This book came out in 2006, but given recent political developments, it might be time to take another look at Ann Fessler's The Girls Who Went Away: The Hidden History of Women Who Surrendered Children for Adoption in the Decades Before Roe v. Wade.

The subtitle says it all: this is the hidden history of women who surrendered children for adoption in the decades before that landmark decision by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1973. Fessler balances her chapters with first-person narratives from both the women who gave up children and from adopted children. The book explores the shame of getting pregnant in the post-World War II era, the lack of birth control education, the lack of medical birth control for unmarried women, and the hurry of "good" families to bury the mortifying secret product of premarital sex. At its core, the book is about psychological pain, for both mother and child. This pain and confusion lasts for a lifetime.

I grew up with sex education, had access to reproductive planning clinics, and went to a high school that had a day-care center on site. Modern women take our choices for granted -- the choice to use birth control, the choice to keep a child as an unmarried mother, the choice to have an open, structured adoption, the choice to have a closed adoption, and the choice for safe, legal abortion. This was an eye-opening examination of choices (or lack thereof) over the last 50 years.

Fessler has no agenda other than educating the reader about the hidden histories of these shamed, embarrassed unwed mothers. Chapters focus on specific issues such as birth control education, the social stigma of unmarried pregnancy, double standards for men and women, houses that women were shipped off to, the adoption agencies and processes, and the aftermath of adoption. She uses personal narratives to flesh out her history book, but Fessler does not edit the histories to make any specific political point. Her subjects had widely varying experiences and reactions, all of which are captured herein.