Undue Burden

Life and Death Decisions in Post-Roe America

By: Shefali Luthra

Narrated by: Suehyla El-Attar Young, Shefali Luthra

KIRKUS PRIZE FINALIST • 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 • “Indispensable… An impeccably researched, clearheaded and frankly terrifying assessment of just how grave the situation in post-Roe America is… Whatever your gender, race, religious background or political preferences, Luthra’s Undue Burden should be on your required reading list.”—San Francisco Chronicle

On June 24, 2022, Roe v. Wade was overturned, and the impact was immediate: by 2024, 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.

Before Dobbs, it was a common misconception that abortion restrictions affected only people in certain states but left one's own life untouched. Since the fall of Roe, a domino effect has cascaded across the entire country. As the landscape of abortion rights continues to shift, the experiences of these patients—who crossed state lines to seek life-saving care, who risked everything in pursuit of their own bodily autonomy, and who were unable to plan their reproductive future in the way they deserved—illustrate how fragile the system is, and how devastating the consequences can be.

A revelatory portrait of inequality in America, Undue Burden examines abortion not as a footnote or a political pawn, but as a basic human right, something worthy of our collective attention and with immense power to transform our lives, families, and futures.

©2024 Shefali Luthra (P)2024 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

Finalist for the 2024 Kirkus Prize for Nonfiction

“Indispensable… An impeccably researched, clearheaded and frankly terrifying assessment of just how grave the situation in post-Roe America is… Whatever your gender, race, religious background or political preferences, Luthra’s Undue Burden should be on your required reading list.”—San Francisco Chronicle

“A superbly reported account… Undue Burden focuses on the stories of those who are attempting to navigate an unraveling healthcare system while pregnant. Luthra brings their voices to life, and she locates her subjects in their larger contexts—socioeconomic, political, religious, historical—thereby exposing how abortion bans disproportionately harm the most vulnerable…The stakes could not be higher… Undue Burden provide[s] a preview of a nationwide catastrophe that we still have the opportunity, one can hope, to prevent.”—Washington Post

“Luthra calls the end of Roe a ‘public health crisis,’ and it is one… She also effectively uses public health data to highlight disproportionate racial impacts of abortion bans… But it is when discussing abortion as a human right that Luthra makes her most powerful points: about the limitations of Roe, which was ‘never enough to ensure that everyone could easily, safely access legal abortions’; the injustices of legislation like the 1977 Hyde Amendment, under which no federal health insurance dollars can be used to pay for abortions; and the vulnerable and marginalized individuals in this country who have always been left behind, or left out entirely, in conversations about ‘choice...’ Luthra rightly criticizes a tendency in the national debate ‘to speak about abortion in only the starkest terms...’ In Undue Burden, she resists such simplistic storytelling.”—New York Review of Books

Women's reproductive rights stripped

This book was difficult to listen to because it's depressing that women, especially those of color, have been stripped of the right to women's health care. The author used real accounts of how devastating it is for real individuals. And it shows why the religious right and politicians need to quit dictating what THEY deem appropriate for women's health care.