Don't Blame Doe!

It was 1965. Sandra Race, the seventeen-year-old daughter of an Atlanta City sanitation worker, was growing up in a poor neighborhood when her life was about to be changed forever. She had already dropped out of school; poor grades, the taunts of classmates about her weight and the disfiguring smile from Bell's Palsy were too much for her to face each day. Her mother tried forcing her and once nearly broke a broomstick across her back in the process. Like most adolescents, Sandra dreamed of romantic encounters with some "knight in shining armor" who would provide her with affection and attention. Adolescent insecurity and vulnerability would soon blind her senses and dull her better judgment. In her fragile emotional state, Sandra was a willing pawn for anyone who showed her the slightest favor.

A week after they were married, Sandra found out that her husband was serving probation for molesting two different 5-year-old children. Over the next several years Joel was charged again with molestation and kidnapping. He would appear only a few days out of the month and was in and out of jail their entire marriage. Sandra's other relationships were also tenuous. Sandra's father died, her mother remarried only weeks after his death, and Sandra's stepfather proved to be a very demanding and many times an abusive man. He resented the presence of another man's six children and was not inhibited in releasing his frustration with verbal tirades and physical assaults.

Joel never properly provided for either Sandra or their four children. Things were so tight that on many occasions Sandra's family could not house her. Sandra's younger sister Barbara recalls:

"There were times when Sandra and her children would have to sleep at the Salvation Army Center at night. In the morning she would have to leave there and sit all day outside until the Center reopened in the evening."

In March 1970, at her wits end, barely 22 years of age, married to a convicted child molester, her children in foster care and pregnant with her fourth child; Sandra Race Bensing went to Atlanta Legal aid for help. Poverty-stricken, this was her only avenue for legal assistance. She was seeking a divorce from Joel and legal help in getting her children returned to her from foster care. The friendly faces and willing ears were a welcome "oasis" to Sandra, who had seen little of either her entire adult life. Her new "friends" there soon introduced her to an attorney named Margie Pitts Hames who was eager to help with her "situation." Sandra saw Margie as the "life preserver thrown to a drowning man." The only problem was that Ms. Hames' unstated solution to Sandra's predicament was not what Sandra had in mind. Margie's plan was abortion first, and then divorce and freeing the children from foster care. Sandra was kept in the dark and told only that her case had something to do with "Women's Rights." When asked once about the subject of abortion she responded "she did not believe in it, for herself, but could not speak for anyone else."

When her suit failed to achieve her goals in Georgia, Hames continued to press her agenda on to the U. S. Supreme Court. On December 13, 1971 at 11:12 AM, Doe v. Bolton went before the Supreme Court. Hames represented her side and Dorothy T. Beasley represented the State of Georgia. Mrs. Beasley was skeptical. There were just too little facts. The transcripts document her amazement:

"The Attorney General (Arthur K. Bolton-Georgia) has no idea what the abortion committee in this particular case did or how much it knew. And that again is one of the great problems with this case. We know of no facts, there are no facts, in this case, no established facts...there is no case or controversy. Not with these defendants...It is not a complete divulgence of the facts surrounding her (Sandra's) circumstances."

On a couple of occasions the justices wanted to know if Mary Doe (Sandra Race Bensing) really existed, to which Hames replies in the affirmative. What she never points out is that while there was a real woman who was pregnant named in the original suit, Mary Doe never wanted or sought an abortion. Hames presented an affidavit from her mystery woman, Mary Doe, which contained the signature of Sandra Race Bensing. The document states that she is pregnant with her fourth child and that she cannot possibly care for the child properly, she is not emotionally capable of bringing the baby into the world, and that she wants an abortion. Sandra does not recall reading or signing this paper. The signature is similar to her own but the contents of it are in direct conflict with Sandra's beliefs and actions. Her only explanation is either the signature is a forgery or that she signed the document in a legal setting with Hames at which time she signed a number of documents relating to her divorce and the regaining of her children. Sandra trusted her attorney to be representing her best interests; however, the motive in this case was ideology over facts.

The judicial system of the United States was established to insure the rights and freedoms of citizens who are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. The outcome of this U. S. Supreme Court decision was determined without a complete inspection of the facts. Clearly, Mary Doe was not Sandra Race Bensing. She was just who Margie Pitts Hames portrayed her to be. Statements Hames made before the Justices of the Supreme Court were lies and her motives were clear deception.

The high court's justices were not insistent in their questions. Members of that court who sided with Hames trampled the U. S. Constitution under foot. Abortion was legalized by a handful of men who were not in command of all the facts. This is precisely why the framers of the Constitution formed the legislative branch of government. Justices of the Supreme Court are supposed to rule on the constitutionality of the laws of the land, not author them.

In his dissenting opinion Justice Byron R. White said

"Nothing in the language or history of the Constitution supported the court's judgment, and the court had simply fashioned and announced a new constitutional right for pregnant mothers and, with scarcely any reason or authority for its action, had invested the right with sufficient substance to override most existing state abortion statutes, whereas the issue of abortion should actually have been left with the people and the political process they have devised to govern their own affairs."

Don't blame Doe.

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