Have you heard about Voice of Choice? Check out this landlord-turned-reproductive rights-hero Todd Stave who is sick and tired of being harassed by anti-abortion STALKERS...he speaks on the Rachel Maddow show here
This all started when Todd, who is the landlord of the building that houses Dr. Carhart's abortion clinic, refused to back down to pressure from antis. So, naturally the antis did the next logical thing and protested at Todd's children's school (yeah I know, mind is exploding)...read about it here
Oh, and did I mention he is a second generation abortioneer? Yup, his pops was an abortion provider! Apple did not fall far from the abortion tree...
Todd is urging everyone to check out Voice of Choice...all you have to do is click here!!!
They are looking for people to volunteer, donate, and most importantly SHARE stories about being the victim of anti-abortion harassment.
Here is a blurb from their website:
Finally, a voice of reason.
For too long, the abortion discussion has been dominated by angry, nasty protests fueled by individuals and organizations that thrive on sensationalism and extremism. Now it is our turn.
"Voice of Choice" was established as a calm, measured response to anti-abortion activists who engage in misguided, raging protest tactics that are often ill-informed and only serve to victimize women, pro-choice professionals, law-abiding businesses and unaligned bystanders.
We use email, telephone and social media in peaceful, person-to-person counter-protests, against groups that target abortion facilities, providers and patients, as well as their families and communities. We don’t question anyone’s right to express opinions and ideals; we challenge their bullying tactics and their contempt.
I am not a mom, and I don’t take the fact that I may or may not ever be one for granted. No doubt, children have a magically profound effect on our existence.
That being said…
During my first month of abortioneering, I was given two plastic fetuses—sucking their thumbs and labeled 11-12 weeks on their thick, fetus necks—by a protestor who stands in the alleyway with a basket and a handful of brochures regarding the anti-abortion, pregnancy center that moved-in on the other side.
Imagine having an abortion then leaving the clinic in a post-surgical haze only to be immediately harassed by a rosaried figure clutching a basket of dozens of plastic fetuses and a jab at your heart that their father will forgive you.
In my case, I can only imagine that abortion protestors are absurdly humorous people who are unable to conceive that abortion is a sacred (and deeply private) rite of passage.
I’ve kept the semi-precious (too precious to be viable) fetuses ever since. The first year, my sister and I played passive hide n’ seek with them. First, I put them in the cereal box so they fell into her morning bowl, and then I found them in my shoes, in place of a bar of soap, behind the dictionary on the bookshelf. They’ve become such a pivotal presence in my living room that friends acknowledge them when visiting. For several years, they rested in my sweet, stevia plant.
Right now, they suck thumbs atop a crystal bookend on this round, wooden table. My mate was rearranging the books recently and they toppled onto the table. “Oh, I’m so sorry!” He feared.
“Please don’t worry for them,” I said. “They’ve got an entire ludicrous movement behind them!” I kissed their eternal, half-brain heads, and set them back on high.
I found out recently that the a couple of shows, both on major networks, produced episodes featuring abortion as a main story line. And not only did the story lines feature abortion, both characters had an abortion. One of them was shown on tv, the other did not.
Friday Night Lights, not a show I've ever watched before, centers around high school football in a fictional (smallish?) town in Texas. While football is the main story line, there are, of course, various personal story lines. One of them involves two teenagers, Luke and Becky.
"I Can't" centers mostly around Becky finding out she's pregnant and trying to figure out if at 15 she wants to have a baby or have an abortion. While during the episode Becky is obviously torn up about the abortion and telling her mom (who was a teen mom), she seems pretty clear throughout on her decision. She does find solace in the support and objective counseling of the high school football coach's wife, Tami, who doesn't try to talk her out of her decision but does encourage Becky to tell her mom after asking if it's safe for Becky to do so.
The show doesn't delve into a lot of specifics but does a pretty good job of portraying the story realistically and objectively. There's a brief scene with a doctor, at the clinic where Becky will have her abortion, giving the state mandated counseling. Like I said it doesn't go into specifics, so we don't see too much of the counseling process. I do think the show gave a pretty well rounded view, albeit packed tightly into an hour tv show that dedicates much of it's time to various story lines. I can't find any clips to put on the website, but I saw it on the NBC website and thought it was a pretty good episode that portrayed an abortion experience objectively.
The other show, had a slightly different portrayal of an abortion experience - the Family Guy. The Family Guy is a satirical cartoon, made for adults, that isn't afraid to take any controversial topic and poke some fun.
In the episode, "Partial Terms of Endearment", which Fox won't air but is coming out on dvd, Lois goes to a class reunion and runs into an old friend. This friend asks her to be a surrogate for her and her husband. Lois agrees and an embryo is successfully implanted in Lois' uterus. However, not long after, Lois' friend and husband are killed in a car accident. Lois isn't sure what to do and ultimately decides to have an abortion. While Lois does have the abortion in the end, there is a moment where Peter, her husband, tries to convince her not to have the abortion after talking to anti-abortion protesters outside the clinic. This leads me to my favorite scene from this episode. I did watch the entire episode, broken into parts on You Tube.
At the clinic where I escort, there is just the sweetest little anti you ever did see. Curly hair, freckles, a tender voice. She might be picking posies with a basket on her arm, save for the literature in her left hand and the rosary in her right. She greets all sidewalkers, anti and escort alike, with a honey hello, and bows her head in prayer.
She makes me crazy.
Harmless though she and all the other well-wishing antis may seem, I rarely if ever return their pleasantries. The nod of recognition is more than sufficient. It manages to say "Oh, there you are" and "Back the shit off" with a modicum of effort. Two birds, one stone.
I've been noticing some of the veteran escorts getting mighty friendly with the antis, in a slap-on-the-back, aren't-we-the-odd-couple kind of way. The only explanation I can find is that immersion therapy has rendered them indifferent, if not receptive, to the conversation that occurs on the sidelines. I'll admit that dull moments arise in that four-hour span, and it might be a larf to reminisce over the past 15 years of enmity ("Remember that time you published my picture in your Christian magazine as the 'Gatekeeper to Hell'? Classic!"). I, however, could never go down that road. I will never forget Strawberry Shortcake's true purpose.
One Autumn morning, she was manning her post on the sidewalk, having made the trip across town bright and early and eager to save lives. She approached the biggest man I'd ever seen to offer him a rosary and some "information" about how he can be a hero. Either he had woken up on the wrong side of the bed, or he was annoyed by her failure to realize that he wasn't having an abortion that day, but he was not amused.
"GO FUCK YOURSELF!"
Ouch.
Still, my initial shock was soon replaced by concealed giggles. Now, I would not have screamed that at that girl, mostly because I would never talk to her in the first place. But boy, am I glad he did. Isn't it what we're all feeling, but we just won't say? Isn't it something they need to hear now and then, if not every minute of every day? So I say to all antis, kind and mean-spirited alike:
Sparky's had an unexpected travel-related contretemps these past couple of days, but that doesn't mean the pro-choice summer reading stops! I urge you to visit Every Saturday Morning, the blog of a team of clinic escorts in Kentucky, where today Dan has written on the intersection of fatherhood and escorting, and about a confrontation with
disapproving men willing to abandon their daughters during their moment of deepest emotional distress, embarrassment, and fear, and leave them to walk through this gauntlet of hatred with a complete stranger, a man who will be in her life for only a few minutes, but is willing and able to be her surrogate father.
The post is both heartfelt and heart-rending. Dan, thank you for writing about your struggle that day, and thank you for being a pro-choice dad and a compassionate escort. And happy Fathers' Day to you!
You know what's boring? The whole black genocide conspiracy theory. It's hardly worth talking about, except as a person of color I feel obligated to defend against such ludicrous proselytizing. I don't understand how blacks, by and large, can support affirmative action on the premise that black folks in this country need a leg up, but are horrified that there are minority funds for abortion care.
IT'S THE SAME THING!
If poor black women should not be allowed funding for abortions, neither should they be allowed funding for higher education. But heaven forbid the NAACP should stop providing scholarships, or HBCUs recruit non-black students. All hell would break loose. But if you fund an abortion for a poor black woman such that she can actually attend school, you call black babies an endangered species. Stupid.
I have pretty much come to terms with the fact that I went to a pretentious school on a hefty grant only because I checked a certain box on my application, and because the historically white institution wanted to shake things up a bit. I get that, yet it doesn't anger me. Because I have a funny sounding name, and because I went to a public school, and because I never studied Latin or ancient philosophy, most elites are wont to turn up their noses. But I was given a chance to see and do things that I had never done before, all because a nice group of white folks wrote a little mutt from Nowhere, USA, a check.
I wonder how pervasive this movement is. Not very, at least in my neck of the woods. Seems like a kooky southern/rural thing to me. But if this thing starts making serious progress on the anti front, it might indicate a poor outreach mechanism in black communities. Who knows. Do you think a change in strategy is in order?
Recently I organized a local screening of If These Walls Could Talk. If you've ever seen it or remember its HBO premiere in 1996, you know it's maybe a little hokey but also pretty powerful. Like, in the third vignette, the (married, distant) "man involved" is Coach of Coach, and Dr. Cher tells Anne Heche all about her commitment to providing abortions and sounds just like a hero.* But, you know, what Dr. Cher says is also surprisingly true to life. I wondered if the movie's writers might have had a modern-day abortioneer consultant, and who it was.
"I won't be leaving my wife after all. Here's two hundred bucks; take care of it."
If These Walls Could Talk centers on the reproductive crisis moments of three different women living in the same house in different decades: a desperate widow in the 1950s, a harried married mother in the 1970s, and an embittered college student in the 1990s. After the movie there was a lot of conversation -- about the time before abortion was made legal, about "what it's like in an abortion clinic," about violence against providers and so forth. I was surprised to learn that about half our little discussion group hadn't heard of Dr. Tiller's murder -- they had gasped when they saw Dr. Cher take off a bulletproof vest to change into scrubs. (For me, that scene was actually a reminder of the doctor -- it might have been Dr. Carhart -- who was quoted saying there was no point wearing a bulletproof vest because the antis aim for the head. How Dr. Tiller was killed.) In any case, it was a good occasion to have a conversation about abortion issues with people who aren't part of the field and don't know a lot of the details.
Here's part of a scene that we discussed a good deal:
Some things I particularly liked (mostly remembering from the final vignette):
-Dr. Cher, as mentioned above. Her words are simple and true and familiar.
-Anne Heche's best friend (Jada Pinkett!), who at first is really shitty to her for even considering an abortion, eventually decides to support her friend and accompanies her to the clinic. It does happen! About A Girl's post about this is still my favorite.
-There's a wide range of protester behaviors in the real world, and the movie did portray a couple of different ones. The protesters in the previous day's scene were less numerous and less rowdy. This giant crowd is more typical of big clinics in the Midwest, say, or of staged "Summer of Mercy" type events, back in the 90s before the FACE Act was passed. Unfortunately, it took a lot of clinic violence to convince Congress to take action, not soon enough.
-It was nice that they showed the role of clinic escorts, who as you know are awesome. This clip doesn't show much of the clinic's single escort, though.
-In an earlier vignette, well, "liked" is a bad word for this scene, but I appreciated how well the interaction between Demi Moore and the pre-Roe illegal abortionist (from whom she requested a kitchen abortion) depicted women's lack of choices in finding safe and dignified care. It was a truly tense scene:
-The women are in different situations and have different decision-making processes, and not all the vignettes end with an abortion decision. (Imagine that!)
Some things that were a little ridiculous:
-Sissy Spacey (the 1970s mom) has a teenage daughter who's the perfect caricature of a feminist activist -- righteous, but a nosy pest; automatically believes that the best option is abortion; acts as though an individual woman's every personal choice is a political statement. She even practices yoga, which I think in the 70s was pretty far-out.
-Anne Heche's best friend, who goes to the clinic with her but is still an anti, ends up having an argument over abortion, with a clinic staff person, at the front desk. I guess you've got to lay out the conflict narrative in a movie, but no way would any of that happen in the environments where I've worked.
-The protester crowd outside Dr. Cher's clinic grew by the hundreds from one day to the next, without much explanation about why that would happen, which might have made it seem implausible. I wish they'd explained that events like "Summer of Mercy" really did overwhelm clinics suddenly and dangerously.
...And then I went home and watched Juno. I promise I don't normally do this! And, although I have always really liked Juno for its silly dialogue and sweet friendships and Kimya Dawson soundtrack (of course), this time I was again thinking about the things that first struck me when I saw it in the theater. The things that would've stuck in my craw had the soundtrack not washed them down.
Unfortunately, this clip is the closest one (chronologically) to the damn clinic scene that I could find!
Most particularly:
The clinic counselor. Of course. What the fuck is up with her?? She seems unqualified, untrained, uninterested, and unnerving. Just plain unprofessional. Over the hamburgerphone, she supposedly asked Juno how long she's been "sexually active" (mostly a device to allow Juno to rant about that phrase), which no one would need to ask just to make an appointment. In the clinic, she's playing a handheld videogame and doesn't make eye contact, has a "withering" expression if I ever saw one, and tells Juno that her "boyfriend's junk smells like pie" when he wears the clinic's boysenberry condoms.
I know it's only supposed to be funny, and she's not even the reason that Juno leaves the clinic (that was because of all the fingernails she noticed, which is also silly but funny), but wow! The friends I went with teased "Hey, that's you!" and I felt sort of sad because yeah, that's probably what some people think. Whereas it couldn't be further from my experiences with abortion work. Sure, you're tired some days or have periods of feeling un-challenged by your work, but even coworkers who are suffering burnout try not to take it out on patients.
Of course, aside from that and how un-scary the single (shy, teenaged) protester is, that's practically the only ridiculous abortion-related thing in that movie...because there's no other discussion of abortion in the movie. Well, except the stepmom asking, "Honey, have you considered..y'know, the alternative?" Man, I love Kimya Dawson, but give me another Obvious Child any day!
Why is there virtually NO cross-learning or collaboration among various anti groups?
I've discussed this before in a previous post, but I can't really let it go. Why can't the antis of every color and creed hold hands in a big circle and sing, sing for our salvation and pray to God to end abortion? Why do anti groups dislike each other as much as they dislike abortion?
Different types of anti groups I've encountered:
-Catholic antis
-Evangelical antis
-Born-again (no pun intended) antis
-Hindu antis
-Atheist antis
-Clergy antis
-Lay antis
-Black antis
-Latino antis
-Non-committal antis
-Well-mannered antis
-Grumpy antis -Antis who have abortions
-Antis with signs
-Antis with literature
-Antis who protest
-Antis who pray
-Antis who stalk
-Antis who murder
-Antis who believe in forgiveness
-Antis who believe we will all fry
-Antis who do not align themselves with those antis, the ones who make a mockery of true anti-ism
Enough already!
Maybe spend some time together feeding the hungry and talking about how pleased God would be that you've reached out to your fellow man. Why do you have to diverge on this issue? I've often thought about how effective the anti movement would be with just a little mutual respect and elbow grease, plus at least one well-educated person in the bunch (perhaps someone who knows marketing?). Then I remember: antis are nuts. They are unable to form healthy and meaningful relationships. They just don't know how! They think that the louder they yell, the more loved women feel. Even within religions, they just can't stand one another. Take this example:
A grumpy anti and a soft-spoken priest are protesting at the same clinic. Priest was youngish, bright-eyed and eager to start doing God's work. Grumpy was a veteran with a gruff voice and quivering jowls. Priest was not amused by his hollering; he only wanted to pray for the women and their dying babies. He inched away slowly at first, then took giant steps towards the other end of the sidewalk, leering at Grumpy all the time. By noon, as Priest prepared to depart, he put his hand on Grumpy's shoulder, made sure he looked him in the eye, and asked, "Do you really think you can help these women by screaming at them?" It was a genuine, reasonable question.
"It's time to stop treating us as two equal sides in a reasonable debate. Let's get it clear -- they are the perpetrators and we are the victims. Any discussion of how to de-escalate the situation should take place within the anti- abortion community. "We do not have anything to bring to the table," said Convisser. "We are not willing to say it's O.K. to shoot every sixth doctor or woman."
Recently I attended a conference all about abortion. It was pretty awesome. I met providers of abortion care, advocates for abortion access, researchers of abortion medical protocols -- and even some fellow abortion bloggers!
Speakers included lawyers who prepare court cases defending the right to abortion from encroachment by state legislators; counselors whose experience assisting abortion patients stretches back to before Roe v. Wade; and the women of the Chicago Abortion Fund representing their efforts at grassroots advocacy for patients by patients, which was incredibly cool.
You know who else was there? Security guards, lots of them, and police officers with explosives-sniffing dogs. Not because they were called in to investigate something, just, you know, every day of the conference as a routine precaution. There was a panel staffed by First-Amendment lawyers, criminal prosecutors, and law enforcement experts. It was all about how to respond to violence and harassment against abortion clinic staff and patients, and what threats are and aren't actionable. You could tell some of the abortioneers in attendance were relieved by the rare chance to talk about what they were enduring and to be around others who understood.
Curious what sorts of activities have been documented? Or what threats aren't actionable (or whether it depends on a particular judge's mood on a particular day)? You might be surprised. You'd definitely be disgusted. No matter what your political stripe, I'm pretty sure you think of yourself as a decent person who wouldn't stalk people, threaten harm to their families, kill their pets and destroy their homes and workplaces in order to get what you wanted. You might even go so far as to say, "Hey, that sounds like, um...terrorism?"
Or would you?
Does your movement accept someone who firebombs women's clinics? How about someone who bursts into them with a shotgun and murders whoever he sees first? Someone who conceals explosives underneath an overturned flower pot, maiming a nurse and killing the security guard who stops to straighten it?
Someone who burns down a doctor's house and barn, killing horses and a dog and a cat? Someone who shoots a hero in the fucking face in his fucking church?
How about the people who visit clinic builders' neighbors with photoshopped fetus posters or greet nurses by name at the door of their own homes? The people who park outside my friend's apartment building night after night, or the ones who followed my patient as she drove home from her appointment? The ones who line the sidewalks outside of clinics and jeer, insult, shove, and elbow pregnant women and their partners and their mothers and the people helping them get inside the clinic? Who say creepy but just-vague-enough shit to clinic counselors as they walk in to work, on the phone at work, in the mail at work?
Not the same, you say? They're only expressing their concern and compassion for the innocent? Protected free speech? I wonder what you'll say when yet another one of those "sidewalk counselors" is added to the list of those arrested for harming born, life-living women and men.
I hate that I have to choose between talking about this so that everyone will know, or reassuring my parents and siblings and partner and best friend that I'm fine, my clinic is fine, we have police-caliber security staff and bulletproof glass and a relatively quiet neighborhood populated with relatively friendly businesses. But those ARE the options, because quitting this work is not an option.
I'm fine, my clinic is fine. I just need to: take a different route to work each day, live in a walk-up, never be a homeowner, not shop online, marry a police officer, not have kids or pets, never be famous, not write about my school or my neighborhood or anything about my family, not tell people I meet about this wonderful blog for fear they might connect the dots. You want to talk about common ground? I'm doing lots to meet you there. What are you doing to prevent my murder?
"There are five people you meet in heaven, each one of us was in your life for a reason. you may not have known the reason at the time, and that is what heaven is for. For understanding your life on earth."
-the five people you meet in heaven
Sometimes I imagine that if heaven (if I really believed in one) included five people who affected your life (like in Mitch Albom’s novel), there might be five of the local “peaceful” protesters looking at me. There are things I’d want them to know. Things I’d want to tell them about how their protesting affected my life. This list is not exhaustive:
1. Your rosaries and hail marys don’t make you a nice person.
2. I see you and my blood pressure rises several points past boiling.
3. When I see you, my jaws clench, my fingers tense, my head pounds, my stomach turns in knots, and I get scared.
4. Despite your old age, I don’t trust you haven’t got a pistol behind your sign, ready to blow my doctor’s head off. Or mine.
5. When I have to walk past you or see you, I think of my child. Hope today isn’t the day someone decides to shoot me, leaving my child without a mother.
6. When you stare at my co-workers and write down their license plate numbers, I want to follow YOU home.
7. For years, you have hurt women, causing them pain and anguish. I see them. They cry. Are angry. Feel judged. Yet you have no place to judge her.
8. Because of you, when I leave the clinic, I look both ways exiting the door.
9. Because of you, when I leave or arrive at the clinic, I speedily get into the false safety of the building or my vehicle.
10. Because of you, when I drive home, I check my rear view window to see if I’m being followed.
11. Our doors are a little tighter. Our windows shut harder. Our curtains drawn darker.
12. Because of you, we can’t have normal glass. We have bullet proof glass.
13. Because of you, we have panic buttons.
14. Because of you, I may get a home security system. And I live in a very nice little neighborhood with no other need for a home security system.
15. I really think I hate you.
16. I want to spit on you when I see a woman weep (who was raped by her father; or found out her wanted pregnancy has anencephaly; or who just got her lights shut off because she can't pay any bills, let alone keep another baby; who can die for our country in battle, but is about to get court marshalled if her country finds out she's pregnant; or who slept with the wrong guy on the wrong day and realized she really wants to finish school and make something of herself; or who might even be your daughter or sister or niece or granddaughter) after listening to you scream at her, judge her, beg her not to have an abortion. FUCK you for hurting her.
17. I watch my colleagues and doctors and nurses get tense and nervous and scared because you exist outside our building.
18. You’ve stripped from us basic things: the ability to hire staff without questioning if they're anti spies; the ability to walk freely to and from our cars; the ability to do our jobs in safety free from fear.
19. You’re a terrorist.
20. I really think I hate you.
21. Your hail marys and rosaries don’t make you a nice person.
One of the worst aspects about being an Abortioneer is the scare tactics.
I'm not talking like Freddy Krueger.
Mummies.
Chainsaw-wielding cannibals.
I'm talking about the frightening shit that goes on in our lives, every day of the year.
Umm... Where do I start?
The harrassment? Hanging outside my place of work with pictures of stillborn babies that WEREN'T EVEN ABORTED (whole 'nother blogpost), spewing hatred at everyone with a vagina who walks by? Screaming at women that God hates them and Jesus will send them to H-E-Double-Hockey-Sticks? Screaming at me when I am just showing up for work? Getting my license plate information and then showing up at my house? Protesting outside my house in my neighborhood on a Sunday afternoon? Following me home from work because I have a bag that says "PRO CHOICE"? Huh?
What about the shame? Trying to make me feel ashamed for doing my work? Making it hard for me to even bring up the nature of my job because someone might get offended? Worrying that having this on my resume will hurt my graduate school application, or my future job security?
What about the lies? Abortion causes breast cancer? Abortion causes suicide? Abortion fills women with regret? If you go into this abortion clinic we will throw your dead baby in the trash? We will make you push your baby out into a toilet and then leave it there for hours on end? That we will force you to have an abortion? That the abortion will be incredibly painful? That I am a murderer? .......... Wait, what?
And then... then there's the really scary stuff.
The destruction of clinic property. The death threats to abortioneers. The death threats to abortioneers' spouses. Their children. The bomb threats. Actual bombs and firebombing and arson. The attempted murders of escorts. Of receptionists. Of nurses. Of doctors. The actual murders. Of escorts. Of receptionists. Of doctors. The murders of living, breathing people. IN CHURCH. IN THEIR OWN HOMES.
News flash: Y'all can say and do whatever you want, but when you act out violently, when you reduce something you believe in so much to an act of terrorism,* it brings Abortioneers together. We become more united and more resolute. When you care enough about something to literally risk dying everyday you show up to work, it sorta puts things in perspective, you know? And then there's the people who are middle of the road. Watching the murder coverage on CNN. They see you as a bunch of crazies who go around killing people. "Pro Life" murderers.
I guess my point is that none of us will tolerate your scare tactics. And in the long run they aren't doing anything but creating more negative energy in the world.
*Terrorism (n): the use of violence and threats to intimidate or coerce, esp. for political purposes.
As you may or may not be aware, there is going to be a huge protest at Dr. Carhart's clinic this weekend. This is the first full scale gathering of this nature since Dr. Tiller's assassination, so obviously, we are all a bit nervous how this is going to go down. Anti-choicers are claiming they'll be "peaceful," but you know, I guess that depends on what peaceful means to you. Personally, I think screaming, shouting, harrassing, and threatening is the antithesis of peaceful, but hey, maybe that's just me. *Insert bitter glare toward the religious right*
Rachel Maddow recently interviewed Dr. Carhart on this matter.
To Dr. Carhart and his staff - you are all in our thoughts and prayers. To the wonderful counter-protestors showing up to support Dr. Carhart, please be careful!
For Friday's media day, I thought I'd share a piece that recently aired on the Rachel Maddow Show. She discusses one of my least favorite parts of being an abortioneer: antichoice extremists.
I'm really glad Maddow did a piece on these terrorists and how they impact the daily lives of abortioneers -- it does not get enough media attention. Dr. Carhart has ALREADY had his federal marshal protection removed, barely two months after Tiller's murder! Not to mention all the "minor" day-to-day activities providers have to go through. BLERG.
Met a woman this morning--distraught. She wasn't having an abortion. Her daughter was. She was in a fit because of the protesters, the past and her now. She was wet-faced, having trouble breathing, sleepless, possibly drugged. Bi-polar. It was early. She worked nights.
The anti-abortion protesters come every Saturday with their dead-baby signs and pray (prey) like they're closer to god. It's shitty. They were around when she had her abortion. She was distraught because they were still there for her daughter's abortion and it's still not easy. Sometimes worse...He left her. Her teenage daughter is pregnant. She's still sad and thinks of a baby. Feels stressed and lonely. Is alone. Tearful woman.
I agree almost whole-heartedly with my father: wish a president would move in quietly and ask for a good-night's sleep because there is a lot to do. No parties, please. Put your moula away. Better yet: share!
That being said and come what may, bad neighbors are about to move away. Putrid. Nasty. Bush's. Cheney's. Goodbye. How you've turned my stomach with your sirens and guns.
This morning, the woman found this, after all that, to smile for, for moving on: Barack Obama will be president. His face is on my metro ticket. The White House is under transition for a new tenant. This year will be honest. Things may not fall apart after all. Welcome, Obama's. Let the welcoming begin...
