 2013) by Fran Moreland Johns, comes into this acrimonious dispute at the right time.

Illuminating the dramatic, ongoing struggle for women’s reproductive rights in the U.S, Perilous Times focuses on a vast variety of women’s personal, sometimes devastating, experiences of back alley abortions before Roe v Wade and on physicians and activists who risked everything to provide safe procedures. Opening with the author’s own story of a 1956 abortion necessitated by an incidence of workplace rape, Perilous Times paints a picture of those days while covering the dangers and difficulties that extend beyond 1973 into the present day. Contemporary stories illustrate parallels with former times.

Also included are stories from boyfriends and husbands, and comments from those prominent in reproductive rights today. Perilous Times creates a woven fabric of the ongoing story as abortion opponents continue the drive to limit or deny access to safe and legal procedures, and provides new insight into an emotionally charged issue. Women and men on either side of the issue will be moved, and enlightened. This is a must-read for today’s perilous times.

Perilous Times: An Inside Look at Abortion Before Roe v Wade

by Fran Moreland Johns

May 2013 | Trade Paper ISBN: 978-1-936411-22-1 YBK Publishers, Inc.
39 Crosby Street, New York 10013