UNFIT: The Tale of One Pregnant Teen in the Bible Belt before Women Had Choice

In the decades between World War II and Roe v. Wade, an astounding 1.5 million girls and young women were sent to maternity homes and coerced into relinquishing their babies. Lani Jo Leigh was one of those girls.

In 1971, it was the Age of Aquarius and a time of sexual freedom, yet in Moore, OK, sex, drugs, and rock & roll were still the devil’s handiwork. In the repressed fundamentalist culture of her small hometown, Lani Jo struggled with the “sin” of her sexuality. When she learned that she was pregnant, she was given one option–banishment to a maternity home in New Orleans. While most girls were sent away for the third trimester, Lani Jo spent six months at Sellers Baptist Home for Unwed Mothers. UNFIT tells the story of her time there–a time of despair, rage, betrayal, and abandonment. With 24 high school and college age girls resideing at the Home at any one time, it is also the story of friendship and genuine caring told with humor and pathos.

Now that women’s reproductive rights are once again fueling a divisive national debate, UNFIT provides a poignant, heartbreaking and personal look into our nation’s grim history when abortion was illegal, sex education was almost non-existent, and birth control was tightly restricted.