Looking for Jane (111)
In the Canadian context, the legalization that came in 1988 with the groundbreaking R. v. Morgentaler Supreme Court decision arrived only after years of provincial court battles on Dr. Henry Morgentaler’s part, and I believe legalization would not have occurred as quickly without his determination and the efforts of those who worked closely with him. I will thank her again in my acknowledgments, but here I must extend particular gratitude to (in)famous feminist activist and fellow author Judy Rebick for taking the time to meet with me for an interview. Her recollections of Henry Morgentaler and her involvement in the Canadian abortion rights movement throughout the 1970s and 1980s helped mold my foundational ideas for the Janes’ story line. With that said, the scene where Evelyn interacts with Dr. Morgentaler in his Montreal office is entirely fictional.
However, the Abortion Caravan was indeed a real series of events that occurred in 1970. After a large protest on the lawn at Parliament Hill in Ottawa, these women delivered a symbolic coffin to Prime Minister Trudeau (senior)’s house, and chained themselves to the railings in the House of Commons to disrupt the proceedings and attract media attention to the issue of abortion access. The details of these events as depicted in the novel are my own creative products, though I drew inspiration for them from Judy Rebick’s Ten Thousand Roses: The Making of a Feminist Revolution.
To all the “Janes,” near and far, past and present, who made and continue to make incredible sacrifices, risking arrest and bodily harm to help women access safe abortions, I thank you from the bottom of my bleeding feminist heart. The illegality of these organizations has meant that the vast majority of the participants’ true identities remain unknown, but I hope through this novel I have helped to give them a voice and honour them for their outstanding contribution to women’s and human rights history.
THE MATERNITY HOME SYSTEM
St. Agnes’s Home for Unwed Mothers is a product of my imagination. (St. Agnes is the patron saint of virgins, girls, and chastity, so it seemed fitting.) But, like the Jane Network, it is also intended to serve as a composite, representing the numerous maternity homes that existed in various countries—including Canada—in the postwar years. They were funded by the government and mainly run by churches, though a few were secular or nondenominational. In the years after World War II, there was a strong societal push for the expansion of the nuclear family. For those who were unable to have biological families of their own, adoption was an attractive option, and spurred a robust demand for white babies during these years. Mothers of colour were not often sent to these maternity homes, as babies of colour were considered less desirable or even unadoptable.
During my research on these institutions in Canada and the United States, I discovered some truly shocking facts from firsthand accounts of those who attended them as teenagers or young women. Few women reported having had any kind of positive experience at the homes (perhaps aside from the occasional forbidden friendships they forged within), and most described their time at these institutions on a spectrum from moderately unpleasant to horrendously abusive, including systemic physical, psychological, and sexual abuse.
I regret to inform you that use of the term “inmates” by the administration, girls being coerced into signing adoption papers before they were allowed to hold their baby after birth (or before painkillers would be administered), and being told their babies had died were not exaggerations on my part. They are appalling truths drawn from real eyewitness accounts I uncovered during my research. Girls were also often kept in the dark about the facts of their pregnancy or what to expect during the labour process, and many were left alone in hospital or dormitory beds to labour, unsupported, for hours at a time. I assure you I made a very deliberate decision not to exaggerate what girls might have thought, felt, and experienced at a place like St. Agnes’s in the 1960s.
These women’s descriptions of their feelings about the adoption, how it impacted their mental health at the time and for decades afterward—including crippling depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, inability to form meaningful relationships, fear of having more children or having those children taken away from them, and suicide attempts—and their desperation to locate their lost children in later years were some of the most powerful accounts I have ever read as a student of history. I tried to weave many of them into Maggie/Evelyn’s thoughts and emotions about being forcibly separated from Jane/Nancy.
I extend sincere gratitude (along with my deepest condolences) to the women who have, over time, shared their heartbreaking experiences with interested researchers. I could not have brought this story to life without your bravery and willingness to relive your trauma.
But now, dear reader, I will ask you to hold my (non-alcoholic) beer as I climb up onto my soapbox. Because these women deserve more than my thanks.
They deserve justice.
According to Statistics Canada, between 1945 and 1971, almost 600,000 babies were born to unmarried mothers, their births recorded as “illegitimate.” Researcher Valerie Andrews has estimated that over 300,000 mothers in Canada were forced or coerced into surrendering their babies for adoption within the postwar-era maternity home system under what she has termed the “white adoption mandate.” These programs were funded by both the federal and provincial governments.
In late 2017, Canada’s Standing Senate Committee on Social Affairs, Science and Technology undertook a study of the postwar maternity home program. The committee heard from witnesses who gave testimony regarding the irreparable psychological and emotional damage they suffered as a result of this system. Of the several religious organizations (including Catholic, United, Anglican, and Presbyterian churches, and the Salvation Army) that delivered these programs on behalf of the government, only the United Church agreed to participate in the Senate’s study and admit any responsibility whatsoever.