Dr. Shelley Sella: Beyond Limits

Board-certified ob-gyn and advocate Dr. Shelley Sella discusses her book, a compassionate perspective on late-term abortion that challenges preconceived notions of who gets abortions and why. In conversation with Eloisa Lopez.ABOUT THE BOOK

"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 StudyA compassionate perspective on late-term abortion that challenges preconceived notions of who gets abortions and whyWithin 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.

ABOUT THE AUTHORDr. Shelley Sella is a board-certified ob-gyn and the first woman to openly practice third-trimester abortion care in the US, which she did for 20 years. She was prominently featured in the Emmy Award–winning documentary After Tiller. Dr. Sella served two terms on the board of the National Abortion Federation and in 2022 was awarded its highest honor, the Christopher Tietze Humanitarian Award. She is retired from clinical practice and now focuses on advocacy.ABOUT THE MODERATOREloisa Lopez is Executive Director of FLORECER: Reproductive Justice (formerly Pro-Choice Arizona) and the Abortion Fund of Arizona. Eloisa, a first-generation daughter of Mexican immigrants, came into RJ and abolition work through her lived experiences of parenthood, having abortions, living in domestic violence as a pregnant person, and having to live within the unsettling family court system. She began volunteering with the Abortion Fund of Arizona in 2017 and has served as executive director of the broader organization (FLORECER: Reproductive Justice, formerly Pro-Choice Arizona)since 2019. From October 2023 through March 2025, Eloisa served on the Arizona Dept of Health’s Maternal Mortality Review Committee in both a personal and professional capacity. She currently serves on the Arizona Working Families Organizing Committee. Her healing journey includes an abundance of trauma therapy, spirituality, and apprenticing with her local elder, Births Fire, studying curanderismo and the medicine wheel under her guidance.

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