Choice Choose Chosen – Mirjam Southwell

The Researcher sighs. She doesn’t want to disappear down that navel-gazing wormhole. The Forum is in sight. Coffee first, then the library, or library first, then coffee? She’ll check out the Chit Chat Café. If buggies outnumber tables, she’ll give it a miss. She’s not anti-babies, toddlers, mummies or the occasional daddy. Not at all. She’s read some interesting stuff in the newspapers recently – about the gap between women with and women without children, the childless ones, mothers versus the childless or childfree.

Apparently, there are now two unbridgeable divides: one between women who have achieved the lofty heights of motherhood and women who have not; and one between those women who scrabble, by every which way,89 to conceive, hang onto an embryo, sustain a foetus and those who couldn’t care less – women who actively choose not to have children. The Researcher, herself, is childfree. She doesn’t feel less of a woman, so is, therefore, not childless. She is pleased the Writer has a good relationship with her Daughter (trouble-free if the Writer is to be believed), but she, the Researcher, is not jealous or even mildly envious (for a start, she doesn’t believe any mother/daughter relationship can be trouble-free; not after the girl-child is, what, over the age of six months?).

She can’t say she actively sought not to have a child nor has she actively sought to be alone (but not lonely). It’s simply how life worked out. And she’s happy. Do you believe her? Lots of you won’t. And her granny didn’t. Added to which, her granny very much wanted to be a great granny – and to become one, she, her granddaughter, would have to be married.

No child should be born out of wedlock, ever. Thinking about it now, the Researcher isn’t too sure why her granny felt this so strongly. Perhaps it was as a result of her experiences working as a midwife. Perhaps she’d removed freshly delivered babies from unmarried mothers; witnessed their distress as babies were taken away never to be seen again.

First published in Great Britain in 2026 by The Book Guild Ltd Unit E2 Airfield Business Park, Harrison Road, Market Harborough, Leicestershire. LE16 7UL Tel: 0116 2792299 www.bookguild.co.uk Email: [email protected] Copyright © 2026 Mirjam Southwell The right of Mirjam Southwell to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Design and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in a retrieval system, in any form or by any means, without permission in writing from the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. The manufacturer’s authorised representative in the EU for product safety is Authorised Rep Compliance Ltd, 71 Lower Baggot Street, Dublin D02 P593 Ireland (www.arccompliance.com) This work is a work of fiction.

The events portrayed in it, while based on historical figures and interwoven with some factual content, are the product of the author’s imagination. ISBN 978 1835744 987 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. 1kitap1.com/en To Sophie, with love 1kitap1.com/en Although this novel was inspired by real events, and the lives and work of real people, it is very much a work of fiction and should be read as such. 1kitap1.com/en Prologue Roe versus Wade (1973) is overturned on 24th June 2022.

This makes the Writer angry. Very, very angry. Irrationally so, some might say. After all, apart from the fact that she lives in the UK and not the USA, the right to choose to have an abortion, or not, is a reproductive right she will never have to grapple with for herself. However, irrational or not, she is very, very angry. She jabs her mobile; her daughter answers: Hi Ma.

Yes, Ma, it’s rubbish. Yes, Ma, it’s outrageous. Ma, it’s my birthday soon. Yes, Ma, you’re right to be angry. I can’t believe it either. It’s a Friday, my birthday, it’s on a Friday. I can take a day’s annual leave and travel up on the Thursday evening, if that’s okay? Paula who? No, I didn’t know. No, I don’t know her work, sorry. Yes, Paula Rego, send me the link to her obituary. So, it’s okay if I come for my birthday? Yes, I’ll have a look at her abortion series.

Yes, it sounds really interesting. Gotta go, speak soon. Love you too. Bye.

This is a short excerpt from the opening of “” by Unknown, quoted for review and introduction purposes. All rights belong to the copyright holders.

Book Information

• Unique ID: 1708a69f2daaeac3
• File Extension: .pdf
• File Size: 5,693,121 bytes (5.429 MB)
• Title: –
• Author: Unknown
• ISBN: 9781835744987
• Pages: 274
• Language: English (en)

Reading & Word Statistics

• Estimated Reading Time: 374.4 minutes
• Total Words: 74,880
• Total Characters: 426,466
• Average Words per Page: 273.28
• Average Characters per Page: 1556.45

Most Frequent Words

says (522), writer (345), women (323), cetera (312), paula (293), christine (280), one (257), researcher (227), woman (226), abortion (224), don’t (184), think (183), know (182), yes (174), right (171), like (154), two (150), asks (149), say (144), time (144), reason (134), it’s (131), justice (128), said (123), steph (122), back (119), inês (118), white (117), i’m (117), now (111), lauren (110), rectitude (108), cake (106), she’s (102), mother (102), row (101), daughter (100), three (100), want (98), remember (97), see (96), get (93), rafaela (93), beatriz (89), didn’t (88), replies (88), sorry (85), choose (84), really (83), nonami (83), can’t (82), choice (82), dear (82), com (81), first (81), kitap (80), you’re (80), well (80), man (76), baby (75), that’s (74), good (73), perhaps (72), hand (72), eyes (72), head (70), please (67), biscuit (66), make (65), thinks (65), tea (64), little (64), made (63), child (60), never (58), life (58), bit (58), table (57), granny (57), much (56), feel (56), going (56), saying (55), take (54), use (54), christine’s (54), work (53), need (53), woman’s (52), biscuits (52), left (52), quite (52), herself (51), she’d (51), i’ve (51), long (51), tell (51), paper (51), next (50), day (50).

PDF Download