by Judy Rebick
Also by Judy Rebick
Politically Speaking (with Kiké Roach)
Imagine Democracy
Ten Thousand Roses: The Making of a Feminist Revolution
Transforming Power: From the Personal to the Political
Occupy This!
Heroes in My Head
a memoir
Judy Rebick
Copyright © 2018 Judy Rebick
Published in Canada in 2018 by House of Anansi Press Inc.
www.houseofanansi.com
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Rebick, Judy, author
Heroes in my head : a memoir / Judy Rebick.
Issued in print and electronic formats.
ISBN 978-1-4870-0357-9 (softcover). — ISBN 978-1-4870-0358-6
(EPUB). — ISBN 978-1-4870-0359-3 (MOBI)
1. Rebick, Judy. 2. National Action Committee on the
Status of Women—Presidents—Biography. 3. Feminists—Canada—
Biography. 4. Women social reformers—Canada—Biography.
5. Pro-choice movement—Canada. 6. Autobiographies. I. Title.
HQ1455.R43 A3 2018 305.42092 C2017-904743-4
C2017-904744-2
Book design: Alysia Shewchuk
Cover design: Alysia Shewchuk
Cover image: NONPAWIT PHONSIB/shutterstock.com
We acknowledge for their financial support of our publishing program
the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council, and the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund.
To my brothers
Contents
Author’s Note
Prologue: Warrior Woman
Part I: Everything Falls Apart, 1989
Chapter 1: The Wall Comes Down
Chapter 2: Where’s Jack?
Part II: Memories Are Made of This, 1945–1970
Chapter 3: Family Ties
Chapter 4: Toronto
Chapter 5: “It Was McGill that Ruined You”
Chapter 6: Love Lost
Chapter 7: No Way Home
Chapter 8: “Walk Quickly, There Is Danger”
Part III: Down but Not Out, 1970–1985
Chapter 9: The Revolutionary Seventies
Chapter 10: Down the Rabbit Hole
Chapter 11: Get Up, Stand Up
Chapter 12: The Clinic Will Stay Open
Part IV: Come Together, 1989–1992
Chapter 13: Something’s Happening Here
Chapter 14: The Political Becomes the Personal
Chapter 15: And Then There Were Nine
Chapter 16: Throwing Caution to the Wind
Chapter 17: Teetering on the Edge
Chapter 18: The Best of Times
Chapter 19: The Final Confrontation
Epilogue: Is It Over?
Acknowledgements
Glossary
Notes
Index
Author’s Note
As the editing of this book was coming to an end, the #metoo movement started. Women spoke out about the sexual harassment and abuse they suffered at the hands of powerful men, raising the movement against gendered violence and misogyny to a massive level. This book is my #metoo. I wanted to tell my secrets before #metoo, but the movement has deepened my belief that our secrets are killing us and telling our secrets is a liberating act for us and for others. My hope is that my story will contribute to making the #metoo movement stronger and more inclusive because I think childhood sexual abuse at the hands of a family member is much more widespread than we are led to believe. The growing movement against patriarchy must include this issue, too.
In my sixties, when my short-term memory was starting to fail, I complained at a family gathering about ageing. “Let’s face it, Judy,” said my niece Kael, “memory was never your strong suit.” Indeed as you will learn in these pages, my memory of my life has huge gaps. So how do I write a memoir? I interviewed a lot of people who remembered what I didn’t; I have kept the journals from those decades; and for the public aspects of my life, I reviewed clippings and videos. Memory is subjective, and this book represents my memories.
Some of the names in the book have been changed or I’ve used first names only. Just because I’ve decided to tell my secrets doesn’t mean everyone else in my life has. Most of the dialogue is constructed as closely as possible to my memories of the events. I suspect even those with excellent memory don’t remember every word of a discussion.
The language reflects the time, so words like “crippled” or “Indian” are used as they were in those days. I also use the term “multiple personality disorder” because that was the diagnostic term used at the time. “Dissociative identity disorder” is the term used today. I think “multiple personality disorder” better describes my experience. I’ve tried to explain those instances where I use slang from the sixties and seventies.
what is stronger
than the human heart
which shatters over and over
and still lives
— Rupi Kaur, Milk and Honey
The soul of feminist politics is the commitment to ending patriarchal domination of women and men, girls and boys. Love cannot exist in any relationship that is based on domination and coercion.
— bell hooks, The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love
Prologue
Warrior Woman
On June 15, 1983, Dr. Henry Morgentaler opened an illegal abortion clinic in Toronto. The Ontario Coalition for Abortion Clinics (OCAC) had chosen a spot on the second floor of a lovely Victorian house on Harbord Street, a quiet downtown thoroughfare lined with bookstores and cafés near the University of Toronto. With the Toronto Women’s Bookstore on the ground floor, we were assured of supportive neighbours. The interior staircase up to the clinic was useful for security purposes — if anyone broke in, it gave the nurses and doctors time to secure the patients — and there was a front stoop, perfect for rallies. The plan was to hold a symbolic opening for the media at 10 a.m. Dr. Morgentaler, who lived in Montreal, would arrive at 3 p.m., say a few words, and then go inside.
OCAC had convinced Dr. Morgentaler to open a clinic in Toronto to repeat the success he had had with his clinic in Montreal. After three jury acquittals, the Parti Québécois government declared they would no longer prosecute a doctor for conducting abortions under safe conditions — in essence legalizing abortion in Quebec. Criminal law is decided at the federal level in Canada, but the provinces are charged with enforcing the law. Quebec would no longer enforce the restrictive abortion law, which forced a woman to appear before a Therapeutic Abortion Committee (TAC) of three doctors who would decide if her life or health was at stake. Since hospitals were not required to have TACs, the largely Catholic hospitals in Quebec provided little access to abortions.
Dr. Morgentaler had asked me to be the spokesperson for the clin
ic, so at 10 a.m. I unlocked the door. Some of the media had already shown up, and more and more were arriving. The clinic staff were there and a few members of OCAC were outside.
“Can you walk up the steps and unlock the door for us, Judy?” a camera guy asked.
“Sure.”
As soon as I opened the door, another camera crew arrived.
“Can you do it again?” they asked, again and again.
As the time of the doctor’s arrival drew near, there were close to a hundred people from the media — print, TV, and radio reporters, camerapeople, photographers — standing on the sidewalk and spilling onto the street.
We didn’t expect any trouble that day. Toronto Right to Life, the local anti-abortion organization, had announced that they would not hold a protest; instead they would rely on the Conservative government, then in power in Ontario, to shut down the illegal clinic. Just in case, we had organized a small rally of supporters.
When Dr. Morgentaler arrived, Cheryl, a calm and rational psychiatric nurse, and I were waiting to escort him to the clinic.
“Bit of a crazy scene with all the media, Henry,” I said as he stepped out of the cab.
“To be expected.” He laughed.
Cheryl was behind him on his left side, and I was on his right side, a few steps in front. A white van stopped to let us pass. As I turned to thank the driver, a short but sturdy middle-aged man violently grabbed Dr. Morgentaler’s arm. I stepped between him and the doctor and pulled his hands away, while Cheryl hurried Dr. Morgentaler into the clinic.
“Get out of here!” I said, pushing him away with one hand on his arm and the other on his chest. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
“Go away,” he said in heavily accented English.
Then he raised his arm and I blocked his arm with mine. That’s when I realized he had garden shears. He looked me in the eyes and put his arm down.
“I’m not going anywhere,” I replied. “You better get out of here and fast.”
He started to walk away and I was following him when I heard Cheryl, who had come back out and was running down the street, yelling my name: “Judy, stop!”
Her voice sounded very far away, but the urgency in her tone pulled me back to the present. I suddenly realized it was crazy to chase down the man. Dr. Morgentaler was safe; now we could leave it to the police.
That night I was staying with my old friend Susan Swan. I had met Susan two decades earlier at McGill University, where we both worked on the McGill Daily student newspaper. The week the clinic opened, she had broken up with her boyfriend and wanted company. I remember we were watching the news together. The clinic opening was the lead story, and footage of Morgentaler’s arrival played out on national TV. It was only then that I became fully aware that the attacker had raised the garden shears against Dr. Morgentaler.
The phone rang. It was Henry.
“Judy, I wish to thank you for saving my life.” Only when he saw the news coverage did he, too, realize that I had put myself in harm’s way to save him.
“I don’t think he wanted to kill you, Henry, but you’re welcome,” I said with a little chuckle. At that moment, I was still feeling quite relaxed.
That changed the next day. As soon as I woke up, all I could think was I have to go home, I have to go home. I realized something was wrong so I called my therapist at the time, Mark Smith. He hadn’t seen the news so I told him what had happened the day before.
“You’re in shock, Judy,” he said. “Even though you didn’t realize it at the time, you were traumatized by the violence and now you are in shock.” We talked some more and I started to cry. I wound up crying for more than an hour and called in sick to work, taking the day to recover.
The “garden shears attack,” as it has come to be known, has forever defined the pro-choice battle in Canada. A video clip of the confrontation is played on TV every time Dr. Morgentaler or the pro-choice struggle is mentioned. It was the beginning of an intense struggle on the streets, in the media, and in the courts, culminating in the 1988 Supreme Court decision that made abortion legal in Canada, a victory that even the right-wing government of Stephen Harper was unable to challenge. It was also when my public image as a warrior for women’s rights was established both in the public’s eyes and in my own.
I knew that cool, fearless woman who stopped the attack on Dr. Morgentaler: she had been protecting me for years. But it would take longer for me to understand who she was and why she existed than it would to make abortion legal in Canada.
The secret stayed buried for decades, through a clinical depression, several relationships, illness and injuries, world travel, and a life of activism. Here and there an image, a feeling, a shadow, a gap in time would appear only to be quickly relegated to that part of my brain that was separated from my consciousness by a concrete wall. Decades later, a tiny detail put a crack in the wall and before long it came tumbling down.
I
Everything Falls Apart
1989
One
The Wall Comes Down
In early July 1989, I got a call at work from Clayton Ruby, a progressive lawyer in Toronto. I’d known Clayton for more than a decade. In 1972, he and his business partner at the time, Paul Copeland, had defended Grass Roots, a radical youth group that had occupied a piece of land at the University of Toronto to set up a tent city for transient youth. Twenty-one people were arrested.
“I’m working on the Barbara Dodd case and I need your help,” he said.
Of course I knew about the Barbara Dodd case. Her ex-boyfriend, Gregory Murphy, had sought an injunction to stop her from having an abortion. A year and a half before, on January 28, 1988, the Supreme Court of Canada had ruled that the law criminalizing abortion was unconstitutional. The procedure was now legal in Canada. But on July 5, 1989, Ontario Court justice John O’Driscoll, who was known for his anti-abortion views, made Dodd’s fetus a ward of the court, halting her scheduled procedure at Women’s College Hospital. The Ontario Coalition for Abortion Clinics called O’Driscoll’s decision “judicial terrorism” and demanded that the attorney general appeal the dangerous precedent. Dodd’s sister, Liz Dodd, hired Ruby to appeal the decision on Barbara’s behalf.
Barbara Dodd was also deaf.
Two days later, a Montreal judge awarded an injunction to Jean-Guy Tremblay, the ex-boyfriend of a woman named Chantal Daigle, to stop her from having an abortion. The Supreme Court victory legalizing abortion was being challenged in the country’s two biggest provinces. From the time of the opening of the Morgentaler clinic on June 15, 1983, I had helped to lead an intense battle not only with the ferocious anti-abortion militants but with the government, the courts, and the police. I was fully my warrior self, battling with the forces of evil, on the side of justice not only on the abortion issue but also in my paid work at the Canadian Hearing Society (CHS). Deaf people were just starting to organize, and my job as director of special projects was to support them. On May 12, 1989, we held a rally in front of the legislature calling for American Sign Language (ASL) to be used in schools for the deaf. We were victorious in both battles. I was feeling pretty good.
“You know how to use sign language, right?” Clayton asked.
“Yes.” I hesitated. “But I’m not a qualified interpreter.” One of my jobs at CHS had been to set up the Ontario Interpreter Services, which was the first professional agency for sign language interpreters in the country. CHS was working to make sure sign language interpreters were treated by the courts with the same professional standards as other language interpreters. Before the establishment of the Ontario Interpreter Services, there was no way to officially recognize the qualifications of sign language interpreters. My sign language was good, but not good enough to act as an interpreter. Even though I had stopped working with OCAC in the summer of 1987, I was always hesitant to advocate on behalf of an indivi
dual on an issue in which I was involved as an activist. Individuals are highly unpredictable, especially when under pressure, and you can risk your public credibility on the issue itself if things go wrong.
“I don’t need you to interpret. The court is hiring an interpreter. I just need someone to sit with Barbara and explain to her what’s happening in court, answer her questions, maybe help me to communicate with her. You’d be perfect. Please.”
“I don’t know, Clay. You know I’m not involved with OCAC anymore.”
“You’d be there as an assistant from the CHS, not as an activist.”
“I don’t think my boss would go along with that.”
“Would you ask him? I really need you. It’s important.”
Sinking in my chair, I agreed to ask Denis, hoping he would say no. Denis Morrice was an amazing boss. In 1975, he had taken over a sleepy agency that served deaf and hard of hearing people. As executive director, he had turned CHS into a vibrant and effective organization. Recognizing my contribution to the agency, as well as my commitment to political activism, Denis pretty well gave me as much time off as I needed for my activist work. As a political activist, I was an experienced change maker and Denis understood how to use those skills to improve services for deaf and hard of hearing people. Not only had I led efforts in establishing Ontario Interpreter Services, but I had worked with builders in constructing CHS’s new offices; helped to win a CRTC case against Bell Canada, forcing the company to provide a message-relay service for the deaf; co-chaired a coalition for employment equity for people with disabilities; and now was assisting deaf people in their fight to get American Sign Language taught in Ontario schools for the deaf, where they had always refused to teach ASL even though that was how most deaf people communicated. He didn’t want me to quit.
