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When she discovered that pregnancy complications endangered the lives of her twins, educated and accomplished Genevieve Grabman was ideally positioned to be her own advocate. She wasn't yet aware how anti-choice politics had permeated the medical world—to the point that her efforts to save even one of the twins hit walls of refusal and silence. Ultimately, politics rather than science determined the outcome of Grabman's pregnancy.

Challenging Pregnancy documents Grabman's almost surreal efforts to secure medical care for herself and her unborn children. She found she wasn't navigating a world free of religious mandates. US hospitals are increasingly owned by the Catholic Church. In rural areas, she discovered, roughly half the population has access to no other care than that allowed by the Church. Doctors live in fear not just prescribing "unacceptable" procedures, but even saying the wrong words.

Grabman interweaves her dismaying personal story with extensive research into the "care" American woman are increasingly have advocate against, rather than for. She brings her experience as an attorney for the WHO to her analysis of relevant court findings. And she shares her hard-won lessons in what an expectant parent can do to self-advocate, even in today's constricted, prescriptive medical landscape.