The Brave Lass, a freelance writer in Colorado, gives a close reading to Ellen Painter Dollar’s new book, No Easy Choice: A Story of Disability, Parenthood, and Faith in an Age of Advanced Reproduction, and finds it wanting.

From the conclusion:

Ellen Painter Dollar’s story is deeply moving, but when she attempts to move into the sphere of ethics, her efforts are deeply and fatally flawed . . .

The book fails in its central purpose of offering guidance for the decision-making process. Couples looking for guidance will find none. At the point at which this guidance might be offered, Dollar retreats behind her conception of narrative ethics and wants us to believe a community can come to a better decision than individuals — even though neither the individual or the community has a rubric through which to work their way toward making a wise decision.

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