Deeply intimate, profoundly human stories of third-trimester abortion, recounted by one unflinching physician dedicated to preserving the right to choose
In post-Roe America, where our bodies are not our own, the conversation around reproductive healthcare has been systematically stripped of its humanity. Yet few understand, save for the patients themselves, the humanity in abortion care as the physicians who provide it do. For the first time, one of these doctors-the first woman to perform third-trimester abortions in the US-shares patient stories that challenge preconceived notions of who gets abortions and why.
In Beyond Limits, Dr. Shelley Sella interweaves real patient stories with reflections on her personal and professional journey. She draws on 20 years' worth of journal entries to illustrate the deep connection between the patients making a life-changing decision and the physicians who will shepherd them through it. With care and compassion, Sella invites the reader into her clinic and introduces them to people like
• Clarissa, a mother of 2 whose third suffered a massive stroke in utero with no chance of recovery
• Mary, a devoted Catholic woman whose fourth round of IVF offered a late-in-life chance at motherhood, only to be dashed by anomalous test results
• Laura, a mother to 4 already whose bruised arms tell a painful story, one she couldn't bring herself to write a fifth child into
Beyond Limits is a testament to the real people whose hearts, reasons, and stories are more complex than those weaponized in conversations about abortion. And it is a call for understanding that, no matter one's stance, true freedom is having the choice to go beyond limits for what one feels is right for themselves. "Beyond Limits is moving, personal, insightful, and powerfully written. Long considered a hero of the abortion field, Dr. Sella gives us an eye-opening account of being one of the few providers to offer abortions in the third trimester of pregnancy. This book shares her thoughts and emotions as she recorded them during almost two decades of providing abortions. Her sincerity and calm devotion to women's bodily and life autonomy are clear. This book reveals how her own personal experiences and her years working with Dr. Tiller before his assassination shaped her philosophy of respecting the judgment and choices of pregnant people. This book helps us to see people who seek abortions with clarity and compassion, as people in the real world, rather than as the objects of an abstract moral or political debate."
- Diana Greene Foster, author of The Turnaway Study Dr. Shelley Sella is a board-certified OB/GYN and the first woman to openly practice third-trimester abortion care in the U.S., which she did for 20 years. She was prominently featured in the Emmy award-winning documentary After Tiller. Dr. Sella served two terms on the board of the National Abortion Federation and in 2022 was awarded its highest honor, the Christopher Tietze Humanitarian Award. She is retired from clinical practice and now focuses on advocacy.
