From our comments section: stories from clinic escorts

The comments on my post from last week about antis at a Louisville, KY clinic contain some powerful stories from escorts that I think deserve more attention. Antis who harass women outside clinics are a particularly shameful population – it really is hard to imagine how cruel many of these people can be until you’ve spent a few hours standing across from them outside a reproductive health clinic. Here are just a few examples of what it’s like to be on the front lines of this especially disgusting aspect of the fight for abortion access.
Spacey offers more of a picture of the scene outside the Lousiville, KY clinic:

I live in Louisville, and I have escorted at this clinic. Just to clear up the record, this is not Planned Parenthood, it is an independent women’s health center. There is usually a police officer in the middle of the mess, just to keep people from losing control, but he cannot stop anything other than violence because the protestors are not breaking the law. My parents begged me to stop escorting, because the anti-crowds were getting bigger, and my mother feared for my safety. Protestors get inches away from patients’ faces, block the doorway, and have even blocked random pedestrians from walking down the sidewalk. I have seen women fall to the concrete and scream because they were broken down by antis…
We have tried holding hands and making a sort of human shield, and holding a radio next to the patients. But, there are always huge posters, and people throwing tiny little fetus photos like confetti, and the man with the seven-foot tall papier-mache fetus crucifix carried on his back. Oh, you think the people in this video are crazy? That’s tame. The unfortunate thing is, this is our only abortion clinic, so the area’s protestors are heavily concentrated here. The escorts are almost always outnumbered, the fear of a lone gunman is always in the air, and the escort-made buffer zone is always broken. The women who visit this clinic have to just come and try and be as brave as possible and expect problems, sorry to seem harsh but there has yet to be anything we escorts can do beyond using our bodies and voices.

maz shares a story of antis harassing children. Yep, children:

The PP in Waco TX has a day during the summer that the open up to all of the children in the city who’s parents want them to receive comprehensive sex education and last year I volunteered at an escort. I had come to terms with the antis approaching patients and adults but there were grown men and women berating these poor children as we walked them from their parent’s cars to the doors. I literally had to shield young children from people trying to grab at the kids.

My original post inspired some understandably angry reactions. KatieinNewYork offered a brief explanation of the escort philosophy and an important call to action:

I just wanted to let everyone know, particularly the people who are saying that this sort of thing makes them feel violent (and trust me, I understand), that both of the places I’ve escorted required it’s escorts to go through training on non-violent behavior and how not to escalate situations. The idea is that when you’re off in the world, knocking out anti’s (or mouthing off to them, or whatever) is your business, but when you put on that vest, it’s like you just clocked in at work. Your job is to make sure the situation doesn’t escalate, and you’re trained to make it happen. In the rest of my life, I have no problem yelling at people like this. But when I’m at the clinic, I have different priorities.
So, point being: you can find a clinic that needs your help, and is happy to train you. So don’t be afraid to volunteer! :)

For more escorting stories check out Abortion Clinic Escort Blog and Everysaturdaymorning. And here’s a list of clinic escorts on Twitter.
Coming soon to a Feministing post near you: what antis say about their hard work harassing women (spoiler alert: prepare for either outright lies or a special brand of delusion).

Boston, MA

Jos Truitt is Executive Director of Development at Feministing. She joined the team in July 2009, became an Editor in August 2011, and Executive Director in September 2013. She writes about a range of topics including transgender issues, abortion access, and media representation. Jos first got involved with organizing when she led a walk out against the Iraq war at her high school, the Boston Arts Academy. She was introduced to the reproductive justice movement while at Hampshire College, where she organized the Civil Liberties and Public Policy Program’s annual reproductive justice conference. She has worked on the National Abortion Federation’s hotline, was a Field Organizer at Choice USA, and has volunteered as a Pro-Choice Clinic Escort. Jos has written for publications including The Guardian, Bilerico, RH Reality Check, Metro Weekly, and the Columbia Journalism Review. She has spoken and trained at numerous national conferences and college campuses about trans issues, reproductive justice, blogging, feminism, and grassroots organizing. Jos completed her MFA in Printmaking at the San Francisco Art Institute in Spring 2013. In her "spare time" she likes to bake and work on projects about mermaids.

Jos Truitt is an Executive Director of Feministing in charge of Development.

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