A JANE Choose-Your-Own-Adventure (Or, How to Decide What to Read and Watch)

By Kaylee Tock

Note from Read & Run Chicago: In September 2024, Read & Run Chicago is hosted a 4-mile Running Tour of Jane, the famous underground abortion service that served women from 1969-1973. Guide Kaylee Tock developed her route inspired by several media, including The Story of Jane: The Legendary Underground Feminist Abortion Service by Laura Kaplan. As this event was a running tour, no prior reading was required, but readers & runners were invited to continue learning via the texts inspiring the route.

Over the years, the Jane’s story has been retold in a few major ways: literary nonfiction, academic articles, a novel, a Women Make Movies documentary (1996), an HBO documentary, and even a 2022 movie with Elizabeth Banks and Sigourney Weaver*. Let’s whittle down the (easily available) options:

The Story of Jane: The Legendary Underground Feminist Abortion Service by Laura Kaplan

BOOK: literary nonfiction (memoir+)

• What it does really well: showing the evolution of Jane; includes criticism of some not-so-perfect aspects; sharing stories from all types who went through Jane (whether as members, seekers of their services, or both)

• What could be a little better: chronology; historical (political) context

• Page count: 352 (2022 edition)

• Audio runtime: 11 hrs

This is, hands down, my top recommendation.  Kaplan was a Jane, and it shows in her writing.  While there are some contradictory parts (due to the nature of the genre), and the chronology is a little hard to follow at times, she really tells the story with authenticity – plus, the prose itself is easy to read (while not being simplified).  She doesn’t sugarcoat the service’s interpersonal politics, and by including so many of her fellow Janes’ voices, she creates a full picture of what Jane was and who chose to be part of it.  

Also, I appreciate the emphasis on the procedures themselves, and the mentality they took into each session – she emphasizes their desire to make each pregnant person feel like they were a part of their own story, not that the abortion was happening to them – and I appreciated that this, at least, has context (women were not receiving this kind of care in their normal medical encounters).

I read this first, so I might be biased, but if you are looking for something that really gives details and leaves you with a clear idea of how Jane evolved throughout its 4 year life (plus a bit of the before and after!), read this book.

All You Have to Do is Call by Kerri Maher

BOOK: historical fiction

• What it does really well: setting context; engaging prose; diverse characters

• What could be a little better: lose the unnecessary drama (the story itself is dramatic enough);  keep closer to the facts (truly, why change simple things?)

• Page count: 368 (paperback, just released 8/27/24)

• Audio runtime: 13 hrs

I picked this up knowing it was probably going to irritate me, but also that it’s likely the most easy entry point into the history.  I wasn’t wrong about either assumption.  This is a high drama read – embellishing the very real, dramatic-enough fact that one of the women arrested was a nursing mother – and it’s full of weird inaccuracies (plastic speculums in 1970?  One less woman arrested?  Hell, even a reference to Chicago ghost tours is three years too early!).

I did appreciate the additional context (she mentions things like Nixon vetoing universal child care in 1971) and how she ties in opposing perspectives (one happy stay-at-home mom didn’t understand the big deal; another working mom was lamenting the veto).  However, almost all of the abortions themselves–and the pregnant people choosing to have them–are not actually fixtures of this book, which feels othering.

I finished thinking maybe it would inspire people to learn more, and I was thankful for Maher’s clarification of the highly fictionalized events in the afterword – but how many people read an afterword?

The Janes

HBO DOCUMENTARY

• What it does really well: setting context; hearing from people directly; digging up some bits that felt lost to history

• What could be a little better: how Jane actually worked/evolved wasn’t well explained; the only “friction” was between the cop and the Janes’ memories of the raid

• Runtime: 101 minutes

This is good as a standalone source - you get the political context of the time, you get a variety of perspectives (and they’re not filtered through one person!), and you get an overall idea of how important Jane was to pregnant people in Chicago.  In combination with either of the above, you get so. much. more.

I was absolutely thrilled they include what feels like Easter eggs after reading The Story of Jane: the index cards, “Mike”, the lawyer husband, one of the cops. As with any documentary, I couldn’t help but wonder what got edited out, but again, as a supplemental piece of media to one of the books?  Highly recommend.

*Call Jane; I didn’t watch it, largely because Heather Booth (the organizer of Jane) really did not recommend it.

Want to See All of the Texts Inspiring Our Events?

Kaylee Tock (she/her/hers) has been reading daily since her first solo book, The Berenstain Bears and the Spooky Old Tree (age 5); she avoided running at all costs until she saw someone wearing a Rosehill Cemetery Crypt 5k shirt and decided that was a great reason to run (age 29). After a stint at a record label and years with a boutique fashion designer, she finally put her math skills to good use working as an accountant for nonprofits. Her ideal morning is an early run, followed by coffee, a book, and a cat.