The Jane Code in Looking for Jane: Symbol Analysis & Meaning

What Is the Jane Code?

In Heather Marshall's Looking for Jane, the name Jane operates as a deceptively simple code with layered meanings. On the surface, it is the code name used by an underground abortion network operating in Toronto in the 1970s. As Evelyn Taylor's nurse Alice explains when she first introduces the network, Jane is a code name for a network connecting women with doctors who will provide abortions—a whisper network, basically. The name is deliberately generic, as Alice puts it, generic enough to slide under the radar, allowing women to ask for help without exposing themselves or the network to prosecution.

But the code is never merely practical. When Alice first tells Evelyn about it, Evelyn's immediate reaction reveals a deeper resonance: someone she knew a long time ago named her baby Jane. That baby—the daughter Evelyn was forced to surrender at St. Agnes's Home for Unwed Mothers—is the same Jane who will later become Nancy Mitchell, the woman who volunteers for the network herself. The code word and the daughter's name are one and the same, and this convergence gives the symbol its emotional power.

The Code as Shield and Signal

The Jane code functions as both a protective shield and a signal of trust. For women seeking abortions in the years before decriminalization, saying I'm looking for Jane was a way to ask for help without naming what they needed. The phrase could be spoken in whispers, passed from friend to friend, or offered to a doctor's receptionist. It was, as Alice describes it, a whisper network—a system built on word of mouth and mutual trust rather than written records or public advertising.

The code also protected the women who provided the service. The network's volunteers just call themselves Jane, or the Janes, Alice explains, using a collective identity that distributes risk across the group. No single woman is exposed; the name belongs to everyone and no one. This collective anonymity is itself a form of female solidarity and mutual support—the Janes are interchangeable not because they are faceless, but because they are united.

The code's protective function extends to Evelyn's own life in a more personal way. After taking on the identity of her deceased friend Evelyn Taylor, Margaret Roberts (as she was born) lives under a borrowed name. The Jane code offers her a similar kind of cover: a name that is not her own but that allows her to do meaningful work. Both names—Evelyn Taylor and Jane—are masks that enable action.

Jane as a Daughter's Name

The most emotionally charged layer of the Jane symbol is its connection to Evelyn's daughter. In the Goodbye Room at St. Agnes's, Evelyn tucks yellow booties and a note into her baby's blanket before the infant is taken for adoption. She names the baby Jane—a name that, years later, she will hear again as the code for the abortion network she joins.

This convergence gives the code a deeply personal meaning for Evelyn. When she hears the word Jane spoken as a code, she hears her daughter's name. The network that helps women reclaim control over their reproductive lives is named for the child she was forced to give up. The irony is painful: the same system that took her daughter from her also, through the Jane Network, helps other women avoid the fate she endured.

The name also connects to Nancy's identity. Nancy Mitchell, adopted as an infant, has always been Jane in a sense—the name her birth mother gave her, the name she never knew. When Nancy and Evelyn finally reunite in 2017, Nancy offers the name back: you can call me Jane, if you want. In that moment, the code word becomes a term of endearment, a gift from daughter to mother. Jane is no longer just a secret password or a lost child's name; it is a bridge between two women who have spent decades searching for each other.

Looking for Jane: A Phrase with Two Meanings

The novel's title, Looking for Jane, captures the symbol's dual meaning. For women in the 1970s, looking for Jane meant seeking safe abortion access—finding the network, making the call, asking the question. The phrase appears as a chapter title in Evelyn's 1998 book about the network: I'm Looking for Jane: Expanding the Service. It is the language of the network's growth, the moment when word of the code spreads beyond a small circle.

But looking for Jane also describes Evelyn's decades-long search for her daughter. She places classified ads for years, registers with search agencies, and hopes for a call that never comes. I tried to hope, she tells Angela, but it was probably just the wrong number. The search for Jane—the daughter—is as persistent and as painful as the search for Jane—the network—was urgent and necessary.

The two searches converge in the novel's final reunion. When Nancy tells Evelyn, I've been looking for you, she completes the circuit. The daughter has been looking for the mother just as the mother has been looking for the daughter. And the network that bears the daughter's name is what ultimately brings them together: Nancy volunteered with the Janes, Evelyn joined the network, and Angela Creighton—the woman who finds the letter that connects them—works in the shop where the letter was misdelivered. The code word that once protected women seeking abortions becomes the thread that reunites a family.

The Code Across Generations

The Jane code also functions as a historical marker, tracing the evolution of reproductive autonomy in Canada. When Angela discovers Evelyn's book The Jane Network in a box of used books at Thompson's Antiques, she has never heard of the organization. The book's subject headings—Jane Network, The (abortion service) | Abortion services—Toronto—Ontario—CANADA | Abortion—Canada—History—frame the network as a historical phenomenon, something that younger women like Angela may not know about. The code has passed from living secret to recorded history.

Angela's own connection to the symbol is indirect but meaningful. As an adopted woman struggling with infertility, she embodies the themes the Jane code represents: reproductive choice, the search for identity and biological origins, and the complex bonds between mothers and children. Her discovery of the letter and the book sets the reunion in motion, making her a kind of Jane herself—a woman who helps other women find what they are looking for.

The dedication in Evelyn's book—For the Janes—honors the collective of women who made the network possible. It is a dedication that includes Nancy, who joined the Janes after her own experience with the network, and Evelyn, who helped build it. The Janes are not just a historical footnote; they are the women whose courage and solidarity made reproductive autonomy possible for others.

Study Questions

1. Why does Evelyn name her daughter Jane, and how does this choice connect to her later involvement with the Jane Network?

Evelyn names her daughter Jane in the Goodbye Room at St. Agnes's, tucking the name—along with yellow booties and a note—into the baby's blanket before the infant is taken for adoption. Years later, when Alice tells her about the underground abortion network that uses Jane as a code name, Evelyn immediately makes the connection: someone she knew a long time ago named her baby Jane. The name links her deepest loss to her most meaningful work. The network that helps women control their reproductive lives carries the name of the child she was forced to surrender. This convergence suggests that Evelyn's work with the Janes is, in part, a way of honoring the daughter she lost—and of ensuring that other women do not have to endure the same loss.

2. How does the phrase looking for Jane carry different meanings for different characters?

For women seeking abortions in the 1970s, looking for Jane meant finding the network—asking the right question, making the right call, trusting the whisper network. For Evelyn, looking for Jane also means searching for her daughter: she places classified ads for years, registers with search agencies, and hopes for a call that never comes. For Nancy, the phrase is inverted: she has been looking for her birth mother without knowing it, and when she finally meets Evelyn, she says, I've been looking for you. The phrase thus moves from a practical code to an emotional quest, from a way of finding services to a way of finding family.

3. What does Nancy's decision to offer Jane as a name at her reunion with Evelyn signify?

When Nancy tells Evelyn, you can call me Jane, if you want, she is offering her birth mother a gift: the name Evelyn gave her decades earlier. The gesture acknowledges the bond between them—the name is a thread connecting the baby in the Goodbye Room to the grown woman standing before her mother. It also reclaims the name from its use as a code word, transforming Jane from a secret password into a term of intimacy. By offering the name, Nancy signals that she accepts her mother's love and her own history, and she gives Evelyn permission to call her by the name that has always linked them.

4. How does the Jane code function as both a protective mechanism and a source of identity?

As a protective mechanism, the code allows women to seek help without exposing themselves or the network to prosecution. Jane is generic enough to slide under the radar, and the collective identity of the Janes distributes risk across the group. As a source of identity, the name gives the network's volunteers a shared purpose and a collective history—the dedication For the Janes in Evelyn's book honors that identity. For Evelyn personally, the name also carries her daughter's identity: Jane is the child she lost, the name she has carried in her heart for decades. The code thus protects women from the law while also connecting them to something deeper—a community of women who share a commitment to reproductive autonomy and to each other.

For further exploration, see the book overview, the themes of secrecy and the cost of silence and the trauma of forced adoption, and the character pages for Margaret Roberts, Frances Mitchell, and Tina Creighton.