Celebrating Roe — A family tradition

Mary Wissink breezed through the door after school on Jan. 22, 1973, distracted with thoughts of cars and boys, until she noticed an unusual enthusiastic air about her mother.

The dining room table was pulled away from the wall, like it was for holiday dinners. The linens were ironed. The smell of turkey, dressing and sweet potatoes wafted through the house. Mom was polishing the silver.

Wissink, then a sophomore in high school, realized her mother had come home from work early to prepare a feast.

“Mary,” her mom said, “Today you have the right to your own body.”

It was the day The Supreme Court affirmed the legality of a woman’s right to have an abortion. Wissink and her family have been celebrating the Roe v. Wade anniversary ever since.

“She was so excited,” Wissink recalled. “I don’t think it’s something we think about now. The younger generation doesn’t think about how hard these women — our moms, older sisters, grandmas — worked to get their own rights.”

Legalizing abortion was always something Wissink’s mom, also named Mary, was vehement about. When she was a high schooler in the 1940s, her friend and classmate was raped. She had an  abortion, hemorrhaged, and as a young teenager was forced to have a hysterectomy.

Wissink, a Spokane water commissioner, said her mother could never tell the story without crying.

“She had to watch her friend go through that. She had no resources. There was no safe place for her to make that decision. It really hit my mom hard,” she said.

The story stuck with Wissink and she said it continues to fuel her to fight for women’s rights. She said the story also changed her father, Al, who was studying to become a Jesuit priest before he fell in love.

“My dad always said love is the only answer,” Wissink said. “Our God is a loving God, he doesn’t want us to suffer.”

She said she’s often asked how she can be Catholic, and pro-abortion rights.

“How can I be Catholic and feel this way? It’s because I’m Catholic that I feel this way,” she said.

Each year, on Jan. 22, she celebrates the Roe v. Wade anniversary with friends and family and with an elaborate meal, either at home or at a restaurant. She also always drinks a dry martini in honor of her mother, who died in 2003.

“Women should have the right to affordable and good healthcare and the right to make their own decisions,” Wissink said. “That’s why we need to celebrate Roe v. Wade.”

This year Planned Parenthood of Greater Washington and North Idaho will join Wissink in her celebrations by having Celebrate Roe parties throughout the region to “celebrate reproductive justice.”

“We celebrate Roe v. Wade annually because it represents great progress in women’s healthcare, access and rights,” said Karl Eastlund, CEO of PPGWNI. “Abortion is a complex and highly personal decision, and Roe v. Wade ensures that women are empowered to receive education about all options and make personal decisions accordingly.”

However, not everyone agrees that the 1973 Supreme Court decision is one worth praising.

Paul E. Rondeau, executive director of the American Life League, a grassroots Catholic anti-abortion rights education organization, said celebrating Roe is evil.

“To celebrate Roe is to deny natural law, to deny science, to deny common sense…to put oneself before the life of God’s own children,” he said. “On this 41st anniversary of the greatest injustice ever perpetrated by Supreme Court justices, Catholics should be unafraid to tell the truth to each other and the world.”

He added that Catholics can only embrace Roe by rejecting their own faith.

Regardless of religious affiliation, Roe v. Wade continues to be polemic. A 2012 poll by Gallup showed that 29 percent of Americans would like to see Roe v. Wade overturned and 48 percent of Americans say they are “pro-life,” while 45 percent claim to be pro-abortion rights.

If you go:

Roe Party
5:30-7:30 p.m.
Stella’s Cafe, 917 W. Broadway Ave.