Echoing Through Generations

Yesterday, March 2, my daughter-in-law, New York lawyer, Janice MacAvoy, addressed the rally for Access to Abortion, from the steps of the Supreme Court Building in Washington.

She spoke clearly and powerfully as she told her story of being the first woman in her family to graduate from High School.  She had a scholarship to college and wanted to be a lawyer.  She became pregnant at eighteen and was able then to have a “safe, compassionate, legal abortion.”

“I am not a lawyer who had an abortion,” Janice declared. “I am a lawyer because I had an abortion.” She went on to say that when she married and gave birth to her first child, a daughter, “I was prepared then to be the kind of mother that my daughter deserved.”

Cecile Richards leaving Supreme Court. Janice on her right.

Along with colleagues, Janice MacAvoy has rounded up one hundred and thirteen lawyers who have had legal abortions.

Their personal stories supporting abortion rights constitute one of the briefs—known as the MacAvoy brief-- that was submitted to the Supreme Court yesterday when the court began hearings on the Texas Abortion Case. The court is reviewing restrictions imposed by a lower court in Texas that strongly effect accessibility to abortion procedures at Texas Planned Parenthood clinics.

I am so proud of my daughter-in-law!

And I am remembering my mother, who, finding herself pregnant four months after my sister was born, went to New York to have an abortion. That would have been in 1933. She told me she had some form of contraception called “A Woman’s Friend” which was totally useless.

It wasn’t long after my brother and I were born, that, with my mother in the lead, she and a few friends raised sufficient funds to rent an appropriate space for a birth control clinic. They found a willing gynecologist and nurse and opened the clinic in Bridgeport.

In spite of the clinic being absolutely illegal—see Connecticut Comstock Laws -- it ran successfully for a number of years. Women were examined under sterile and respectful circumstances; volunteers and professionals listened to their patients’ stories and patients were given contraception advice and devices.

Then one day the clinic was “raided” by police and closed. My mother was taken into custody, fortunately for only as long as it took for my father to get to the police station and retrieve her. We children, sitting on the floor in front of our big radio, heard about our mother on the evening news. I remember thinking that our mother was the bravest, most amazing person ever.

In 1968, as chairperson of the Mid East Region of Planned Parenthood, World Population, I, an Ohio resident at the time, was asked to speak in favor of the repeal of the Comstock Laws at the Ohio State Legislature. At that time Connecticut and Ohio were the last remaining states to have laws restricting the dissemination of birth control information and devices.

I thanked God for the years I spent in school plays and, compelled by memories of my mother’s extraordinary bravery,  I went to Columbus and addressed the entirely male legislature on the reproductive rights of women.  

The time had come.The law that had closed my mother’s clinic all those years ago was repealed.

Generations of my family are with you, Janice MacAvoy!
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One cannot help but wonder if this issue will ever be settled.