No Turning Back: Two Nuns Battle With the Vatican over Women's Right to Choose

Two nuns recount their struggle with the Vatican over women's right to choose an abortion, discussing the larger issue of women's place in the Catholic Church

This autobiographical account by two ex-nuns is not so much an exploration of the abortion issue as it is an excellent social history of the American Catholic Church over the last three decades. Ferraro and Hussey (writing here with freelancer O'Reilly) would have welcomed ordination as priests and might have been good ones. Their frustration at the limited pastoral role available to them--Catholicism's "glass ceiling"--led to their eventual rebellion, the abortion question merely serving as a vehicle for their final break with the Church. This largely anecdotal account of two women's journey from sheltered working-class Catholic childhoods to the lofty world of a feminist liberation theology will appeal to Catholic and feminist readers. For religion collections.
- Donna K. Bausch, Regent Univ. Law Lib., Virginia Beach, Va.
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