Undue Burden: Life and Death Decisions in Post-Roe America

Finalist for the 2024 Kirkus Prize for Nonfiction • A TIME Best Book of 2024 • Longlisted for the 2025 PEN Open Book Award An urgent investigation into the experience of seeking an abortion after the fall of Roe v. Wade, and the life-threatening consequences of being denied reproductive freedom. • "An absolute must-read; tell your friends; buy it for your family; sit with it on your own. This is storytelling we need." —Rebecca Traister, New York Times bestselling author of Good and Mad and All the Single Ladies On June 24, 2022, Roe v. Wade was overturned, and the impact was immediate: by 2023, abortion was virtually unavailable or significantly restricted in 21 states. In Undue Burden, reporter Shefali Luthra traces the unforgettable stories of patients faced with one of the most personal decisions of their lives. Outside of Houston, there’s a 16-year-old girl who becomes pregnant well before she intends to. A 21-year-old mother barely making ends meet has to travel hundreds of miles in secret for medical treatment in another state. A 42-year-old woman with a life-threatening condition wants nothing more than to safely carry her pregnancy to term, but her home state’s abortion ban fails to provide her with the options she needs to make an informed decision. And a 19-year-old trans man struggles to access care in Florida as abortion bans radiate across the American South.