COMPELLING INTERESTS

Make that "Jessica Shaver Renshaw"

     Pro-life activists accuse pro-choice activists of not really caring about women. Pro-choice activists accuse pro-lifers of only caring about babies.
     This book cares about both.
     Compelling Interests has been called "the War and Peace of the abortion battle." Many of us are passionate about this issue though we may be on opposing sides. We are so polarized we aren't listening to each other.
     I have compassion for women with unplanned pregnancies and their babies, as well as for women whose abortions have been traumatizing. So in this novel I attempted to get inside the hearts of people on both sides. By trying to accurately and sympathetically portray both views I hope pro-choice and pro-life people will feel heard and will risk hearing the hearts of those on the other side.
     I am convinced if both sides are presented fairly, the pro-life side will prove the more persuasive. 
     Against a backdrop of 70 years of contemporary American history, Compelling Interests presents the drama and complexity of abortion from before its legalization until sometime in the future when Roe vs. Wade may be overturned. It follows the lives of women and men branded by their experiences who try to change the future in very different ways:

Cecile Tucker-Thomas, whose own illegal abortion drives her to make abortion legal, whatever it takes,

Supreme Court Justice James Weatherill Weiss, struggling with whether to vote to legalize abortion or not;

Gwen Nakashige, who flies to Japan to bring babies rejected by their mothers to adoptive homes in the States,

Joan Andrews, a pro-life activist imprisoned for her persistent nonviolent protests at family planning clinics,

Dr. Julius Guy, a millionaire abortionist haunted by his dreams,

Mariana Hernandez, mother of four who takes pregnant women into her own home to help find them an alternative to abortion,

Stephanie, a teenager who nearly dies from a legal abortion, and

Noel, the fellow college student who loves her.

Note: Joan Andrews is a real person and everything about her in the book is taken from interviews with her and published with her permission. Everyone else in the book is based on real people or composites of real people. 

This book is in the hands of a Christian producer, at his request. I'd appreciate your prayers for God's will. 

Today I am thankful for all the heroes of this second Civil War, especially those who are still determining how it will come out.