It is not easy being an abortion care provider in the United States these days. You need to look no further than the amazing tidal wave created to assault reproductive rights (women who are often already mothers) by our current administration and its legacy. The gift that just keeps giving.
So much damage has been done in the past decade or so. And the silence is deafening. We need to launch an immediate campaign on the assault on abortion care in America. Our leading policy makers must respond as it is the American thing to do. There is an abortion care crisis in America. Everyone deserves professional abortion care.
I have been providing abortion care in the deep south for 27 years. I was six when I started. I love helping women. I marched in the streets for the ERA and for the right to abortion. I have worked with all national groups on this issue and have been a past state president of the League of Women Voters.
Every single day I open an abortion clinic and see women seeking to terminate their pregnancy. Six days a week. I have a small staff of everyday heroes, much like policemen or firemen. Abortion care providers are a hardy and courageous lot. We do regular security drills and work closely with local law enforcement to stay safe as we know we might be a target of attack.
Recently we survived an arson attempt and the perpetrator was apprehended and is serving time. Many things have occurred over the years to this little clinic that provides abortion care to women throughout a 200 mile radius, covering three states in the deep south. The women we see are largely African American and poor. They are rural and travel long distances to get to us. For some, walking through our doors is a miracle and is treated as such.
They are young, old, wives, daughters, aunts, nieces...they often have family with them and our waiting rooms get crowded. We are busier during the winter because of wood frame houses and the cold. Cuddling is what is intended and then things progress. We see rape victims, incest victims, seriously ill women (no hospitals will provide care), women whose pregnancies are much wanted but will not survive outside the womb, head injury patients...we see everyone and rarely turn a woman down.
Anyway, we abortion providers are committed to helping women and their families not be pregnant. We believe terminating a pregnancy requires courage and strength. We treat women who walk through our doors as family in spite of the concerted effort to close our doors by most government entities as well as the wrath of the well financed "antis".
Of course we receive no public funding, which is so, so, so needed. There are many reasons to be a mom but because you can't receive abortion care is not one of them.
Thank you RiverCityMadman for your recent diaries on your wife's abortion experience. Your wife should have been able to go to her own doctor to receive professional abortion care. But now we have INSANE state licensure issues and hostile state governments. No doctor in their right mind would provide abortion care in this environment. Well, I guess that statement might not inspire confidence...but rest assured we abortion providers are a hardy and professional lot with strong survival and "grit" skills!
We will continue to provide quality abortion care in our little foxholes, scanning the horizon for reinforcements. This has been one very challenging decade! Bless us each and everyone!