"[No Easy Choice] is much more than memoir and more like an extended 'case study,' but not one written by a health care professional or clergy in training. Rather, it turns the tables, and is written by the 'case' herself, a parent of faith carrying a very risky gene who is trying to deal with the worlds of science, theology, and culture. I learned a lot and felt honored to be invited into the intimacy and capacity to deal with that wider intersection that happens at the beginning of life itself."
--William C. Gaventa, Associate Professor, The Elizabeth M. Boggs Center on Developmental Disabilities , UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, and author of Spirituality and Intellectual Disability
"This is a most thoroughgoing evaluation of questions that will absorb prospective parents, doctors, pastors, and those who counsel couples about in vitro fertilization and genetic testing. Anyone reading it will come away better informed on such vital choices challenging our culture."
--Virginia Stem Owens, author of Caring for Mother: A Daughter's Long Goodbye
"In No Easy Choice, Ellen Painter Dollar sets out to provide a guide for Christians considering reproductive technology. She succeeds, and then some. Weaving together an honest and touching personal narrative with ethical and theological insight, Dollar writes about a complex topic in simple terms. No Easy Choice should provoke thought, prayer, and discussion from any Christian who wants to engage the most pressing ethical concerns of the 21st century."
--Amy Julia Becker, author of A Good and Perfect Gift: Faith, Expectations, and a Little Girl Named Penny
"Ellen Painter Dollar is a consummate storyteller with a consuming story to tell. She is also a gifted journalist. In No Easy Choice, she has combined those skills to produce a gripping account of her family's engagement with one of the pressing questions of our time. Chock full of informed and candid insights, this one is a page turner."
--Phyllis Tickle, author of The Great Emergence: How Christianity Is Changing and Why
"No Easy Choice is a painfully wise book about the pain of having children whose life will be filled with pain. It is also a book of hope because its author never tries to say more than can be said about why some children are so born. This is a must read, not only for those considering prenatal genetic diagnosis and intervention, but for all concerned with the ethics of PGD. It's a terrific book."
--Stanley Hauerwas, Professor of Theological Ethics, Duke Divinity School, and author of God, Medicine, and the Problem of Suffering
Part memoir, part theological treatise, this book offers a refreshingly candid and nuanced grappling with assisted reproduction that will be valuable to many Christians wishing to engage with the ethical questions raised by this new medical technology. Dollar, who suffers from a genetic disorder better known as “brittle bone disease,” wanted to spare her offspring the suffering she endured by testing her fertilized eggs for the mutation before they were implanted in her uterus. (There was a 50% chance her child would inherit the mutation.) Opposed to abortion, she and her husband reasoned that embryos in a petri dish are not the same as a fetus growing inside a womb. Nevertheless, she wondered if such technological advances might not hasten a world of designer babies selected to minimize the chances of pain, sickness, and disability. With an estimated four million babies conceived through in-vitro fertilization and rapid advances in genetic testing, such questions have never been more urgent, yet they are often left to couples to sort through on their own. This well-written, insightful account should serve as a resource to anyone who ponders the intersection of medicine, ethics, and parenthood. (Jan.)