For over a year I relied on a women’s clinic for affordable reproductive care. There were never protesters out front, but the procedure of being buzzed in and walking through a metal detector indicated the dangers that my own reproductive rights were wrapped in.
So, years later, I started escorting. I spend many Saturdays outside the clinic, helping patients past the prayers and harassers who hurl judgments and wave propaganda. I’ve been hit with a notebook and had the police called on me as I acted as a buffer for a patient being followed to her car. After doing this for years, being on guard around these folks is second nature. Still, never before have I really worried about my safety; never before have I had to fear that things were this dangerous. I am always careful—I watch for new faces, individuals distanced from the normal set of ‘more sane’ harassers. But still, looking at each one of their faces, I have to ask, what do they think is an acceptable course of action?
I help patients inside a clinic in DC; I believe that individuals have the spiritual, intellectual, and mental fortitude to direct their reproductive health, and that above all else woman need respect.
I am Dr. Tiller
