On January 19, 2018 I heard a fascinating report on National Public Radio about "Jane", a women's collective that provided abortions in Chicago when abortion was still illegal.  "Jane" was a network of women -- housewives, students and the like -- who trained themselves to perform abortions and offered their services to women who had few other options when confronted with an unwanted pregnancy.  They performed the procedures in rented apartments throughout the city. According to the NPR report, during the seven years that Jane was active, 11,000 first and second trimester abortions were performed.  Though some women ended up in the emergency room (including those who had to undergo hysterectomies), no deaths were ever reported of women who had abortions through Jane. Members of Jane risked arrest as they served poor, often desperate women, including working women who were already struggling to feed the children they had.

"I don't think anyone chooses to have an abortion lightly" said Martha Scott, one of the members of Jane. I am amazed by the willingness of members of "Jane" to take risks on behalf of women they didn't know. They walked with these women in their existential pain of facing an unwanted pregnancy. "Jane" members risked arrest, the possibility of medical complications, and censure of family and friends.

Having come of age during the second wave of feminism, my first political activism was passing out leaflets at my high school supporting the legalization of abortion. That was in 1972. A year later, when the Supreme Court legalized abortion,  "Jane" disbanded. Yet the fight for safe and legal abortion for all women continues.  On this 45th year-plus one month anniversary of Roe V. Wade, I salute the women of "Jane" and their remarkable courage!

To me, the women of "Jane" embody the energy of Kali. The Black Goddess Kali in Indian mythology is both a giver of life and a destroyer.  In her poem "Invocation to Kali" May Sarton wrote:

"It is time for the invocation, to atone
For what we fear most and have not dared to face:
Kali, the destroyer, cannot be overthrown;
We may stay, open-eyed, in the terrible place."