The blogger at Everysaturdaymorning, a pro-choice clinic escort in Louisville, KY, has posted pictures and video of the latest disgusting tactic from the antis outside their clinic: wearing fake escort vests.
Escorts wear bright orange vests that say things like "Pro-Choice Clinic Escort" in an attempt to clearly identify ourselves to patients. Even so, the space outside a clinic where anti-choicers have gathered can be incredibly confusing for patients, those accompanying them, and even passers by on the street. Some protesters simply stand off to the side and pray. I don't like the atmosphere of shame they create, but it's the antis we call chasers or sidewalk stalkers who cause the biggest problems. They will do almost anything to harass people going in and out of a reproductive health clinic, which is why pro-choice escorts are necessary - we're not protesters, we're just trying to make it possible for women to access abortion and other medical care. Interactions happen so quickly, and the milieu outside a clinic can be so confusing for someone who didn't expect to be harassed by ideologues on her way to the doctor, that we already have to work hard to make it clear who works with the clinic and who is trying to get in a patient's way.
Yes, the vests these antis are wearing say "Life Escort." Which, I am sure, is not an attempt to accurately identify themselves. They know what a baffling mess they create, and they know the word "Life" is unlikely to be read until after they've forced a patient to listen to them, if at all.
Go see the photos and video here.
I didn't watch the video but there's a transcript at Feministing. The stalker starts off with 'We don't know you but we love you'.
I've seen other vids of the circus these anti-abortion harassers create. People yelling in gooey baby voices: 'Mummy, don't kill me! Mummy, I love you.'
I remember vividly how I felt entering once a clinic and once a hospital -- jangled, worried, nervous. There were no sidewalk harassers then. No one shouting bullshit at me. No one trying to shove lying pamphlets at me. I had absolutely no fear of anyone I knew recognizing me. And I was perfectly clear in my mind that what I was doing was right.
Imagine being young, ignorant, in a conservative place, scared of being recognized, and being forced to run such a gauntlet.
Imagine further that the woman knows something of the lying liars' tactics should she be identified, like receiving red-paint smeared children's birthday cards every year for fucking years.
I so admire clinic escorts, the real ones. Calm, dedicated, kind people who put up with this crap over and over and over. Truly loving people who only care about the woman they're shielding.
I could not do it. I would lose my temper and paste one of harassers. And the lying liars would go batshit over 'pro-abortion violence'.
Love. *ptui* These assholes know nothing about it.
4 comments:
And "life" ? ... not so much, if the lives endangered belong to newoborns, infants, and pregnant women.
I've escorted women a few times, on my own. Glad there are volunteers doing it. We were never harrassed, they were mostly just praying loudly and carrying their bullshit signs.
I think they would have bothered the women had those clients been alone. The anti-choicers sense the fear and vulnerability. I just look the anti-choicers in the eye and they left us alone. Had a very long wait once, so I went outside for a cigarette. They were camped around the only bech near an ashtray. I sat down, smoked, read a book. They eventually moved away.
That's Ottawa, though, right downtown. Probably a lot milder there than many places.
And yeah, it took self-control not to say something to them. That's why I bring a book.
If harassment and red-painted cards are their idea of *love*, I'd hate to see what they do when they want to kills someone.
They show up at his church and gun him down.
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