She surveyed her work. There, Wren thought.
Many years later, when Wren told this story, she didn’t remember amending the sign. She didn’t remember whether the fence outside the Center was plaster or metal, how small the closet had been, or if her aunt’s blood had spilled on tile or carpet. What she remembered was that, as she left with her father, it was the first time she held his hand, instead of the other way around.
AUTHOR'S NOTE
The National Abortion Federation compiles statistics on violence committed by anti-abortion protesters in the United States and Canada. Since 1977, there have been 17 attempted murders, 383 death threats, 153 instances of assault and battery, 13 individuals wounded, 100 stink bombs, 373 breakins, 42 bombings, 173 arsons, 91 attempted bombings or arsons, 619 bomb threats, 1630 incidents of trespassing, 1264 incidents of vandalism, 655 anthrax threats, 3 kidnappings.
Eleven people have been killed as a result of violence targeted at abortion providers: four doctors, two clinic employees, a security guard, a police officer, a clinic escort, and two others.
Anti-abortion extremists are considered a domestic terrorist threat by the U.S. Department of Justice.
Yet violence is not the only threat to abortion clinics. In the past five years, politicians have passed more than 280 laws restricting access to abortion. In 2016, the Supreme Court struck down a Texas law that would have required every abortion clinic to have a surgical suite, and doctors to have admitting privileges at a local hospital in case of complications. For many clinics, these requirements were cost prohibitive and would have forced them to close. Also, since many abortion doctors fly in to do their work, they aren’t able to get admitting privileges at local hospitals. It is worth noting that less than 0.3 percent of women who have an abortion require hospitalization due to complications. In fact colonoscopies, liposuction, vasectomies … and childbirth—all of which are performed outside of surgical suites—have higher risks of death.
In Indiana in 2016, Mike Pence signed a law to ban abortion based on fetal disability and required providers to give information about perinatal hospice—keeping the fetus in utero until it dies of natural causes. This same law required aborted fetuses to be cremated or given a formal burial even if the mother did not wish this to happen. The law was blocked by a judge in 2017.
In Alabama, a 2014 law required a minor to get a judicial waiver for abortion from a court, where a guardian ad litem would be provided as a lawyer for the fetus. In this same law, a parent or legal guardian had the right to appeal the bypass, delaying it until the girl was past the point where she could legally abort. A federal judge struck down this law in 2017.
In Arkansas, women must be informed that it is possible to reverse the effects of the medication abortion with progesterone. Similar bills have been introduced in Arizona, Colorado, California, Indiana, Idaho, North Carolina, and Georgia. Americans United for Life, a powerful lobbyist group, made abortion pill reversal part of its model legislation for 2017. However, there are no formal studies that support the claim that a medication abortion can, indeed, be reversed.
On March 19, 2018, after this book was submitted to the publisher, Governor Phil Bryant of Mississippi signed into law the Gestational Age Act, banning abortions in Mississippi after 15 weeks of pregnancy, making it the state with the earliest abortion ban in the U.S. He tweeted, “I am committed to making Mississippi the safest place in America for an unborn child.” The law makes exceptions for severe fetal abnormality, but not rape or incest. Doctors who perform abortions after 15 weeks must file reports explaining why, and if they violate the law their medical licenses will be endangered. The Jackson Women’s Health Organization—the “Pink House”—is the only abortion provider in Mississippi, and already cuts off abortions at sixteen weeks. There is no medical or scientific reason for the change.
There’s a mistaken belief that legislating barriers to pregnancy termination, or overturning Roe v. Wade, will end abortions. Precedent doesn’t suggest this—in the 1950s up to 1.2 million unsafe abortions were performed annually. According to the Guttmacher Institute, the rate of abortions declined from 2000 through 2008, in spite of their legality. But breaking down the numbers is important. For women in poverty, abortion rates increased 18 percent. For wealthy women, abortion declined by 24 percent. That means poor women are getting pregnant when they don’t want to. In fact seven out of ten women who terminated a pregnancy made less than $22,000 a year. In 2004, three-quarters of women surveyed said they had an abortion because they couldn’t financially care for a child. No study to date has asked if improving socioeconomic conditions for these women would decrease the number of abortions.
For this book, I interviewed pro-life advocates. They were not religious zealots; they were men and women whose conversation I enjoyed and who were speaking from a place of deep personal conviction. All of them were appalled by acts of violence committed in the name of unborn children. They told me they wished that pro-choice advocates knew that they weren’t trying to circumvent women’s rights or tell women what to do with their bodies. They just wanted the women who made that legal choice to realize that life was precious, and that their decision would affect an innocent.
I also interviewed 151 women who had terminated a pregnancy. Of those women, only one regretted her decision. The majority thought about the abortion daily. When I asked them what they wished pro-life advocates knew about them, the responses were heartfelt. Many wanted to convey that a woman who makes this decision is not a bad person. As one woman said, “I don’t need people shaming me because of a choice that already hurt my heart to have to make.”
I met with the staff at the Pink House. I also had the privilege to shadow Dr. Willie Parker as he performed abortions at the West Alabama Women’s Center in Tuscaloosa, Alabama (and yes, the fictional Dr. Ward bears a close resemblance to Willie). Dr. Parker is one of the fiercest champions of women I have ever met, and he is a devout Christian. He chose this work because of his faith—not in spite of it. He feels that the compassion in his religion means he has to act on behalf of others instead of judging them. It is Dr. Parker who invented what he calls verbicaine—the conversation meant to relax a patient during the procedure. It is not intended to trivialize what is happening. It is meant to put the event into context. An abortion, he feels, should not be the benchmark by which a woman will measure her entire life. I urge you to read his book, Life’s Work: A Moral Argument for Choice, to learn more about his journey.
In Birmingham, thanks to the generosity and grace of three patients, I observed a five-week abortion, an eight-week abortion, and a fifteen-week abortion. The first two procedures took less than five minutes each, and yes, I saw the products of conception, and there was nothing that would suggest, to the naked eye, a dead baby. The fifteen-week procedure was more complicated, and took a few minutes longer. Mixed amid the blood and tissue were tiny, recognizable body parts.
Dr. Parker believes in transparency in his work. He understands that a fetus is a life. He does not believe it’s a person. His question comes down to the moral responsibilities we have to each other. While pro-life protesters are protecting the rights of the fetus, who is protecting the rights of women?