Looking for Jane

Abortion was legalized in Canada in 1988 with the Supreme Court’s decision in R v. Morgentaler. Dr. Henry Morgentaler, an advocate for abortion rights, brought the case before the Canadian Supreme Court after many years of regional legal battles. Grassroots activism also helped ensure the victory. The “Abortion Caravan,” which the novel depicts, was a series of 1970 protests that culminated in demonstrations before the Parliament buildings in Ottawa; protesters also delivered a symbolic coffin to the home of then Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau. Furthermore, while the Jane Network in Looking for Jane is fictional, it is based on a composite of abortion “whisper networks” that existed in Canada as well as the US, primarily during the 1960s and 1970s. Notably, the Abortion Counseling Service of Women’s Liberation, based out of Chicago, Illinois, was known as “Jane.” Dr. Morgentaler himself is also a minor character in Looking for Jane; Evelyn trains with him when she decides that she’d like to provide underground abortions to women.

As Looking for Jane suggests, the campaign for abortion rights took place amid a broader struggle for reproductive justice. St. Agnes’s Home for Unwed Mothers is a fictional location, but it is based on actual maternity homes that were funded by the Canadian government and religious organizations. Women in these maternity homes were coerced into signing adoption papers and were frequently subject to mental and physical abuse. Maternity homes like St. Agnes’s existed in both Canada and the US after World War II; in societies that placed high value on traditional family structure, these institutions framed themselves as a “solution” for women who became pregnant outside of marriage. It is estimated that over 300,000 Canadian mothers were coerced into giving up their babies for adoption in the maternity home system between 1941 and 1971.

In 21st-century Canada, abortion services are widely covered by public health insurance, and rights to abortion are protected by law. Conversely, in the US, the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022’s Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision. Roe v. Wade, decided in 1973, ruled that access to abortion was a protected right. The reversal of this decision removed abortion’s status as a constitutional right, returning the matter to the states, several of which passed laws banning abortion except in select cases.

Though Heather Marshall wrote Looking for Jane in 2019 as a historical look at the abortion access movement in Canada, the book thus took on new relevance as abortion laws in the US changed. Looking for Jane posits that abortion rights are essential rights—a position that the novel establishes through characterization, setting, thematic development, and other literary devices. In the Author’s Note at the end of the novel, Marshall articulates the novel’s basic position on Bodily Autonomy and Reproductive Rights: “It is my belief that people inherently own the rights to their own bodies. Period. Full stop. I believe anyone should be able to access safe medical care to terminate a pregnancy at any time, for any reason at all” (381).