Beyond Limits: Stories of Third-Trimester Abortion Care

"Beyond Limits is moving, personal, insightful, and powerfully written. 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

A compassionate perspective on late-term abortion that challenges preconceived notions of who gets abortions and why

Within both the anti-abortion and pro-choice movements, third-trimester abortion is often stigmatized and misunderstood. For 20 years, Dr. Shelley Sella saw patients whose diverse backgrounds and circumstances led them to the same difficult decision: to end their pregnancies.

Now, interweaving her own journey as a provider, Dr. Sella invites readers into a typical week at her clinic to demystify the experience. She shares the stories of people like

• Clarissa, a mother of 2 whose third suffered a massive stroke in utero with no chance of recovery
• Mary, a devoted Catholic 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 not just a testament to a standard of care grounded in competence, compassion, and sensitivity. It is also a call for a paradigm shift that moves beyond Dobbs, beyond Roe, beyond limits to provide care. And it is a tribute to the real people whose hearts, reasons, and stories are more complex than politicized conversations about abortion lead us to believe.