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.

Behind The Scenes?

Sunday morning was so icy that church was cancelled.  So at 10:00 I was tuned in to Joel Osteen on Channel 9.

I am not a “born again” Christian. I am not even sure how much of a Christian I am. I go to an Episcopal church because I started doing that when I was ten in order to sing in the choir—in the same church that I attend now. I think of myself as an Episcopalian/Buddhist. I’ve had wonderful teachers, both Hindu and Tibetan Buddhist; I have participated in numerous Buddhist-led meditation retreats and I read Buddhist literature copiously.

When I was ten and singing at Trinity Episcopal Church, my grandmother was faithfully in the congregation. But my grandmother was a Quaker—she referred to me as “thee” and “thou,” which I loved. There was no nearby Quaker meeting, so she attended her husband’s church. My memories of my grandfather’s presence at church are scant. I think the golf course was his real church—certainly in summer-- just as for my father, the sailing club was his place of faith and spiritual sustenance.

I was ordained in 1981 as an interfaith minister at the New Seminary for Interfaith Studies. The New Seminary was founded by an Hasidic rabbi, Rabbi Joseph Gelberman, who, in my book, was one of the great souls of all time.

His essential message to us during our two years of studying the great religions of the world, was, “Never instead of, always in addition to.”

Why am I going on about this? At seminary I was taught to be inclusive, so although the concept of “born again” may cause me to raise an eyebrow, my admiration of Joel Osteen’s work in the world increases. And, as you may know, Osteen speaks to the world in numbers possibly exceeded only the by the Pope.

Back to last-- the very icy--Sunday. Pastor Osteen began by drawing our attention to “who is behind the scenes?” He talked about all the people who work to produce his widely attended and watched Sunday show. He named all the tasks necessary to create the televised service, reminding us that we can’t see any of those people, that we see only him. But, he acknowledged, they make him look good. Without them, he would not, could not, be speaking to us.

Then he posed some pithy questions: Are we willing to be behind the scenes? Can we happily play our role, even when it is not a lead role? Can we celebrate the success of others even when we believe we might have done just as good a job? 

He went on to challenge us by asking: Whom are we helping to succeed without taking any credit for it? Are we content to be invisible or are we constantly worried about being outshined?

I had been a civil rights activist in Ohio during the ‘70s long before my brother—the TV executive—made the stunning and successful film series called Roots. I had marched, had rotten eggs and tomatoes thrown at me as I lined up publically against block busting. I had strategized in endless basements of African American churches in what we, in Toledo, Ohio, at that time, shamelessly referred to as the “ghetto.” I regularly attended a large African American Baptist church in that “ghetto” for the better part of three years in order to give myself something of the experience of being “an only”---in this case the only white person in a religious culture very different from my own.

Years on various committees: serving on the Toledo Board of Community Relations and chairing the Police/Community relations committee of that board, attempting, along with others, to mediate between the police and the African American community. (That situation hasn’t changed much.)

I’m not complaining. Not one bit. I loved the work, felt committed and determined about it. I met Martin Luther King! But when Roots came out, my brother, in one week, by fighting the fight to produce Alex Haley’s book on film, did more for human rights and equality than any of us in our small, but dedicated, Ohio group could ever imagine.

I had gone to California to watch the first three days of Roots with my very nervous brother. On the way home I had to change planes in Chicago and found myself walking behind three Black “dudes,” decked out in jeans and jackets and boots—common garb now, but not in 1977. One of the guys suddenly raised his arm to look at his watch and I heard him say to the others, “Hey man, we gotta get goin’. We’re gonna miss Roots!”

I knew then what my brother had done and I felt a jolt of envy. Those of us—and there were so many-- who were “boots on the ground” during those years could not come close to accomplishing what he could achieve through his medium. I phoned him immediately from a phone booth to celebrate with him over what I had just witnessed.

Can we play our role even when it’s not a lead role and be truly happy for the larger success of another?

Joel Osteen tells us: “True greatness is not how bright our light shines but how we help others to shine.”

Something to think about.

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Our thoughts and prayers are with the Ukrainian people as they struggle for autonomy along their border, particularly in the Donetsk region.