MARY McGILL sung by Kim Walleck (I'm not 100% certain she also wrote it)

In a clinic on Main Street in Washingtonville/ Lost in thought by a window stood Mary McGill/ When her eyes met the eyes of a woman outside/ Was it rain on her glasses or tears she had cried/ Outside on the picket line Rose Mary Flynn/ Felt the rain on her face and the anger within/ As she stared at the rface inside, gentle and warm/ That seemed almost to beckon her in from the storm.

And the two women found themselves staring awhile/ Recognition, awareness but never a smile/ And there seemed to be some kind of truce in that stare/ Until Rose Mary Flynn recalled why she was there/ The she held up her sign that said "Thou shalt not kill"/ And she pointed directly at Mary McGill/ And Mary McGill before starting to turn/ Gave a nod to acknowledge Rome Mary's concern.

That day Mary counselled a child named Michelle/ Who tried hard to seem calm in her personal hell/ Mary spoke to MIchelle with the tone of a friend/ And her gentleness brought Michelle's calm to an end/ Michelle told her story with pain hard to hide/ Of her mother and John and the new life inside/ She had meant to show love, she had meant no one harm/ But her mother felt anger and John felt alarm

But the new life inside was a life, it was real/ With a brain and a heartbeat she thought she could feel/ And she wanted the child she would love it so well/ But she'd end the new life for her mother and John/ I'll do it Michelle said for my mother and John/ These words had an emptiness Mary saw through/ If you do it said Mary, pleased do it for you/ Michelle only murmured the words "I don't know"/ And she stood and she turned and she started to go/ And Mary made one last request of Michelle/ With her parting words "Take time to think this out well"

that night Michelle's mother stormed into the place/ Not hiding her anger, yet hiding her face/ My daughter came here with a purpose she said/ Not to have you put foolish ideas in her head / She's too young, she's a girl, and the father's a boy/ And she thinks that a baby is some kind of toy/ Your job was to teach her, to straighten her out/ NOt confuse her and send her home riddled with doubt.

My job explained mary was not to confuse/ But to make her aware of her freedom to choose/ My job is to make sure the options are known/ You are right she is young, but her life is her own/ Then mary saw something in this woman's face/ And remembered the person, the time and the place/ This woman had labelled abortion a sin/ The face on the picket line, Rose Mary Flynn.

People often accuse and are quick to condemn/ When the issue is safe and does not affect them/ I don't envy the job facing Mary McGill/ I don't know all the meanings of "Thou shalt not kill"/ It's a conflict more simply prevented than solved/ But the choice must belong to the woman involved/ And I think that the answers come not from above/ But from us and our consciences tempered with love.

rich r