“Hey, T,” Angela says. “Got a question for you. Have you ever heard of something called the Jane Network?”
CHAPTER 12 Evelyn
OTTAWA | MAY 9, 1970
The city is plastered with green and black posters. They’ve gone up everywhere: pinned to bulletin boards in steamy coffee shops with mismatched chairs and chipped white mugs; pasted to store windows along Sparks Street and in the ByWard Market boutiques; taped to the backs of bathroom stall doors in the public libraries; stapled to telephone poles along all of Ottawa’s busiest streets.
It’s the first thing Evelyn notices when she emerges from the train station on Saturday morning. She steps into the weak spring sunlight, shifts her backpack to a more comfortable position on her shoulders, and walks toward the nearest telephone pole.
THE WOMEN ARE COMING, the posters declare. Underneath, the subtitle reads, The Abortion Caravan. Evelyn’s stomach does a little backflip. She lets her breath out in an audible sigh, releasing some of the tension in her chest. She can’t recall having felt this excited, nervous, and determined since the day she began medical school. It’s a similar feeling of exhilaration, another protest.
Nine years ago, Evelyn left St. Agnes’s a different woman. After all the trauma, after the crippling sense of helplessness, and lack of control over her own life, she vowed she would never again be in a position where she would have to rely on anyone else or feel as powerless as she had. She wasn’t interested in being a housewife, in starting over as if nothing had happened. She longed for a career that would ensure her independence. After convincing her family this was her only way forward, she applied and was accepted to medical school in Montreal.
She was one of only two women in the program, and things weren’t easy for either her or Marie. But on her very first day, she also met Tom, who sat next to her in their Introduction to Human Anatomy class. He was different from the other men, who viewed Evelyn and Marie with either suspicion, disdain, or uninhibited sexual interest. Tom became not only her best friend, but her roommate, too, along with Marie and one of Tom’s other friends. Despite a ripple of scandalized muttering from those who thought it inappropriate for unmarried women to be living with men, the arrangement worked well for Evelyn. Between having been deemed a “fallen” woman at such a young age and putting up with snide and cruel remarks from her male colleagues, she was past the point of caring much about other people’s muttering, anyway.
But her life changed when Marie came to her room one night to ask her for a favour. She needed an abortion, and she wanted Evelyn to come with her.
“I can’t give all this up,” she told Evelyn, as she paced back and forth along the tattered secondhand bedroom rug. “Not now. I’m here because I want to do something more with my life than my mother did. I can’t go back to being dependent on my parents. I can’t even bear the thought. And I could never give a baby up for adoption. It would ruin me.” She glanced at Evelyn through wet eyelashes. “I hope you don’t think me awful for it.”
Evelyn chewed her lip, then reached out, stopping Marie midstride. “I understand more than you can imagine, Marie.”
After witnessing the procedure from her vantage point at the top of Dr. Henry Morgentaler’s surgical table, where she held Marie’s hand and spoke soothingly, Evelyn became possessed by an idea, which became a dare, and eventually a plan. She called Dr. Morgentaler’s office to set up a meeting the following week, and told him exactly why she wanted to learn how to perform the abortion procedure. For the first time since she had left St. Agnes’s, she spoke openly to a stranger about what had gone on there.
“I never had a say in what happened to me,” she’d told the doctor. “I had no control. And watching you the other day, with Marie—if I had known the kind of pain I would feel, being forced to give up my child like that…” She shook her head. “I loved my daughter. I desperately wanted to keep her, and I wasn’t allowed to. But if things had been different, if I had gotten pregnant today and didn’t want to be, well, an abortion could save a woman from a life sentence of pain, couldn’t it?”
As she spoke the truth that drove her to his office, Dr. Morgentaler watched her from behind the thick glasses perched on his nose. Evelyn looked down at her lap, traced her finger along the scar at her wrist, faded to white now after so many years.
“I lost everything. I wouldn’t wish this on anyone. I don’t want other women to have to feel what I feel. I need them to at least have a choice. And I saw that potential when I came in with Marie.”
He was silent for a moment. Evelyn bit down hard on her fear and met his gaze, surprised by the kindness there.
“I understand, Miss Taylor,” he said quietly.
Evelyn felt a prickle at the corners of her eyes. “Forgive me, Dr. Morgentaler. Women aren’t permitted moments of weakness in the medical profession. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be, please.” Dr. Morgentaler unlinked his fingers and leaned forward in his chair. “And listen to me carefully, Miss Taylor, because this is very important. Do not mistake your humanity for weakness. It is, unfortunately, a common misconception.”
Evelyn sniffed. “You could say I’m feeling quite human about the whole thing, then.”
“The best physicians do, Miss Taylor. And your experience will allow you to offer a uniquely valuable level of compassion to your patients. Cultivate that. Cherish it. The terror you obviously experienced has brought you here to my office today, with this incredibly courageous request. You would not be here otherwise, now, would you?”
Evelyn couldn’t argue. “So, will you teach me?”
“It would be my honour, Miss Taylor.”
Evelyn’s heart leapt in her chest. “Thank you, Dr. Morgentaler.”
The doctor surveyed her for a moment. “Before you make this decision, let me ask you something. Do you have any loved ones close to you?”
“No. Not really,” Evelyn replied, clearing the faces that floated into her mind. “Just my roommates, and a brother in Toronto. He’s a doctor, too, his wife is a nurse. Why do you ask?”
“I ask because this window behind my head is made of bulletproof glass.”
His words sucked the air from the room and a shivering silence descended. Evelyn’s eyes were irresistibly drawn to the window. Leaves on the maple tree beyond it swayed innocently in the breeze.
When the doctor spoke again, his tone was carefully measured. “Providing abortions is, as you must know, illegal in this country, Miss Taylor, except under the strictest of circumstances. I assume you have familiarized yourself with them?”
Evelyn nodded. “Only if continuation of the pregnancy would endanger the life or health of the woman.”
“Indeed. And the parameters of what constitutes ‘health’ are further determined by a biased and ludicrously broken system made up entirely of men. Thus, to fill the need, there are underground networks operating across Canada and the United States, and overseas as well. It is a calling, not a vocation, Miss Taylor. And it is a calling you can only answer at enormous personal risk. It is both morally and spiritually challenging. You must understand that the cost is high.”