A Must Read

Absolute Convictions: My Father, a City, and the Conflict That Divided America, By Eyal Press is a thoughtful and important portrait of Buffalo's struggle with the decisive issue of abortion. Eyal Press's nuanced narrative paints a vivid and personal story about a political movement, his home town, and the father he loves and respects a gynecologist who, despite daily death threats, went to work everyday without complaint.

What is most interesting about this book is not the story of his father's bravery(which is exemplary) but the history of the Militant Right to Life Movement and its unlikely roots in Upstate New York. Press's thorough and sensitive approach to the issue touches upon many of the social and economic changes that brought about the movement that would ultimately murder Dr. Barnett Slepian another Buffalo Doctor and would also be responsible for countless death threats, physical attacks and other forms of violent intimidation against Women's healthcare providers. Eyal Press speaks about the social pressures that occurred when the hard-working blue collar communities of Upstate New York faced catastrophic job losses during the 1980'’s . Many communities faced profound economic devastation and chronic unemployment, and it was under these conditions that the Right To Life Movement was born. Their militancy was desperate; mirroring their own lives. Instead of focusing on economic issues--- their fears, passions and sorrows where focused on their moral and religious beliefs and channeled into a militant movement.

This book should be on every Political Science student's reading list because it is such a relevant and important demonstration of how economic issues create socially motivated political movements---and demonstrates how the Democrats lost the "working man's" vote. The working man, no longer exists, he has changed and become something very different. Gone are the days when communities lived, worked and voted together.