What I saw at the abortion clinic this week were two new employees.
The new employees are outside workers. They are not additional outside security guards. Security people are always visible in front of the building wearing black T-shirts that say, "SECURITY." One guard is a middle-aged black man. The other is a 40-ish black woman but I haven't seen her in a while. The security guards do no more than walk back and forth in front of the building every now and then. Sometimes they stand in one spot for a while, looking at us.
We are cordial to each other, as circumstances permit. There is sometimes a head nod going from one side of the street to the other. We and they wave as they drive off at the end of their shift. I suppose to them it's just a job. They aren't necessarily for abortion I think, but they aren't necessarily against it either. Live and let live, I think, might be their attitude. Ironic, isn't it, that I should have chosen that phrase.
The new employees are two blond, white women in their late 20's or early 30's it seems. They wear no identifying garb like the security guards or the medical assistants who I see wearing scrubs. The curly haired woman wore jeans and a brown T-shirt, the other one with a short pony tail wore a white T-shirt and khaki Bermuda shorts. They were escorts, or as someone called them "deathscorts."
I can understand why someone thought up that word, but I do not think it helps to name-call our misguided sisters. That kind of thing to easily can bring about a mind set that we are against them. We are certainly against what they are doing, but they themselves are lost souls, who think facilitating the killing of innocent children is to be encouraged. They need our pity and our prayers. So, from my point of view, we must always respect them because they, no less that us, are children of God.
The escorts are keen and determined young women, I soon learned, not indifferent like the security guards whose demeanor seems to say, "It's just a job. I don't really care."
At first glance it seemed like the escorts were just directing cars into the clinic. But that simple job could easily have been done by the security guards. So, as I watched, I saw that their job is broader than that. They are actually engaging and directing women at the street.
Here I should describe the scene. The abortion clinic itself is situated on an incline in the middle of a lot. There are 2 driveways, one on the left and one on the right, with parking on each side. When people park on either side of the clinic, they have a clear view of us, and we of them. But when they park in the back, we cannot see each other.
Besides our small group of five or six people praying the rosary across the street, there are 5 or 6 abortion protesters standing on the sidewalk directly in front of the clinic.
They bring huge, color posters of aborted fetuses. They have a microphone which they sometimes use to talk to people as they enter the clinic which is set 20 feet or so back from the street. They set out a stroller with a doll in it at the end of the driveway. One or two women hand out literature about abortion and post-abortive healing programs to those who will accept it. Someone parks his van plastered with anti-abortion bumper stickers in front of the clinic. So, the cause for life has a presence at the abortion clinic every Saturday morning. It's a peaceful presence, but unquestionably those pictures, that stroller, those women distributing literature, those rosaries are disturbing - even to me. They make the reality of what is happening inside vivid in a way that no one really wants to see.
When 2 young clinets drove by and parked on the street about 20 feet away for us, one escort ran across to our side of the street. As the women, dressed in sweat shirts and short shorts exited their car, the escort placed herself between us and them as though to shield them from any sight of us and then, briskly walked them up the driveway. So, I assume the objective of these escorts is to prevent any hesitant woman or her driver/companion from having one last, second thought about going through with abortion that just might be triggered by a glimpse of people ready, willing and able to support them in choosing life.
Every now and then a woman or a couple has a change of heart and turns back from the edge. Of course, that means a financial loss for the clinic and I did hear that the woman how owns the abortion clinic is in financial trouble and is very ill, perhaps dying, from cancer. So, at this point, the clinic might be fearful of loosing any business at all and perhaps that's why the escorts showed up this Saturday.
The escorts yell - supposedly to be heard by the drivers, but the street is very quiet with no traffic except for cars going in and out of their own clinic. They are all business with brusk, loud tones and fast, long strides up and down the driveway. When they aren't running down to the street to wave in cars, the escorts stand in the front of the building next to the security guard, as if to align themselves with authority. One held her arms crossed over her chest, with feet firmly planted two feet apart in a very stern and almost militaristic posture. The other fixed her hand on her cheek as she turned her head from side to side. It seems she is surveying the layout and pondering some strategy she might take when the next car arrived.
I wondered, "Where do you find people to do this king of job? How does the abortion clinic advertise for this kind of work? What kind of qualities are they looking for in an escort? How much does the clinic pay these escorts? How badly do they need the money?" And, what makes the escorts fierce to make women they don't even know exercise their legal "rights which are, in fact, legal and moral "wrongs."
The escorts are saying something by their actions, and I want to hear what it is. Certainly, they are saying something to the women they escort but they are talking to us as well. And I think they are even talking to themselves.
I could hear bits and pieces of things they say to the women like, "Let me show you where to go... I can help you... Park in the back," etc. But what is unspoken, what comes through loud and clear from their manner sounds like, "This is business. Let's get to it. Don't mind them. We won't let them slow you down. Go. GO. DON'T THINK . DON'T FEEL. JUST DO IT."
To us, I think the escorts are trying to say they are confident, capable and formidable in that side of the street that is their world. They seem to be saying, "We don't see you people across the street but - watch us. We're in control here."
To themselves, I think the escorts are saying "This is victory. This is our right. " To the escorts, I think it is all highly personal and deeply emotional. Temporarily, it is probably gratifying for them too.
