My dad was a clinic escort.

Thoughts on reproductive justice from Kentucky to Pennsylvania

Photo by McCausland, originally posted by Every Saturday Morning

My dad was a clinic escort.

He would go downtown every Saturday morning to volunteer and protect women from harassment and anti-choice protesters attempting to physically block them from getting to the clinic, or who would try to trick patients into going to fake clinics.

A fake clinic is one set up near an abortion clinic that, instead of offering reproductive care services, gives women misinformation to try to convince them not to have an abortion.

In Philadelphia, I get regular STD testing, and up until recently I got that testing at Planned Parenthood. I was surprised to go about six months ago and to have to walk past protesters standing outside Planned Parenthood on a regular weekday.

This clinic doesn't perform abortions either (at least at that location), so in addition to being annoying, these protesters are also stupid.

Or maybe not. Maybe they really are intending to broaden their harassment to people getting STD testing, people getting birth control, people getting gender affirming care…

A dear friend of mine works in birth and around reproductive justice in Kentucky and I told them about my experience in Philadelphia and they say "well, they don't have clinics to protest in Kentucky anymore, so they have more time to go other places."

I've been thinking a lot, and having a lot of feelings about, reproductive rights in this here major election year in the United States. That I am at an age and privilege where if I were to get pregnant, I might keep it, or I have the ability to go get an abortion.

Because that's what limiting access to reproductive care actually does – it doesn't make it impossible to get; it makes it impossible to get for those with less privilege. And that makes my blood boil.

Two weeks ago I went to the gynecologist in Philadelphia for an annual visit because I hadn't in two years, but largely because I recently spent six weeks (unplanned, family emergency) in Kentucky, a place where I cannot access reproductive care if I need it.

When I told the doctor why I made the appointment – because I spent time in Kentucky and might need to spend more time there – she said “Oh, what a terrible place [for reproductive care]” (she apologized for involuntary response, but I knew what she meant).

I wanted to investigate an IUD, even though I don't have sex with men, or sex that can result in a pregnancy, on a particularly regular basis. But I do sometimes have a one-night stand, and one time when I was abroad, a condom broke and I got to discover that they do have Plan B over the counter in the Czech Republic.

I don't want to be on birth control, and especially not hormonal birth control, because this is my body and my choice and I like my endocrine system the way it's working, thank you very much.

But I was in that doctor's office, asking questions like "If I want to get an IUD, what's the turnaround time for when I call you to when I can get one inserted" [a month, too long a window for my current situation]. But I don't want one. So I'm not planning to get one right now.

I only went a couple times to escort at the clinic in Kentucky, including taking my father for his first time. I remember a woman and her (I assume) boyfriend walking in together, the woman holding her head down and the man visibly frustrated by needing the protection the escorts offered. My dad continued to volunteer as a clinic escort for years.

When escorting a patient, there was a clear and consent centered procedure. Are you here to visit the clinic? Would you like an escort? You can park over here. We’re here for you.

We would flank and encircle the clients, wearing vests to make it clear the role we were playing and to provide a physical barrier to anti-choice presences.

Without escorts, anti-choice protesters could get close to women, yell in their faces, lie to them, or even possibly grab them to try to take them somewhere they weren't trying to go (i.e. a fake clinic). Escorts took that heat instead of the patients.

You can read more about the history of clinic escorts in this book or read the archives of the Every Saturday Morning blog (stories from the clinic where my dad escorted, a clinic that cannot perform abortions because there are no abortions in Kentucky).

Having that doctor's visit in Philadelphia makes me wonder – do the people I know, in my city, in my neighborhood, in my new home state (Pennsylvania) know what is at stake? Do the people of Kentucky (where I was born) care that women and children can't get reproductive care? Do the people of Pennsylvania give a shit about other places in America?

Because their struggle is tied up in mine.

Because I went to college in Indiana, and one of my dear friends there wouldn't have been in college if she had been forced to carry the pregnancy she terminated to term.

Because if I have a fling or a one-night stand or am raped, I don't want to be forced to carry a pregnancy to term.

Do they care?

If this moved you in any way, please consider a donation to the Kentucky Health Justice Network, which provides direct services, education, and advocacy around reproductive and sexual health justice. I would love to know if you do.

If you read this and you have some opinion about what other people should do with their own bodies, particularly if you like legislating/enforcing that opinion, kindly fuck off 💞