Ketanji Brown Jackson and the Grandmother Who Challenges Us All

A few days ago, Eleanor McCullen was home when the telephone rang. It was a woman she had met outside an abortion clinic 18 years ago. The woman explained that she was looking through her daughter’s baby book and underneath the picture of her then three-month-old was Eleanor’s business card, which simply says, “Hope, help, and love.” Her daughter Rose is graduating from high school and headed to college. The mother called to thank McCullen for being there that morning to assure her that she did not have to have an abortion: “I want to thank you for being there that day. . . . Rose is the joy of our life.”

McCullen is a sidewalk counselor who has spent over two decades outside Planned Parenthood in Boston. She testified at the Senate confirmation hearings for Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson. Jackson wrote an amicus brief against the free-speech rights of McCullen, the lead plaintiff in a buffer-zone case the Supreme Court heard in 2014. McCullen and free speech won that day. So did love. I was there for the oral arguments. After they were done, McCullen lovingly stood on the steps of the Court and implored Americans to be better to women and children.

McCullen is an authentic, grandmotherly witness to hope and hospitality. Her home has been the setting for many a baby shower over the years. She and her husband have had many a baby named after them. During her brief Senate testimony, she said what she says to women when she smiles at them and says “Good morning” and offers the opportunity for a listening ear and an accompaniment on the journey to embracing life: “I will stand with you throughout the nine months and beyond. I will hold your hand.”

She explained, “I just stick with the mothers and their families for as long as they need my help.” To help women with whatever they need, she says, is “an incredible privilege,” adding: “I’m able to provide the mothers whatever resources they might need in that moment, including medical care, financial support.” Her house is a treasure trove of “baby clothes and bassinets.”

During her Senate confirmation hearings, Judge Jackson opted not to define what a woman is or when human life begins, but McCullen points to the truth of what women are capable of. A woman has the awesome capacity to bring life into the world. McCullen is a breath of fresh air, giving much of her life over to allowing women who are already mothers to embrace an often unexpected joy. Our culture pressures women to abortion as an expectation if she wants success in life. But what is career success without love?

McCullen told the Senate: “So many women I’ve met believe that their only choice is to end the life of their baby. It is in that moment of isolation and fear that I have the privilege of offering a different choice, one that empowers and encourages the woman to know she is fully capable of becoming a mom and pursuing a job, and going to school, and having a successful and happy life.”

She emphasized: “It’s a powerful moment when a woman looks at me and our eyes connect and she stops to talk. It’s in that moment I promise her she will never walk her journey alone.”

In January 2014, on the steps of the Court, she told press who seemed bewildered that she thought it so important to have a few seconds to talk to a woman outside an abortion clinic: “The unborn child is the most defenseless, most marginalized, the most fragile.  In fact, the poorest of the poor is the child in the womb, and you know there was one day that to be in the womb, it was a safe place, but today the womb is the most unsafe place to be for a child.” She said that sometimes women are looking for a sign that they have an alternative to abortion and that her being outside the clinic with her sign about hope is what a woman needs.

In what was an impromptu rally for love for those of us who witnessed, McCullen said:

“Gentleness and love.  You have to love people and, you know, Americans love people.  People say, ‘How can you love the woman and man?  You never knew them.’ But guess what? What about all of those hurricanes and disasters? The Philippines and Katrina? What did our American people do? They got in planes and trains and buses, and they built up the houses for the people. We are a caring country, but unfortunately, the sad part is, we take the life of our young in the womb. But we are a genuine society, we are a loving society. We help people, and that’s all I’m trying to do — help someone [who is] desperate and abandoned. Just like those people in Katrina. I’m doing it a different way, but aren’t our people right there to help? We are generous, but we do take our children from the womb.”

All indications suggest that Jackson as Justice Jackson will be a reliable vote for the abortion industry. But McCullen is praying for something else. She’s some of the best of America, and I’m glad the Senate got to hear from her. She challenges us all to something better.

This column is based on one available through Andrews McMeel Universal’s Newspaper Enterprise Association.