Matters of Choice

Late twentieth-century Massachusetts. Dr Roberta Jeanne d’Arc Cole appears to have secured the career and marriage expected of a successful Boston physician, but her work at an abortion clinic costs her a senior hospital appointment and helps bring her marriage to an end. She retreats to the family farmhouse in the Berkshire Hills intending to dispose of it, only to find that rural practice offers a different form of medical responsibility.

Roberta must balance scientific medicine with the economic and emotional realities of patients whose choices do not fit institutional rules. Her commitment to reproductive rights is tested alongside her own desire for a child, forcing her to confront the difference between defending autonomy in principle and living with its consequences. The final Cole novel shifts from historical adventure to contemporary medical ethics, examining gender discrimination, abortion, family and the compromises demanded by professional life.