Heroes in My Head

by Judy Rebick

  Just before it was time to go home, my parents came to visit from Florida. On the drive back to Guelph, I was still in a lot of pain, both physical and emotional. Alvin was driving, my father was in the front seat, and I was in the back. My parents hadn’t seen me cry since I was a little girl and I didn’t want them to see it now. I’m not sure if it was my father’s presence in the car or the bumps on the road, but my ribs, which were still hurting, got a lot worse. The pain was excruciating, but I held it in as long as I was in the car with my father.

  As soon as we arrived at Alvin and Glenna’s house in Guelph, I asked if I could go up to their bedroom to rest. Once I lay down, the tears started to come. Crying turned to sobbing, sobbing turned to anguished weeping. Alvin heard me and rushed upstairs to see what was wrong.

  “I’m in terrible pain,” I whispered.

  Before he could say anything, my mother appeared at the door. “Stop crying!” she yelled. “Stop crying! What are you crying about? Stop it!”

  “Get out,” Alvin said to her. “Go downstairs, you’re not helping.”

  I think the look on my face made him realize that the weeping was not just from physical pain. He put his hand on my back.

  “It’s okay, you can cry as much as you need to. Ignore her. You know how she hates any kind of emotional display.”

  It wouldn’t be the last time Alvin rescued me.

  * * *

  When I got back to Toronto, I felt profoundly alone. Leonard had cut off his relationship with the family as part of his attempts to heal from our childhood, so his support was no longer available to me. My relationship with him was becoming more distant. He was also involved in a new therapeutic group. At his invitation, I attended one of the meetings and found it to be profoundly manipulative. But he was so committed I didn’t feel I could express my true opinion. To be fair, I’m sure he felt pretty alienated from me during my Trotskyist days.

  I didn’t see him or his family very often anymore, so I plunged right back into my activism. On June 15, 1983, Toronto’s first abortion clinic opened, and I stepped in front of the man who tried to stab Dr. Morgentaler with garden shears. It was a moment that changed my life, cementing my public image as a warrior, fighting for women’s rights. It was also yet another warning sign that I was dissociative.

  About a week after the opening, the chief of police announced that they had a complaint from a woman who claimed she had been forced to go through with an abortion at the clinic. The moment the news went public, the clinic received phone calls from the taxi driver who had driven the woman home and said she was fine until the cops stopped her; a nurse from the hospital emergency room who said the police had coached her; and someone from Immigration saying that she was an illegal immigrant and no doubt they threatened to deport her if she didn’t file a complaint against Morgentaler. We had so much public support that they couldn’t get away with lies and intimidation.

  Then, three weeks after the clinic opened, Dr. Morgentaler and his colleague Dr. Robert Scott were arrested. Those three weeks were intense. Every day I would ride my bike from the Canadian Hearing Society to the clinic. The police were following patients home, trying to intimidate them, so OCAC organized what we called an “escort service.” People would volunteer to take the patients home. The escort knew how to handle the police and what the patient’s rights were. The escort service turned out to be a solid core of support for the clinic.

  The day after the doctors were arrested, we held a big rally at Queen’s Park. About five thousand protesters showed up. I was the MC and it was here that I really started to understand the power of public speaking. Through call-and-response chants, I could build the energy and enthusiasm of the crowd. In some ways, the pro-choice struggle was the perfect battleground: I could release my anger constructively by confronting a ferocious, sometimes violent, opponent in the anti-choice movement, yet I wasn’t powerless as I had been in the face of my father’s violence. I was empowered by the strength in the solidarity of the growing movement.

  Death threats were common not only against Henry but also against Norma Scarborough, who was the spokesperson for CARAL, and myself. People used to call CHS, warning the receptionist that they would beat me up when I left the office. The worst incident was when a death threat had been posted to Norma’s apartment door. Then there was the time when a man tried to throw me off a subway platform. Fortunately, I was taking tai chi and I took my stance so he couldn’t move me. When the subway arrived, I ran.

  I asked Henry how he coped with the constant threat of violence.

  “Any of us could die at any time,” he said. “We’re doing what we believe in. There’s nothing we can do about some crazy who might come out of nowhere and take a shot. We can’t let that stop us from doing what we think is right.”

  We also received an incredible amount of support. One time I was on my bike passing a big truck when the driver yelled out the window, “Hey, you’re the girl from the Clinic. Sam,” he said to the guy next to him. “Look, it’s the girl from the clinic.” And then he gave me a thumbs-up.

  Almost every time I went out for lunch or dinner with Henry, the servers would pay for the meals. From time to time when I was on the subway, people would give me money for Dr. Morgentaler and his defence fund.

  “The courts are against us, the government is against us, the cops are against us,” Henry once said. “But the people, Judy, the people are with us.”

  And so they were.

  Twelve

  The Clinic Will Stay Open

  On October 14, 1984, Dr. Morgentaler and his colleagues stood trial for performing abortions at the Toronto clinic. I remember only three things from the trial. First, the anti-Semitism. It so happened that Henry, his lawyer Morris Manning, and I — the three most visible people on the pro-choice side — were all Jewish. More than one cartoon exaggerated Morgentaler’s Jewish features and another looked like something drawn up by the Nazis to mobilize hatred against the Jews. People would drive by the clinic and scream, “They only kill Christian babies in there.”

  The second thing I remember is that I was an unindicted co-conspirator, which means they were thinking about indicting me for conspiracy, however unlikely.

  Finally, I remember Manning’s closing argument to the jury: “Send a message to the Attorney General saying, ‘Stop prosecuting doctors for helping women’ … You can say we can’t stand for this anymore. That we won’t stand for this anymore.”

  We were all blown away by his moving and brilliant summary. No doubt Henry’s testimony also had a tremendous impact on the jury of six women and six men. After a hushed courtroom heard his history of survival in the Nazi death camps, he said, “I decided that helping people could never be a crime.”

  The jury deliberated for only six hours and delivered the verdict: not guilty.

  * * *

  The victory was short-lived. On December 4, 1984, Ontario attorney general Roy McMurtry announced the government would appeal the jury’s verdict. The next day, Henry announced the Toronto clinic would re-open on January 7, 1985. McMurtry said it was up to the Toronto police whether to re-charge the doctors. At this point, Dr. Morgentaler had asked me to step down as spokesperson for the clinic. He felt I was too abrasive and too radical. He wanted the clinic to be known as a peaceful place, a medical facility. I agreed. Instead, I would use my media profile to become the spokesperson for OCAC. Carolyn Egan, Norma Scarborough, and I still met regularly with Henry and his lawyer to discuss strategy. We tried to co-ordinate legal, financial, and street activities. Manning understood that public support was essential to influence the judges. We often disagreed but we continued to work together.

  The anti-abortion groups decided that they would demonstrate in front of the clinic every day so that patients were forced to cross a picket line of aggressive people often carrying horrible pictures. To protect the patients, we put out a call for
women and men to meet the patients, walk them into the clinic, and escort them home if they wished. Hundreds of people responded, and over the next few years formed a cadre of support for the clinic and the movement. We also won a contested resolution at the Ontario Federation of Labour convention, which meant that we had not only the official support of the labour movement but also a lot help to get through the difficult moments of the struggle.

  On February 12, 1985, Toronto Archbishop Cardinal Carter sent a pastoral letter to 196 parishes, calling on them to mobilize with the Right to Life demonstrators in an attempt to shut down the clinic. OCAC called for a demonstration at Queen’s Park on February 22, to protest their attempts to shut down the clinic. CARAL, the more moderate pro-choice group, was against calling a counter-demonstration, thinking we wouldn’t be able to out-mobilize the Catholic Church. Up until then our biggest demonstration had consisted of five thousand supporters. The Catholic Church had mobilized more than that over four days. We were getting worried.

  I will never forget the day of that Queen’s Park protest. Standing on the steps of the Legislature, I was overwhelmed by the thousands upon thousands of people streaming out of the subway. People had come from all over southern Ontario. By our count around fifteen thousand people had shown up to the demonstration. This, I believe, was the turning point in the struggle.

  On October 1, 1985, the Ontario Court of Appeal ruled against Morgentaler, set aside the jury’s verdict, and called for a new trial. As a matter of course, the Supreme Court agreed to hear the arguments.

  Despite the Appeal Court decision, Henry kept the clinic open and OCAC continued to organize support through rallies, public speaking, media work, and debates.

  Shortly thereafter, OCAC had a major dispute with Morris Manning, Henry’s lawyer. At the time, Manning was defending a couple of companies who were trying to break unions in high-profile cases. Not only did we worry it might undermine some of our union support but many of us objected in principle. We had asked Henry to fire Morris but he refused. I was very upset about it. We decided that I would go to Montreal with two female labour leaders to try to persuade him.

  We met Henry in his hotel room. He argued that lawyers were hired hands and it didn’t matter who else they defended.

  “What if Manning defended James Keegstra [an Alberta neo-Nazi]? Would you get rid of him then?” I said.

  “It’s not the same thing,” Henry insisted.

  “It is for me,” I replied.

  I’m surprised he didn’t ask me to leave. The other two women were horrified that I would say such a thing.

  Henry asked to talk to me privately and we went down to the hotel bar. “I know you’re doing this because you believe it’s the right thing for the movement, Judy. I hope you realize that I’m insisting on keeping Morris for the same reason. The most important thing is that it doesn’t interfere with our friendship.”

  I was genuinely moved. Until that moment, I hadn’t realized that our friendship was important to him. I knew my role in the movement was important to him, but I didn’t know that he cared about me. I also realized then that I cared about him. On some level, he helped me understand the importance of personal relationships in overcoming such a difficult struggle. More than that, he was a model of courage with an open heart, whereas I was courageous because I couldn’t feel fear.

  Henry didn’t fire Morris, but as a compromise he did criticize Morris publicly for taking that case. In retrospect I think he was right and I was wrong.

  * * *

  It would take another four years for the Supreme Court to rule on abortion. During those four years I had resigned as spokesperson for OCAC and run as a candidate for the Ontario New Democratic Party. Because I was no longer the spokesperson for OCAC, I didn’t travel to Ottawa with Henry to hear the Supreme Court decision. I stayed in Toronto. OCAC called on supporters to wait outside the clinic. As soon as the decision came down, Carolyn Egan, the founder of OCAC, would call us from Ottawa.

  As we were waiting, a reporter tapped me on the shoulder and said, “Just heard from our guy in Ottawa. The Supreme Court struck down the abortion law based on a woman’s right to security of the person.”

  I wasn’t sure what to do. I didn’t believe her. We thought we might win, but not on a matter of principle. Security of the person was, in essence, our primary argument for overturning the current law: a woman had a right to control her own body. A few minutes later, we got the word. The journalist had been correct.

  On January 28, 1988, the Supreme Court ruled that the abortion law violated Section 7 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, infringing upon a woman’s right to “life, liberty, and security of the person.” Chief Justice Brian Dickson wrote: “Forcing a woman, by threat of criminal sanction, to carry a fetus to term unless she meets certain criteria unrelated to her own priorities and aspirations, is a profound interference with a woman’s body and thus an infringement of security of the person.”

  It was a total victory.

  We were jubilant. The reporters wanted to interview me, but I declined because I was no longer a spokesperson for OCAC or the clinic. But they persisted.

  “How do you feel, Judy?” one of them yelled.

  “I feel great!” I said, jumping up in the air. “I feel great!”

  The clip appeared on almost every television newscast, running just after Dr. Morgentaler raised the V for Victory sign as he walked out of the courtroom with Norma Scarborough and Carolyn Egan.

  A few years later, I met Chief Justice Brian Dickson, who had penned the majority court decision. He told me of all the things he had done in his life, the Morgentaler decision was what he was most proud of.

  * * *

  For most of those years, the intense waves of activism kept my head above water. I had finished with therapy midway through this period, but two things emerged close to the end of my treatment that have stayed with me.

  At one particular session, an angry male voice emerged from deep inside me. I didn’t seem to be controlling it but I could hear it. Mark explained it was a dissociated ego state, quite common in people who are burying a part of themselves. But soon The Voice emerged again and I had to talk to it. Now I believe it was one of my alter personalities.

  For weeks and even months The Voice would speak to me. I could control whether it spoke out loud but I could not control when it spoke to me. The Voice was the cynic who thought every gesture of kindness was motivated by some kind of evil intent. “Oh yeah, what does he want?” The Voice told me I couldn’t trust anyone and had to rely only on myself. Mark, my therapist, told me to listen to the caution, which was often justified, but not to generalize it; I was capable of knowing who to trust and who not to trust.

  The Voice was worried about Jeremiah, a man I had started seeing about a year after Ken left. He was handsome, charismatic, and intelligent. I didn’t usually get involved with dominant men, but he was persistent and he was living with someone else so I didn’t have to worry about getting too serious. I figured he had an open relationship, but when I found out he had been lying to his partner, I ended it. He moved to Victoria soon after, but we kept in touch.

  About a year later, I went to Vancouver, probably for a speaking engagement, and we got together. We began an on-again, off-again long-distance relationship that lasted for years.

  Whenever I had contact with Jeremiah, The Voice would break into my consciousness, warning me that if I got more involved I would be terribly humiliated. I wrote in my journal:

  I felt deep in my chest an anger so terrible it was like a lion’s growl and it was anger at whoever treated me badly enough to make me feel that expressing love subjects you to base humiliation.

  I ended my relationship with Jeremiah, not from the humiliation The Voice had warned me about, but from disappointment.

  After three years of therapy, Mark and I both agreed that I had made great
progress. My sense of humour had returned, I was slowly but surely getting in touch with feelings like sadness, disappointment, love, even moments of happiness. Just as important, I started to become more conscious of my feelings. Paying attention to them meant I could let them go.

  And then came the second thing that stayed with me: on my last day of therapy I was lying on Mark’s couch and a memory came to me like a dream. I was a little girl, maybe six or seven years old, and a man was touching me in a sexual way. The flashback lasted a couple of seconds. I didn’t recognize the man, but it was clear that I was the little girl.

  “What’s wrong?” Mark asked, noting a change in my demeanour.

  I didn’t want to tell him what I had seen. I was functioning and feeling good about my rising public profile, and I didn’t want to continue with therapy.

  “Nothing,” I responded. “It’s nothing.”

  IV

  Come Together

  1989–1992

  Thirteen

  Something’s Happening Here

  It is obvious as I write about my life in the 1980s that my activism diverted me from paying much attention to the turmoil that was rising to my consciousness. The endless challenges kept me from looking at the memories that openly threatened me from time to time. Total memory loss is quite common in childhood sexual abuse. Studies find that 19 to 28 percent of survivors have no memory of the abuse for decades after. After the depression lifted, the memories started to emerge but I wasn’t yet ready to face them. I had done enough therapy to be fully functional, at least in the area of work, and that’s what I wanted. I was an angry person but I was able to use that anger in the pro-choice struggle, a fight with a real enemy that was trying to destroy me and the lives of so many women. Fighting back was healing for me; winning even more so.