What if your mother Author:Judith Arcana A collection of poems by Judith Arcana. Maxine Kumin writes: "Arcana's compelling poems about abortion remind us of the dark days before Roe v. Wade and serve as a call to all of us across the generations to guard the legitimacy of our pro-choice positions today." Annie Finch writes: "Lyric, varied, funny, full of lively stories and authentic vo... more »ices, Judith Arcana's poems...are rooted in decades of hands-on work for reproductive freedom. I think this book will change the definition of political poetry." As Arcana explains in her Preface: "Thirty-five years ago, one evening in the fall of 1970, I walked into a small church on West Fullerton Parkway in Chicago to attend an orientation meeting for new members of the Abortion Counseling Service of the Chicago Women's Liberation Union. I was twenty-seven years old and had been wondering for a year or so where to find--how to sign up with--this women's liberation movement I'd been hearing so much about." Judith Arcana was a "Jane," the name given to members of this Service, for two years. Some of the poems in What if your mother, Arcana writes, were "seeded by my pre-Roe abortion work, but most of it is drawn from more recent experience: The lives of women and girls I know or have simply encountered; newspapers, elections, legislation; the terrorism and assassination perpetrated by the stridently succesful anti-abortion movement in the USA; work with clinics and the staunchly committed staffs of NARAL, PLanned Parenthood, members of the National Network of Abortion Funds, and other necessary brave organizations."« less