In writing Coat Hangers and Knitting Needles about abortion before Roe v. Wade, I came across many stories about women who died and about the families they left. Sharon Magee's story was part of the film Motherless.
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The last time Sharon Magee saw her mother, Mary, she thought she might have been going out on a date. Sharon is the youngest of the four speakers in the film, an attractive, articulate woman with children of her own. Her mother died in 1960.
She
remembers her mother’s last words to her: “And you be good.” Mary Magee always
gave Sharon a hug and a kiss when she left.
Sharon was
four when her mother died. Photos shows her in a puff-sleeved dress playing
with her toys. Despite her young age, she remembers them going shopping and
eating pizza together: fleeting, but good memories. Memories of being cared for
and loved.
When she
was older a friend told her that her mother was murdered. Sharon said she felt ashamed.
Sharon
reads from the news clipping describing Mary’s death. “A young woman, who
apparently died in an abortion attempt, was identified by her parents at the
City Morgue shortly before dawn today.”
Sharon’s voice breaks
as the article describes how the woman was left by two men who said they needed help than
sped away.
A
56-year-old woman was charged with the abortion, the third attempt on Mary, who
worked as a secretary for a cement company. What killed her was an injection of
pine oil.
“It is too
much to know because I often wonder
did she think of me before she died? Did she think of me before she did this?”
Sharon asked. She compares it to a child being left alone in a department
store, although people would come up to help, they wouldn’t be the right
person—the mother.
Sharon said that one of her sons was very attached
to her. It was hard for her to watch
how much he wanted her like she had wanted her own mother.
She hopes
her mother will not be seen as a “pig” and added. “This stuff happens…It
shouldn’t happen, but it did."
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