Navigating the hostile gauntlet of protesters, Kelly’s powerful story highlights the critical role of clinic escorts in safeguarding women’s access to abortion amidst escalating threats and legal setbacks.
By Kelly
I worked as a clinic escort at abortion clinics in South Miami and the South Bronx. Our job was to surround patients and walk them through the mobs of protesters and into the clinic. The protesters would try to obstruct the patients, scream “murderer“ in their faces, and try to press pictures of aborted fetuses into their hands. The protesters were mostly men, very aggressive, organized by the local Catholic churches. Such good Christians.
The South Miami clinic closed after the Dobbs decision. We worry about where these women, mostly indigent, will go now. When the clinic was open, we could help them with money for procedures, but not now. Not every woman has money to go out of state. Some will have to endure a forced pregnancy despite poverty and poor health. Some will sicken and die after being denied life-saving procedures. Right here in this State.
The abortion bans ruin and even destroy women’s lives. We never imagined that Roe would be overturned, but now the government has taken away women’s most basic right – the right to bodily autonomy. To have no power over one’s own body is to have no power at all.
My work as a clinic escort exposed me to some of the most heartbreaking stories imaginable. I realize how very vulnerable the courts have rendered women in this society. Sex based discrimination has stolen the right of women to our bodies and futures.
Please support abortion rights. March, donate if you can. Vote. There is a referendum on abortion rights coming up this year in Florida. Please make the time to vote as if women’s lives depend on it.
–Kelly