The Haunting of Spring Adams
Content Warning: This essay mentions incest, murder, and abortion.
12–2–2021: This essay was updated thanks to new information provided by Rachel Maddow on her show the previous day.
For years, I’ve been haunted by Spring Adams.
I’ve looked for her online, but usually, I get hits for the season spring and John Adams. I don’t even know what she looked like, what music she loved, and what she wanted to be when she grew up. All I know is she was victimized by her father and by the system that should’ve protected her. I’m going to tell you what I do know about her.
In 1989, Spring was a thirteen-year-old girl living in the small town of Fruitland, Idaho. She lived with her family, which included her father Rocky. Rocky decided-in the words of poet Linda McCarriston- to play the game everyone in the family could play: incest. Spring got pregnant by her father. She knew she had to have an abortion. It was necessary she had to have an abortion. Yet in Idaho, it had-and still does-a parental identification law. Meaning, she had to get Rocky’s permission to get an abortion. Yeah, it really doesn’t make sense to me either.
Spring’s family was on welfare. According to Susan Faludi’s Backlash, her mother Goldie found a doctor to perform a second-trimester abortion. The only thing is he wouldn’t waive his high fees. Finally, a clinic was found in Oregon that agreed to perform the abortion. A bus ticket was bought. However, in all the mess, her father was notified that Spring was pregnant and wanted an abortion.
This is when it gets murky. I’ve read different sources saying that Rocky wasn’t living in the house during this period, but the same amount of sources also say he was living in the house. Stephanie Salter in her March 2, 1992 San Francisco Examiner column that he okayed the abortion, but then he changed his mind. But this is what I know for sure: The night before Spring was going to get on that bus to Oregon, her father went into her room. He had an assault rifle. He shot her in the head, killing her. He tried to kill himself but survived. He is now serving two life sentences in Boise.
There have been debates with pro-life and pro-choice activists: Why didn’t her mother stop the abuse? Why didn’t Spring say something? Why didn’t the police do anything? We keep on asking why because we want to know what happened. We want it to make sense. Well, I’m here to tell you this: it will never make sense. A thirteen-year-old pregnant incest victim simply doesn’t make sense. The system failed this girl. I don’t care if you’re pro-life, pro-choice, apolitical, what have you. The system failed this girl.
In his confirmation hearings today, Judge Kavanaugh was asked about being on a three-judge panel deciding on the case of Jane Roe, a seventeen-year-old immigrant girl who came into the country illegally from Central America. She was held in a detention center in Texas run by Scott Lloyd. Lloyd refused to let Doe go for an abortion, even though residents were signed out for doctor’s appointments/procedures on a routine basis. Doe wasn’t asking for Texas to pay for the procedure, nor was she asking for transportation. She had it all arranged and the money to pay for it all. Her parents wouldn’t give permission for her to have one. Lloyd was also keeping track of all the teenage girls’ periods to make sure they were “normal.” No matter what you think about abortion, what he did was wrong.
On a court order, Jane Doe had to go to a crisis pregnancy center and have an ultrasound. Crisis Pregnancy Centers are known for having a pro-life bias, so God knows what she was told there. Finally, the appeals court ruled Jane Doe could have an abortion, which she did. Her plans, according to the Washington Post, is to become a nurse. Judge Kavanaugh said he followed the law.
Indeed he did. No doubt about that. But as many said, abortion should be seen in shades of gray, not black and white. We do not know Jane Doe’s story. We do know Spring Adams’ story. Jane was lucky. Spring wasn’t. Maybe I shouldn’t be the only one that is haunted about Spring, the girl who was in her bed one August night, a bus ticket in her drawer. Not knowing her father was lurking outside with a rifle, waiting.
