Some of our Balloon Juice Angels have told me that they are donating in honor of their mothers – or their grandmothers – who fought the good fight, and that always brings a (literal) tear to my eye, thinking about how proud those women would be to have instilled that in their children.
A couple of weeks ago, one of our jackals (Warren Senders) sent me this note and this video; once again, taking up the fight of their mom, who is no longer with us. I hope you’ll watch the short 4-minute video and consider sharing it with friends or family, and on social media or wherever you hang out with folks outside of Balloon Juice.
I just completed a short video giving the story of my mother’s abortions (in 1945 and 1956 respectively) in her own words. Mom died in 2021 at age 98 after a long struggle with dementia. While she was active she made a point of sharing her story as widely as possible.
In the present moment – in the present election – it seemed to me that her story has some additional resonance, so I put together this 4 minute video. Please watch it when you have a chance and share it if you think it’s appropriate.
Note: His mom’s voice in the video is the voice of an someone Warren knows, but the words are his mom’s.
And, of course, if there was someone in your life who played an inspirational role, maybe you can consider telling us about them?
Open thread!
War for Ukraine Day 924: Russian Ballistic Missiles Are Inbound While the Butcher’s Bill for the Day Is Still Being Tallied
HumboldtBlue
Powerfully told, I’m always amazed at the strength and patience of the women in my life, so fortunate to be in their world.
Trivia Man
My grandmother and my mother are both major sources of inspiration in my life. But – desite all of their stellar qualities both are (were for Grandma) lifelong republican voters. It breaks my heart that the compassion and love they taught me was so easy for them to set aside in the name of conservative religious political indoctrination.
Grandma had a lifelong hatred of FDR (lots of funny stories!), thought Paul Harvey was too liberal, and the John Birch society had some good ideas but they were too soft on communism. Worst example – she was a first generation German and remembered WWI. When I tried to share what I was learning in school about the Japanese internment camps of WWII she scoffed. I was teased for being German! I WISH they had put us in camps! Lucky Japanese!
So in the spirit of what they taught me with their words and deeds, I fight to undo all of the political damage they did for the last 94 years.
dlwchico
My mom was born in Germany in 1942. Her mother had an abusive husband and 3 kids already (including her oldest sister who was her half sister because she was conceived when my then teenaged Oma was working in the fields and the farmer she was working for took her into the nearby woods and raped her) so she tried to abort my mom and it didn’t work so later on she tried again and it didn’t work.
My mom was born and later she got another little sister.
Despite that and despite being a life long Catholic my mom is still pro-choice.
She isn’t pro-abortion, she wishes nobody would have to make that choice but she agrees it is THEIR choice.
WaterGirl
@dlwchico: What so many women go through. sigh. I am trying to undertstand the relationships, but I don’t know what an Oma is.
Grandmother?
Joy in FL
Thank you for sharing your mother’s story, Warren.
Doc Sardonic
Yes, it is the familial form like grandma or nana in English.
thalarctosMaritimus
Thank you so much, Warren, for sharing your mother’s and your story with us. It’s important, and needs to be told, and at the same time, it takes courage to speak out publicly. We appreciate your telling of it.
HumboldtBlue
@WaterGirl:
Yes, German.
Dangerman
I don’t recall my Mother sharing a strong opinion very often; she was quiet. My Father, Mother, and I enjoyed many games of cribbage; she was a quiet assassin in that game.
I was young and the topic of abortion came on the TV; I don’t recall her exact words, but it was something like “those men”.
WaterGirl
@Doc Sardonic: @HumboldtBlue: Thank you. I looked it up in the dictionary and hadn’t found anything.
There must be a million names for mother and grandmother.
stacib
@dlwchico: I’ve never in my almost 65 years of living met a person who was “pro abortion”. People are pro-choice, pro-mind your own damn business, pro-let people make their own decisions, pro-women’s healthcare. Never, ever met a pro-abortion person running around advocating for everybody to get one.
Adding: I don’t mean to sound snippy, but pro-abortion is a phase that drives me nuts.
Alabama Blue Dot
My mom is the daughter of Italian immigrants who settled in Ohio; she was born in Bellaire, which is right across the river from Wheeling, West Virginia. Mom told me that Grandma got pregnant once just after she’d had a baby. They were living in a duplex and the other unit was the town’s madam. Grandma went to her and got an abortion. My mom said she wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for her mother’s abortion. Mom is now 93, so this was in the 1930s.
Kent
My grandmother on my father’s side was a Mennonite farm wife in Oregon who has 14 children between the 1920s and 1940s through the Great Depression and WW2. I don’t think abortion was part of her world. On my mother’s side they were a Mennonite farm family in Pennsylvania but with only 5 kids. They were all staunch Republicans for some mysterious reason since they all benefitted from the New Deal. But political hypocrisy is nothing new.
I very much suspect there are stories of abortion in the subsequent massive generation of extended family. But I don’t know any of them as they are all tightly held secrets.
kalakal
My mother would have been spitting blood at the treatment of women being turned away to bleed out in parking lots with miscarriages. She had several herself before having me. One choice she made was rejecting being prescribed Thalidomide when pregnant with me. Thalidomide was seen as the safe antidepressant and was targeted at pregnant woman. My mother always had a very low opinion of men dictating women’s health care
frosty
My mother was the Republican County chair when I was in elementary school. She pulled us out of school to see Richard Nixon’s whistlestop in tiny York, PA, my first political memory. Later in life, when (I suspect) she didn’t vote for Reagan she told me “I didn’t leave the Republican Party, the party left me.”
Her mother, my grandma, was a force and an inspiration. On a trip to Alaska, when we weren’t sure where we going to be that night she told me “We’ll sleep in the car.” She was 80!! Born on a farm in the Piney Woods of Mississippi with no electricity or running water, she graduated from what is now Southern Mississippi University in her teens, moved to Chicago, married, had my mom and aunt, then went back to school and got a PhD in Child Psychology in 1948, when only 10% of American women went to college. Her husband, my grandpa, was also an inspiration. His wife and two daughters all graduated in the same year.
My mother’s sister, my Aunt Jean, was an attorney who helped lay the foundation for Title IX:
https://www.freep.com/story/news/obituary/2021/10/12/jean-ledwith-king-obituary-death-attorney-gender-equality/6102090001/
So yeah, I have a family history to live up to.
hitchhiker
I am 4th of 8 kids, first daughter. When I was born my older brothers were 4, 3, and 2. My younger siblings started arriving when I was 4 — two more brothers plus two sisters. We span the baby boom years end to end.
My mom was an ER nurse married to a seasonal worker who was a profoundly lazy man. She was also a maintenance-drinking alcoholic who managed to get sober at about age 50. Among my siblings and me, there are seven divorces, four pregnancies aborted, many arrests for drugs, two prison terms, two unsuccessful suicide attempts, one successful suicide, and one infant given up for adoption. There are two college degrees — both mine.
I’d say that I don’t know how she kept her head above water, except the truth is that she didn’t. She spent her adult life overwhelmed and ashamed, knowing that it had all gotten away from her. When I was in my late twenties and she was in sobriety, she casually told me one day about going to see her priest after her fifth kid — my brother Charlie — was born.
Could she have permission to use birth control? She was drowning. Her existing kids were in trouble.
Priest told her that if God kept giving her children, she was very lucky and ought to be offering prayers of thanks. So no, no birth control. (Charlie was the one who later took his own life.)
When people say that many of the women who want to terminate pregnancies are trying to protect their existing children, this is what they’re talking about. To my mom’s credit, she never fully gave up, but it was all so, so much harder than it had to be.
HumboldtBlue
@hitchhiker:
My mother gave birth to nine children in 10 years. I am seven of eight and my next oldest sister is only 362 days older than me. My mother was treated as second class by her MIL and “the sisters” both familial and religious, a nasty bunch of angry, nasty women.
Fuck the motherfucking Catholic Church.
frosty
I should add, if Republican policies were in effect 40 years ago, my brother and I would both be widowers. Pregnancy is fucking dangerous.
BigJimSlade
@Trivia Man: Your story reminds me of an explanation of the difference, at least sometimes, between liberals and conservatives. Conservatives can be just as open-hearted to other people as liberals, but the circle of people to which they apply that is just much smaller.
An old friend of my mom’s is a staunch republican. She’s also super nice and one of the most positive people I’ve met. It gets a bit weird.
eclare
Warren, you have created a powerful video, thank you. And nice work on the guitar accompaniment. It is such a tribute to your wonderful, strong mother and the decisions that she made to live her life.
eclare
@hitchhiker:
That is heartbreaking. As you said, so much harder than it had to be.
JCJ
@WaterGirl: And opa is grandfather, but not the same as opaa! at a Greek restaurant
hoosierspud
When the Dobbs decision came down, my friend posted a photo of his maternal grandmother’s death certificate from 1924. His mom was 19 months old at the time and had a younger brother. His grandmother became pregnant for the third time in 19 months, and died from the infection following a self-induced abortion. His mom and her brother were sent to foster care.
Mike E
My mom was a Holocaust survivor. She and her brother and parents were given forged baptism documents by the bishop who saved many families during the war by changing their identy and getting them out of a sure death scenario. She, along with my uncle, helped the local underground antifa group thwart the Axis while working at the monastery. They made it to the end of the conflict somehow, I have a hard time completely understanding it to this day. She told stories we five kids sort of laughed off as apocryphal but now ring as totally believable when taking in to account all the shit that has gone down in the world.
I’m the youngest of five and I see myself as unlikely, seeing how crazy and perilous things have been. She had one miscarriage, and several abortions due to the fact her husband wasn’t much of a father. They came out of a much different time, though these times are kind of starting to resemble that other era more and more.
VFX Lurker
My friends and I grew up with Roe. One friend wanted a baby, but things went wrong, and she needed an abortion to save her life.
She later had three wonderful kids. Her abortion saved four lives — her own and those of her children.
4D*hiker
My mom had seven children in a span of ten years because birth control was not permitted in our religious tradition. Between the fourth and fifth births, she had an ectopic pregnancy and nearly died from internal hemorrhaging. The small town Iowa doctor who saved her life by doing surgery did not burden my mom with talk about abortions or the sanctity of the fetus. Nor did the hospital turn her away to bleed out in the parking lot. I and two siblings would not be here if that had happened. And yet…..over 70 years later, that is exactly what is now happening in many places in this country.
Continued social progress in a civilization is not guaranteed as decades pass. Entropy is always at work…..and requires equal and opposite work to maintain what we value. Trump and the modern GOP may be rightfully mocked as being “weird,” but their core is more pernicious and destructive than mere weirdness: they are agents of entropy and chaos. They must be pushed back and soundly defeated to keep the encroaching darkness at bay….
HumboldtBlue
Speaking of women and lawn signs…
TS
My mother spoke not at all about abortion that I can remember. She had multiple miscarriages (spontaneous abortions) and was sad about not having more children.
When I was at university in the mid 1960s I lived in a residential college. ‘The pill” (as we called it, I think called birth control in the US) had only recently been available in Australia, but it was only available for married women – or sometimes an engaged woman. There was a theory that it took a month or two to be effective. A few of the young women in college got together and purchased a cheap glass ring with the look of diamonds. This was them used by anyone who went to the local doctor to get a pill prescription. I’m sure he probably realised what was happening, but kept that to himself and kept us safe from becoming mothers.
Gretchen
Msb
My maternal grandmother was born in March 1899, so she was 21 in 1920, and voted after the 19th amendment was ratified. She always voted, and she told my mom always to vote. Mom always voted and she told me always to vote. I always vote, and passed the word to my niece.
After Mom’s death, I went through her desk and found a button that said “I believe her” (Anita Hill). I told Mom once that she was the woman I wanted to grow up to be.
columbusqueen
I’m a third generation Democrat, with both a mother & grandmother who asked that their obituaries stated they were life-long Democrats. Their liberalism never flinched, & they always worked the polls when I was young. Mom in particular despised racism, & taught me people who felt that way were not worthy in any respect. She did so in a community that was very white & very racist, & gave me & my brother the strength to walk the right path even when the punks at school bullied us for it. So much of what I am came from being Jean’s daughter & Evelyn’s granddaughter, & I miss them more than I say.
Gloria DryGarden
I am moved to tears by all your stories. Thank you warren for your video.
when women nowadays go thru these horrific events, bleeding out in parking lots, being flown to another state for help with an ectopic pregnancy, at such risk in Louisiana, damaged from going into sepsis, all because of these harmful life -endangering laws, it’s devastating. Any one of them could be me, or a sister, or a loved one.
ursula leguin wrote that if she hadn’t had her abortion, arranged for her by her dad through his connections, and done in a secret location, she would have had a different life altogether, and she would have lost the chance for the life she did have, lost her wonderful marriage and lost her children.
my mom used to be strongly anti abortion, and complained that in Japan- she lived there in the 50s as a teen- the women used it as birth control. I don’t think she really knew much about Japanese culture, or what was going on in the lives of the women she was talking about. In the 70s, as a teen, myself, I finally asked her, didn’t she lose any friends to coat hanger abortions, and wouldn’t she rather those friends had had access to safe procedures.
she vaguely said yes. And she quit bringing it up. I like to think I helped her change her mind, at least a little, but I’m not sure.
in the 80s my sister had an abortion in Boston, and it was covered by health insurance! That seemed wonderfully progressive.
It varies, but most of us are fertile from age 12- to perhaps age 54 or so, and anything after 35 is considered high risk pregnancy. These new and increasing restrictions affect us, our existing children, our future children, and our partners. It’s so personal, and private. And so huge. Every month, for around 42 years, unless we’re planning to get pregnant, we’re giving thanks that we *did* get our period. Every month. Kind of tense.
I worked my ass off to not get pregnant. I didn’t think the pill was safe with my family history, so I used all manner of 1-3 methods. I tracked my cycles, I charted temperatures first thing in the morning for a few years, I memorized the failure rates of all the methods.
When my partner and I would start getting intimate, I always flicked my thoughts over to my calendar (in my head) so I knew exactly where I was in my cycle, so I knew to double up on the birth control methods. Only then could I relax into what we were doing. I just really didn’t want an uninvited pregnancy, and didn’t want to have to make the choice. I only had a few pregnancy scares, which were scary times, but I felt continuously aware of the risks.
anyway, I feel very strongly about it, just like most of us do. It’s frustrating when I can’t get it across to anti choice friends, how much harm happens because of the abortion restrictions.
Gvg
I woke up this morning wondering, are there really that many men who want to be the sole support of a woman and 12 kids? How many think they can afford it? How many businesses in the US are set up to survive a worker shortage and consumer income crunch then change in spending habits and then an excess of probably not well educated young workers? We’d be turning into the past China or Mexico and not the worlds superpower. No wonder Russia is funding this attack. I haven’t dated or asked men in a long time but I don’t remember this ever being a popular dream for very many. Most wanted wives like themselves and 2.5 kids with cars, fancy houses and retirement accounts. Nowhere was a mention of lots and lots of kids. I grant you they may not have realized that meant probable grinding poverty for generations but I think it wouldn’t take long for only a few friends example to make it clear. The rich can afford this. The rest of us can’t. And we would know it’s a disaster economically fast. People would explode. I am not sure the results would be logical though. Better to try and tell the men, hey how many crying babies do you want and is this really such a good idea for you or are they using you? The rich guys are doing it again.
AM in NC
My mom is the role model for my life (although teenaged me would have broken her face from eye-rolling so hard at that description). She married my dad while a junior in college and ended up mostly raising us. She started work as an administrative assistant (read: secretary) and ended up the HR Director of Rollins College and then of the City of winter Park Florida. In between, she started and ran her own business, a perfume store.
She was the kindest, most loving person I have ever known. She volunteered to teach children, run the local library, support community events, and help Democrats win elected office – while working full time and raising children. I had no idea how much money she donated until I got her forwarded mail after her death and saw the number of organizations she supported. She was not a wealthy woman by any stretch of the imagination, but she didn’t need THINGS to make her feel good.
She believed in progressive ideas and walked the walk. I am so glad that she lived to see Biden displace Trump. She made the world a kinder place with softer edges for me. And I miss her and talk to her every.single.day. Mama, I won the lottery when I got you as my mom.
Manyakitty
@frosty: wowww 😍
Mel
My great grandmother was a country nurse in the early 1900s. She lived on the family farm, and worked for the town doctor, a friend of the family who had his office on the first floor of his house at the edge of the little town.
She was in her 90s when I was in my early teens, and she told me about an incident that made her a staunch fighter for abortion rights her entire adult life.
She had a childhood friend who was like a sister to her, but whose parents had arranged for the friend to be married at age 14 to an abusive older man. My great grandmother believed that there had been a debt owed by her friend’s father to the man her friend was made to marry, and that the marriage “erased” the debt.
Her friend was isolated on a rural farm with four small children already by the time that she was just 19 years old. The farm was failing, and her husband was unceasingly physically violent with her and the children. She found herself pregnant again, and in a desperate move, when her husband was out of town for the weekend, she asked her neighbor to come and get her children and watch them for an afternoon so that she could “finish canning beans”. Instead, she used that one free afternoon to try to abort the fetus by herself, apparently using a knitting needle.
My grandmother recalled what started as a normal Friday afternoon, closing up the doctor’s office and filing patient care notes, when she heard a sudden, loud “thump” on the back porch of the doctor’s house, near the patient entrance. She went to investigate the noise, and found her friend, collapsed on the porch steps in a huge pool of blood, with one of the farm horses grazing nearby.
Her friend had ridden for help after hemorrhaging all afternoon, and had fallen off her horse, crawled onto the steps , and lost consciousness. My grandmother and the doctor carried her inside, and did everything possible to save her, but she died 20 minutes later, in my great grandmother’s arms.
My Nana said that there had not been a single day in the 70-plus years since that day that she didn’t see her friend’s terrified face and hear the sound of her last breath.
Ruckus
@Trivia Man:
As an old I’ve seen the difference in some religions over quite a few decades. When I was a kid there seemed to be quite a difference in what some of them thought and taught to what I’ve seen today. Not all of them BTW but some. We know a lot more about the world than when I was born so some of this should be different. But we are still humans, some of whom do not learn or think reasonably – or often rationally. And life will likely always be that way.
Ruckus
Wow.
This is one of the most interesting posts I’ve seen here at BJ. And I’ve been here a rather long time. Not long after John started it. My family has it’s stories as well but much less overwhelming than some of these.
Ruckus
@4D*hiker:
As times have become more liberal and women have actually been seen as citizens and not baby factories, a lot of men have at least been told that they have lost some level of power, because while it was always true within the laws in this country that women were equal members of society it really wasn’t true, even in the lifetime of more than a few of us still alive. This country is growing up but of course there are more than a few who seem to believe that we are going in the wrong direction. But we are not. This is supposed to be a country with the citizens as the most valuable asset. But of course the most valuable asset to many is still money. And likely will be for a very long time. Because any one of us can spend that money. And we are have long ago passed the point that it is just men that work and take home the money. It hasn’t been for some time. Society just hasn’t fully adjusted.
columbusqueen
@Mel: I cried after reading this. That poor girl & her children. We’re not going back, no way.
SuzieC
@BigJimSlade: That is 100% true. A good friend of mine is the kindest, most charitable person I know. She will go out of her way to help her parent’s elderly friends, all her friends, me, and animal rescue groups. But her love for humanity is limited to that close circle. Otherwise, she is a staunch republican who buys into all of it: the border is overrun with illegals and lazy people are taking the money you pay in taxes. I simply cannot explain it.
Warren Senders
Gosh, for some reason I never saw this post when it went up. I’m tremendously moved by everyone’s responses and stories. My mom would be very glad to know her story is going to be part of this historic election!