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Deep divide: Roe v. Wade anniversary stirs emotions on both sides

By Kathleen Lavey
Lansing State Journal

Studying, living and working on college campuses in the 1960s and early 1970s, Mary Pollock saw the kind of mental and physical damage illegal abortions could inflict.

Now, as legislative vice president for the Michigan chapter of the National Organization for Women, she works to keep abortion legal.

At the age of 16, LeAnn Kirr-mann's parents scheduled an abortion for her. Years later, still grieving, she joined the anti-abortion group Right to Life. She's in Washington, D.C., today to take part in an annual anti-abortion rally

Thirty-four years after the landmark Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion, Americans remain deeply divided on the issue.

Fifty-three percent of Americans in an October Newsweek poll classified themselves as "pro-choice," while 39 percent put themselves in the "right to life" category. The remaining 8 percent called themselves "neither" or "unsure."

In November, South Dakota voters rejected an abortion ban in the state by a margin of 55 percent to 45 percent.

Pollock and Kirrmann are two faces in the sea of supporters on either side of the issue.

Pro-choice activist Mary Pollock

Mary Pollock remembers what it was like in the days before abortion was legal.
And she doesn’t want to go back.

“Some of these women had to go through such horrible experiences,” said Pollock, 62, a state worker. “They had to go to a street corner, call a cab, blindfold themselves and give the cab an envelope with the address in it. They would be taken into places ... hotel rooms and apartments that weren’t clean.”

Pollock graduated from Pennsylvania State University in 1967, then went on to the University of Florida.

She learned about birth control pills from her co-workers at a factory where she worked one summer. When she went to get a prescription, she had to use a false name and tell the doctor she was married.

As assistant dean of students at the University of Illinois, she worked with local ministers to provide abortion counseling to young women. She was in charge of a small-loan fund, which she sometimes used to help students pay for abortions. Once, she was called to help a student who suffered a hemorrhage after an abortion she obtained in Puerto Rico.

“When you have to go through this kind of stuff, either with yourself or a friend, you realize you have no control and you are a second-class citizen,” Pollock said.

In her days working with students, Pollock set up sex education classes and lectured about sex and birth control on campus. She still thinks good education about sex and birth control can help prevent abortions.

Even though legal abortion is now 34 years old in the United States, the rights granted by Roe v. Wade have been chipped away in Michigan, Pollock said. State laws require parental notification and a mandatory waiting period.

As legislative vice president for Michigan National Organization for Women, she keeps an eye on what’s going on politically.

“Right now, we have a majority anti-abortion legislature,” she said.

She was heartened when South Dakota voters rejected an abortion ban in their state.

“South Dakota’s vote was just a real boost,” she said.