What It's Like to Be an Abortion Clinic Escort
Despite the fact that abortion is still technically legal everywhere in America, actually obtaining one is getting harder and harder. One reason: the increasing numbers of anti-abortion activists stationed outside the clinics. Reports of trespassing and harassment by these protestors have more than tripled since 2016, making clinic "escorts" more important than ever. Here, three of them tell us their stories:
Rachel Z., 29, Chicago, Illinois
Yes, there are protestors in blue states too.
In college, I had a friend who got an abortion. It was really emotionally difficult for her, not because she was unsure of her choice but because the protestors outside the clinic were so awful. What she went through made me so angry that I decided to do something about it.
I started volunteering as a clinic escort through an independent volunteer network. At the facility where I’m stationed most often, there’s a parking lot across the street. Escorts stand outside the clinic and over by the lot to watch for patients. We can usually spot them: They’ll look lost, or it’ll be a young woman with a partner. That's our cue. We say hi and offer to walk them across the street, to create a barrier between them and any protestors. It's funny—people think of Chicago as this liberal bastion that wouldn't have anti-choice protestors, but we definitely do. On a given day, there are between 5 and 15 activists standing outside our clinic. Occasionally, they keep their distance and just kind of pray quietly, but they can also get very physical with the patients and escorts. Our rules are not to engage with them, and I agree with that. But they've put their hands on us; they've put their hands on the patients. It’s technically assault, but calling the cops is kind of a coin flip—we don't know who they're going to side with or if they'll even care.
Since 2016, the protestors have definitely gotten more confident. It used to be a lot quieter at our clinic—they’d say Hail Marys, but they wouldn’t really bother anyone. Now there are a lot more of them, and they're more aggressive. They'll tell the patients they're murderers; they'll get up in their faces and hold up huge pictures of fake, bloody fetuses. One man screams so loud we can hear him even when we get inside the clinic. There’s even a Christian school in the suburbs that busses kids down here once a month to protest for extra credit.
One time, an ambulance pulled up to the clinic. It was a particularly heavy day with a lot of antis—that's what we call the anti-choice protestors—and they went NUTS. They swarmed the ambulance, screaming and yelling, and filming this person on the stretcher being wheeled out. It’s possible they thought it was a botched abortion (we found out later from staff that someone had fainted and seized in the waiting room). The paramedics actually yelled at them for violating the patient’s privacy and said they would call the cops if they didn't stop. The antis claim to be out there to counsel and help patients, but that incident reminded me that they're really there to shame and violate.
Another time, a man came outside to smoke a cigarette and seemed very shaken. He started to talk with us escorts and told us that his wife had been pretty far along, but that the fetus was incompatible with life—the delivery would have been a stillborn. He had clearly never really thought much about the abortion debate, so to speak. He was grieving and heartbroken over a very wanted baby and horrified that people were waving signs and screaming that he and his wife were murderers. Seeing him walk his sobbing wife out to their car later in the shift has stayed with me for many years.
Ashley J., 35, Louisville, Kentucky
When your state has only one clinic, things can get intense.
I escort a few times a month at EMW Women's Surgical Center, the only remaining abortion clinic in the entire state of Kentucky. We have people coming from all over the state as well as from Tennessee, Indiana, and West Virginia. West Virginia has one clinic left. Indiana has a fair amount of them, but it can be easier to get an abortion in Kentucky. Indiana has a very burdensome informed-consent process where you have to go to the clinic, wait 18 hours, then come back. Kentucky also has a waiting period, but you can do the first appointment over the phone.
I don't think people really understand what escorting looks like in a state with only one abortion clinic. We draw a lot of protestors, usually 50 to 60 people outside whenever the clinic is open, from Tuesday through Saturday. There are only about 20 escorts each day, so we're outnumbered. It can get really hostile—they’re definitely more emboldened now. On Mother's Day 2017, protestors sat down in front of the clinic doors to block patients from coming in, in order to “save the mothers” from getting abortions.
We don't spend a lot of time with the patients, so we don’t really get to hear their stories. We just walk alongside them, maybe give them an idea about what to expect. I like to say things like, We're coming up on protestors, they're probably going to hand you a pamphlet, you're welcome to take it but don't have to, things like that. Sometimes I just make small talk about the weather, to keep their spirits up. I think most patients just like that they have someone to walk with.
It's none of our business why they're having abortions. If they go in the clinic and decide abortion isn't for them, that's fine. We just want to support them in having safe access to a doctor and making whatever decision they want.
Helen L., 29, San Diego, California
I saw a "crisis pregnancy center" divert patients from the clinic.
I started escorting in 2015 at a clinic in San Diego. We'd be there every Saturday morning from 7 a.m. until around lunchtime. The clinic opened at 8, but a lot of patients would drive in early from Tijuana and wait in their cars, so we’d wait there with them. We'd also get a lot of terrified-looking teenagers who had come without their parents. I think it's so important for someone to be there to say, It's your right to do this, and you should be allowed to do it freely.
Unlike Planned Parenthoods, which have private parking lots, our clinic was on the upper level of a strip-mall-type area with a public parking lot. A lot of times, we didn't know where the protestors were legally allowed to be, and so they’d get really close to the patients, even sometimes riding up in the elevator with them. The escorts had bright yellow shirts because we wanted to be as visible as possible. We’d always have someone speaking Spanish, if we could. A lot of the antis spoke Spanish and lied to the patients, saying there were risks of cancer and infertility from having an abortion. They'd show women a picture of an ambulance outside our clinic and tell them the paramedics were just there last week, when really the ambulance had come once, years ago. They’d lie to patients and say the doctor hurt women and that people had died.
In 2016, a crisis pregnancy center opened up right next door. Now the anti-choice “sidewalk counselors,” as they call themselves, no longer had to redirect patients to another address miles away. Their new clinic had a very similar name, and the tactics they used were horrifying. They’d put a little chair outside with a box of donuts on it, to lure women over there. If they could trick a patient into taking a donut, she wouldn't be allowed to get surgery, since she had eaten. We had to stand outside and say “Don't eat anything! You won't be able to get your procedure!”
Having rights doesn't really mean anything if people are tricked out of exercising them or are too afraid to exercise them because of a line of protestors. I'm about as privileged as it gets—white, British, cisgender—so it's important for me to be out here.
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