#clinic escorting

This past Saturday, I got to go back to the clinic for the first time since December. I wondered if my volunteer friends assumed I wasn’t coming back. We’ve had a handful of new volunteers show up a few times and just never come back again. It sucks but it happens. I didn’t have to worry about explaining where I’ve been though, since when I pulled into the parking lot, I saw that I was the only volunteer there. Unusual but, again, it happens. I didn’t mind, I was just glad to be back again. I went inside to get my vest and start my day.

For the most part, it was a regular day. I kept my distance from the screamers because, since I was the only escort there, I didn’t need all of them targeting me at once. No fucking thank you, it’s bad enough when just one of the feistier screamers targets you for the day. I hung around by the entrance and would make my way to the parking lot whenever a car pulled in. I did what I always do; If they looked suspicious or scared of me, I would immediately tell them I was NOT a protester, I was a Planned Parenthood volunteer, and they would instantly be relieved and say something like “Oooh, thank goodness.” I’d tell them to have their photo ID ready to show the receptionist. I would warn them that the protesters would yell unpleasant things at them until they got inside the clinic, but that nothing the protesters say is true (and here I sometimes explain their malicious “abortion causes breast cancer” sign as an example). I then show them through the doors, and that’s that.

About halfway through my shift, as I was sitting against the brick wall by the door, scrolling through my phone and just absentmindedly passing the time, I heard the door behind me open. A client I had walked through the lot earlier had come out. She only got a few feet from the door before she collapsed, put her head in her hands, and began sobbing.

This isn’t something I’ve encountered before. We had a sort of similar situation over a year ago; a woman from out of state missed her appointment and came out of the clinic screaming and sobbing like a bereft widow at a funeral. It was heartwrenching, and I had no idea what to say or what to do for this woman. Luckily, a volunteer who has been doing this for years (and who I’ve learned quite a bit from since then) was able to handle the situation, help the woman calm down, and talk her through what her options were. She and her partner left shortly after that. I don’t know what happened to her, I really hope she got the help she wanted.

Now here was a similar situation happening right in front of me. Me, all alone and absolutely riddled with anxiety. But as soon as I realized that this woman was crying, it’s like my empathy overpowered my anxiety, and I rushed over to her. Where she had fallen to her knees was in view of the protesters, and I desperately did not want them to see her like this. I had to think of something to say to get her to move somewhere they couldn’t see her.

“Miss...” I spoke very quietly, “miss I’m, I’m so sorry but... could you...” I stumbled through it, and I would stammer and stumble through the entirety of our conversation after that, but I managed to ask her to come behind the brick wall by the door, because I didn’t want the awful protesters to start yelling at her. She stood up abruptly, moved to the brick wall, and got right back to what she had been doing. I stayed near her for a few minutes, near enough so she wasn’t all alone but far enough to give her some level of privacy, before crouching down to her level and asking her if there was anything I could do to help her. That’s when she told me what was happening.

“I can’t do this.”

“You don’t want to go through with your appointment?” I asked. She shook her head, still crying. “I don’t,” she said, “my husband brought me here, my husband wants this.”

Shit. Shit shit shit. This opened up a whole ‘nother level of questions and concerns. I felt my panic symptoms start to stir, I was immediately unsure if I could handle something like this. But I had to keep my head on straight, I had to do my best to keep my anxiety bullshit at bay and power through it, for her sake. This was EXTREMELY important, and I had to figure out the right questions to ask to keep her feeling safe, but without being invasive. I thought the best thing to tell her first was that her doctor absolutely would not go through with an abortion if the client was not absolutely sure they wanted to. I told her the doctor would ask beforehand, one last time, if she was sure, and if she were to say “no, I’m not sure” or “no, my husband is making me do this,” the doctor would not perform the procedure. She listened and nodded as I spoke, but she was obviously still very upset.

“I just...we have two children already. And, I’ve done this twice before already...” she was trying to justify what she was doing, which she should not have felt like she needed to do. Seriously, to anyone reading this who may need to hear it; You don’t have to justify your choice to anyone. Not your friends and family, not your doctor, certainly not the clinic volunteers. No one. But I listened to her, because she had things to say about this mess, and she needed someone to listen. “I don’t know what to do...I...we were so happy...”

I was worried for her safety. I needed to figure out how to ask her if she felt safe with her husband. So, once again, I clumsily stammered my way through my next question. “Miss, if you don’t go through with this today, will you... and you don’t have to answer this at all if it feels too invasive,”-(I told her this several times throughout our talk, I assured her she didn’t have to tell me anything she wasn’t comfortable with telling me)- “do you feel safe going back home with your husband? Are you um...are you at all afraid to go home with him if you don’t do this?” I’m glad to say that she was a bit taken aback by this question and assured me that no, it was nothing like that, she was not afraid of her husband. Thank goodness.

I figured my next question should be something to help us figure out what her next options were. So I simply asked “what could I do for you, right now, that would be most helpful for you?” She paused for a bit and thought about it, and then asked me only to go inside and get her husband. She would not be going through with her appointment today. I asked her if she wanted me to find someone in the clinic who could help her figure out what to do next, a counselor or a nurse who could give her advice or resources or tell her how to get financial help if she needed it, but she didn’t want to do that just then. She just wanted to go home. So, I went inside and asked the receptionist to have her husband to come outside.

When her husband came out, she was sitting on the curb a few yards away from where we had been talking. He sat down next to her, and they talked for a bit. He never raised his voice, and his body language didn’t seem angry or tense. Honestly, to me, he more just seemed... exhausted. When they were done talking, they both got back in their car, and they left.

I spent the rest of my time there that morning listening to the demons across the lot call me a deathscort, an accomplice to murder, no better than Ted Bundy, on and on like that, just like usual. They threw their overused insults and unfounded accusations at me, they screamed abuses at me and told me I was a murderous girl who’s parents would be devastated and ashamed if they knew what I was doing here. They kept up their hateful little act while I wondered about the woman I had just met. I wondered about her for the rest of that day.