Mother's Day at an Abortion Clinic
By the Wench Self-Care Health Collective
Louisville, KY
Post by Meg Stern
Mother's Day at an Abortion Clinic from Stuart Productions on Vimeo.
It's 7:20am when the client parks. The car is surrounded by people, two are blocking the doors, one is shoving brochures against the windshield, three are wearing orange vests. As the door opens, everyone starts talking at once and mostly it's nasty. The client is overloaded. Someone in an orange vest steps out and says,
"Hi, I'm with the clinic. Would you like an escort?"
"Yes please,"
The next minute is a blur of shouting, plastic dolls, God, pamphlets, and rosaries as twelve people swarm the client. Four people in orange vests link arms and nearly circle the client while moving through the crowd. Near the doors they see more signs, there's a crib full of rosaries and a woman holding her own infant out as some sort of offering, there are teenagers speaking in tongues and a sullen group of men with red tape over their mouth.
Walking past protesters holding signs, dodging people shoving pamphlets at them, clients of the only abortion clinic in Louisville often ask,
"Why do they do this?"
There are as many answers to this question as there are to "why do we escort?" In this context, motivation isn't as important as perception and effect. Mother's Day brings out 500 protesters compared to the 40-70 we see weekly. Anti-choicers rally around Mother's Day to assert that the only valid choice in motherhood is to carry all pregnancies to term regardless of a person's goals, resources or experiences. The spectacle created outside the clinic makes a statement of judgment and stigma, not compassion.
As escorts, we struggle to be supportive of clients and their companions while realizing this isn't the place for political rhetoric. We recognize politicking loses sight of the needs of individual people. We walk a fine line between wanting to stand up against the ideals of anti-choicers and not adding to the confusion.
We continually question our role as escorts and what that means. Essentially, escorts are there to tell anti-choicers that it's not OK to bully, judge, and harass people for any reason. Clients make the decisions and we're just there to absorb the knuckles and smashed toes meant for clients. The two minutes we have walking with a client are about their needs, not what we think they need.
Lining the sidewalk, signs and billboards proclaim abortion is 'America's genocide.'
"Stop killing all the black babies" escorts are told.
"Y'all are as bad as Nazis" is aimed at those of us with Jewish features.
"Be a real man, protect your woman!" gets yelled at men.
To improve access to all reproductive health services, we must address the racist, hetero-normative and classist paradigms surrounding abortion. Anti-choicers use these models to ignore the continuum of women's experiences, reducing the range of issues surrounding parenthood into trite rhetoric. Computer classes and diapers won't make a difference in most people's decisions to have an abortion.
We fight against a machine with resources that dwarf ours even in these times of 'Hope and Change.' The Reproductive Justice movement doesn't have billboards, glossy prints, ultrasound machines or time off everyday to attend the clinic. We do have some mismatched orange vests and a lot of hope. While things may be promising in Washington, at the corner of 2nd and Market, sadly we don't see any change. Even without a global gag rule, people aren't talking about abortion. Misinformation, cliché and guilt saturate available health resources today. These themes dominate the circus outside our clinic.
Back on the sidewalk we approach the property line. We stop along with protesters, allowing the client to walk through the doors of the clinic on their own. An escort closes the door behind the client barely muffling noise from protesters.
Emotional manipulation and coercion are as real a barrier to reproductive and sexual health care as waiting periods and consent laws. Unfortunately, there isn't much escorts can do to shield clients from attacks on privacy. We simply strive to empower people around their reproductive and sexual decisions.
Escorts stand shoulder to shoulder, bound to strangers in an effort to offer a kind word or two to clients who are exercising their right to make a compassionate, informed, responsible decision, a motherly choice. The choice is if, when, and how many children to have.
It's our hope this Mother's Day all women having abortions get breakfast in bed, flowers and chocolates too.
Originally published on rhrealitycheck.org
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Eighteen and pregnant, I decided to have my baby. I have always been pro-life, but am very aware of the turmoil that surrounds an unwanted pregnancy. What I would love to see is the number of abortions reduced; for those who find themselves pregnant, scared and alone, that they have a place to go for help; and that we all show some compassion for those who make the choice to terminate. Pregnancy is difficult in the best of circumstances.
Hopefully this administration will increase funding for those choosing to complete their pregnancy, as often finances are the reason for termination. Pro-choice and Pro-life groups need to join forces and create a better environment for those seeking help and understanding.
Conservatives don't care what happens to the mother and child after it is born . That is why there is no child care, healthcare or affordable housing except on a piece meal basis.
Once the baby is born they wash their hands .
No the reason there isn't enough help is because too many people cheat the system and because our Government doesn't actually run these programs with any common sense they just throw money at them without taking the time to get the corruption out of them, and when I say cheat the system -I suspect government officials get a lot of money that should go to people in need. Then there are the people who don't actually need the help stealing from the ones who do. I actually think that people should work together to help but since peoplelike tbone here just make crazy statements about Conservatives it really makes it hard to work with them.
What if people were randomly picked to be hooked like a dialysis machine up to a random someone who could not make it without their blood and kidney functions ? That is essentially what anti choice people are demanding that women do - to be a life support system for a someone else.! Imagine even proposing such an idea .
if a woman chooses to donate her body to support another that is her choice , however if she decides for any of a million reasons that she does not want to spend the next 9 months of her life , followed by decades to support another person she should not have to.
You're kidding, right-you're really saying a baby forming inside your body, is a random someone else-at least you said a someone else, which seems to be calling an unborn baby a human being.
Until a fetus can come out and breathe on its own it's a thing. Do with it what you want. No one has the right to force someone to carry a pregnancy to term. No one has the right to tell people they can't use contraceptives either. Without choice, we are no better than animals, unable to plan or make our own futures.
Since when is it a "motherly choice" to murder your unborn baby? This is probably the best example of doublethink out there.
It's motherly if you already have children to take care of and can do not have the additional resources to support another child.
Unless you have a uterus and eggs of your own; you have no right to comment on abortion.
And if you do have your own uterus and eggs; express your anti-choice sentiments by not having an abortion.
"Unless you have a uterus and eggs of you own, you have no right to comment on abortion"?
It's that type of dogmatic ignorance that makes this such a polarizing discussion. Of course ANYone has a right to comment on anything in this country. It does not mean they are right, but you have not become the arbiter of public discussion except apparently in your own mind.
I agree that the best way to get rid of abortions is to not have one, but it is our society's compassion and solutions offered to the woman that feels it is her only recourse that will change this...not invective or shutting down dialogue. I personally am a pro-choice male that hates the idea of abortion.
Our best solution to this is to make sure she does have other REAL options so she can make a real choice. She may still choose to have an abortion..
Doublethink is denying women the choice to limit their children according to their capabilities while denying them assistence to take care of the children they do have.
it is not surprising that mothers make up a large percentage of those who abort. Faced with a society that offers no health care, no child care, no subsidized housing, limited time off, poor wages and an insecure job market ,they know the responsibility they shoulder to the children they have.
Children are the largest segment of the poor and homeless and mothers who know they are only one check away from that state themselves should be recognized for the sacrifices they make to take the best care they can of the children they have, not be badgered to have more .
To those mothers who have made these hard choices - I salute your courage, offer you my compassion and wish you a day of rest and recognition!
If you look at the statistics the abortion rate in the US (either per 1000 childbearing age women or per live births) is pretty much the same as the WHO's estimates of unsafe/illegal abortions in places where abortion is illegal or safe abortions unavailable.
In other words the protestors scream about the number of babies aborted since 1972. The real fact is that most likely the number of abortions since 1972 would have been pretty much the same with or without Roe. It is just whether it is occuring openly or in secret. That is not surprixing. A woman deciding whether or not to have an abortion is weighing far more significant issues than whether they would face a criminal fine if caught. In fact considering the gauntlet of protesters they have to face an illegal abortion might be regarded as significantly more convenient.
Reasons Women Choose Abortion (U.S.)
* Wants to postpone childbearing: 25.5%
* Wants no (more) children: 7.9%
* Cannot afford a baby: 21.3%
* Having a child will disrupt education or job: 10.8%
* Has relationship problem or partner does not want pregnancy: 14.1%
* Too young; parent(s) or other(s) object to pregnancy: 12.2%
* Risk to maternal health: 2.8%
* Risk to fetal health: 3.3%
* Other: 2.1%
Source:Bankole, Akinrinola; Singh, Susheela; Haas, Taylor. Reasons Why Women Have Induced Abortions: Evidence from 27 Countries. International Family Planning Perspectives, 1998, 24(3):117–127 & 152 As reported by:The Alan Guttmacher Institute Online:
Most of these reasons don't sound too significant to me-Where do I find these WHO statistic's I tried to look them up on the internet but was unable to find them
I tried to put the chart up here but it pasted weird and is to hard to read-but from what I could get from the chart-in developed countries and I don't believe you can use undeveloped countries as a guide to behavior that would occur in the U.S. ; out of 10(million) 9.1(millio
Talk about how it is a choice that women should have the right to make IN PRIVACY AND CONSULTATION WITH THEIR PHYSICIAN. Push for universal availability of contraception AND sane sex education so that abortion is NEVER anything but a last option. No one can determine for another person what choices they need to make in their lives. It is a horrible decision that no woman should have to make.
I can understand it because I have a family member who was 14 and pregnant and had one. I can understand it because I contemplated it myself when I was in dire straits and pregnant with my 3rd child. In my case I now have a daughter that is absolutely the light of my life. It brings me to tears when I think that I was even considering that choice.
But do NOT call abortion the "motherly choice." It is ABSOLUTELY not that!
Great that your CHOICE turned out so well,
When a pregnancy is going to kill a woman I feel she has the right to choose -at that point a choice has to be made between one life or another . Unfortunately that legitimate excuse is used to circumvent the law.
Unfortunately I can compare early term abortion with all the horrible late term procedures because they are the up and coming ways to have an abortion if you wait too long, and because I see no one who agrees with abortion rights fighting against these new procedures-Why is that?
We have abortion rights in this country(whether I like them are not) but why does that mean we have to allow par.tial birth and all the other sickening types too?
Please don't expect me to believe that it only gets misused a couple times, I can't prove it with statistics because I can't find any but lets face it all the cases of abortion of whatever kind aren't reported.
This issue would largely go away with comprehensive sex education at home and in schools. If all high school students were taught adequate birth control and family planning and reliable contaception were readily available, the need for abortions would greatly diminish. Instead, we get Bristol Palin - of all people - espousing the virtues of abstinence. Ridiculous! Furthermore, where does all the concern go for all these fetuses once the baby is actually born? Birth is the cue for these zealots to start screaming about "welfare queens" and balk at the mere suggestion of universal health care. Ironically, life for the pro-choice side begins at birth; life worthy of anyone's attention ends there for the "pro-life" people.
I couldn't agree with you more about the education part of your post.
But the rest of it -sorry-just because republicans don't agree with how people should be helped doesn't mean we don't care.
Number of Abortions Performed in the United States
(AGI) (CDC)
1973 744,600 615,831
1974 898,600 763,476
1975 1,034,200 854,853
1976 1,179,300 988,267
1977 1,316,700 1,079,430
1978 1,409,600 1,157,776
1979 1,497,700 1,251,921
1980 1,553,900 1,297,606
1981 1,577,300 1,300,760
1982 1,573,900 1,303,980
1983 1,575,000 1,268,987
1984 1,577,200 1,333,521
1985 1,588,600 1,328,570
1986 1,574,000 1,328,112
1987 1,559,100 1,353,671
1988 1,590,800 1,371,285
1989 1,566,900 1,396,658
1990 1,608,600 1,429,577
1991 1,556,500 1,388,937
1992 1,528,900 1.359,145
1993 1,500,000 1,330,414
1994 1,431,000 1,267,415
1995 1,363,690 1,210,883
1996 1,365,730 1,221,585
1997 1,365,730 1,186,039
1998 1,365,730 884,273*
1999 1,365,730 861,789*
2000 1,312,990 857,475**
2001 1,303,000& 853,485**
2002 1,293,000&
2003 1,293,000&&
2004 1,293,000&&
&AGI estimate
&&NRLC base figure
*excludes NH, CA, AK, OK
**excludes NH, CA, AK
* 40+ MILLION ABORTIONS SINCE 1973
* 4,000 each day
AGI - Alan Guttmacher Institute (Planned Parenthood)
CDC - Centers for Disease Control
NRLC - National Right To Life Committee
CIRTL - Central Illinois Right To Life
Source:
AGI - Alan Guttmacher Institute (Planned Parenthood)
There is so much misunderstanding on this issue, I know because I was scheduled to be aborted 21 years ago. I am so glad someone fought to save me. My mother was confused and emotionally torn, and my extended family really helped her in every stage. My grandmother ended up raising me. I am against war, for the enviornment, and very pro life. I know many young people who are like me. We feel that if this is not a political issue at all, this is a matter of life or death. I am glad to be alive today.
I was almost aborted also. I am really thankful that my mother chose life. That is why I am pro life also.
But there are always two sides to consider. Not all unwanted babies are as lucky as you.
I was put up for adoption. My adoptive family physically and sexually abused me. My "dad" justified it by saying I wasn't his "real" daughter anyway. So growing up I wished my birth mom had had an abortion. I may have been "saved" but I wish I hadn't been. So I will always be pro-choice.
It is wonderful that your mother had a supportive family.
When we stop denying either through economics or politics or law the absolute ability of a woman to control the time in which she has a child, then abortion will become a moot issue. But the same people who claim to only want to protect the unborn child are also often against birth control.
And the same people who say they love the little unborn baby often sit by and condemn both the mother and child after birth because of their economic or social or ethnic stations, and say that the suffering they endure in life is their own fault. Is the child brought into the world where the mother is unable to care for it to be faulted for having been born? But that is how they are treated. GD welfare mothers is the yell. And those who do help continue to extract a price from those who they bestow their generosity on. "You've got to be saved, you have to hear the message, kneel and pray with us".
Not to mention that in the end the rightness or wrongness of all acts does not rest in the hands of humans, but in the hands of one who none of us are qualified to claim we really understand or know.
Protesters:
You really want to save babies' lives? Adopt some unwanted children!
There is a great need for families or singles to adopt older children, mixed-race children, children with special needs. . .
Foster homes are also desperately needed in just about every community.
Please. Stop the hating and start loving those babies you think you are saving. They need you.
Here's the eternal paradox of the conservative: Their love and mercy for the unborn, unconceived, the fetus, and the baby are unparalled. They love babies so much they hate the idea of condoms or pills that prevent them from being formed. But they also have unparalleled blood lust. They are violent towards the sectors they hate, most of the bigots are from their part of the spectrum, no one can stop them from buying guns, and they are the most fervent supporters of war.
Wow, how pro-life you are.
Fine you don't like conservative you think we like war, and we're hateful-so what-that doesn't make abortion okay-so can you support abortion or are you just trying to change the subject
Wow, what hated you must be filled with.
What makes me laugh is you post indicates that you are exactly like the people you are criticizing.
you are welcome to insult me if you wish, but again, really has nothing to do with the subject we are talking about-it is just an attempt to change the subject.
What's the alternative then? Fully embrace the ideal of modern liberalism that entails understanding and embracing everyone whatever their opinion and behavior may be? Should I, in adherence to the liberal ideal, let the conservatives be who and what they are? No. I must decry their actions. For in an objective moral scale (I personally use a Utilitarian philosophy ala John Stuart Mill), the stance and actions of social conservatives are inherently disadvantageous to an ideally secular and democratic society (that honor's human rights)--which the US actually is.
Yes, I carry a personal anger against social conservatives but not because I'm irrationally bigoted against them but because their beliefs and actions have victimized and oppressed many--like the sector I belong to, the gay community.
correction: ..honors..
Do you honestly believe that you aren't born with some responsibility to mankind. Do you actually believe that just because you don't want to, relieves you of the awesome responsibility to protect those who can't protect themselves?
Glad to know someone has discovered the purpose of life for everyone. Good job!
Quick everybody, get out there and handle your awesome responsibility of telling women what to do with their bodies and lives...
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