New Realizations

There is nothing like standing outside an abortion clinic for seven hours straight. Especially if it is your first time. It can be somewhat intimidating and frustrating, yet exhilarating and hopeful.

The biggest challenge as a newcomer was trying to figure out which women were going into Dr. Emily Women's Health Center and which were simply walking down the street. There was an amount of profiling I had to do. Does she seem nervous? Is she eating or drinking anything? Does she work there? Is she too old? Is she too young? There were so many factors to consider, and the last thing I wanted to do was assume wrongly and approach a woman who was simply passing by and look like an idiot! On the other hand, I didn't want my ego to stand in the way of talking to a woman who was going to enter the clinic and just let her pass by! So, just like the pro-abortion community would put it, I had a choice to make. Either risk feeling ridiculous, or risk ignoring a woman in need with the life of a child on the line. The choice was easy.

Towards the afternoon, the women stopped coming to the clinic and the escort, or "deathscort" as they have been nicknamed, moved to the back entrance. This puzzled me. I walked to the back and John, a fellow interned, explained that they can only perform so many abortions a day. Once all the slots are filled they stop taking women. I came to the new realization that abortion clinics are not at all like health care centers, as they claim to be. They are stores that sell death for a profit- factories that crank in women, kill their babies, and spit them out as their product. Abortion is not a choice, its a business.

I recognized the women who walked out of the back doors as resembling the women I had seen walk in. However, something was different about them. Before, they had looks of anxiousness and fear. After, they had looks of sadness and pain. I remember one woman in particular. She seemed fine as she walked out of the back doors and across the parking lot. As she made her way outside the chain fence and along the brick wall she staggered and paused. There was an intense look of physical pain on her face. "Ma'am, are you ok?" I called out. "Do you need help? Do you need to go to a hospital?" She looked up at me startled and surprised that I was speaking to her. She quickly shook her head "no" in a sort of panic and hurried off in pain.

Working outside of Dr. Emily Women's Health Center can be very discouraging. Especially on days when turn arounds are hard to come by. But it is those turn arounds, the women whom God is able to touch through something we do or say and decide to leave and keep their baby, that give us hope and reaffirm that the work we are doing has eternal value.