I made a lot of difficult decisions in my life, but my abortion was not one of them.
It was a long-time ago. I was underage, a victim of rape being driven out of my school by my rapists.
I have often said that Planned Parenthood saved my life, and I want to be very clear about that means. At a time when I had so much experience of the cruelty and violence of humanity, I was helped by a collection of the kindest, most compassionate people I’ve ever met. Their physical safety and the safety of other patients like me is more important to me than anything, so I use my story to try to stop legislators from putting the rights of terrorists above their safety.
I call them terrorists because they use violence and intimidation against civilians in the pursuit of political aims. And I was terrified. They weren’t protesting at legislators. They weren’t trying to change the law. They were hell-bent on trying to bully and intimidate me to stop me from accessing medical care.
I remember their hatred.
I also remember the kind face of the volunteer that spent her free time trying to protect people like me from the abuse of protestors. Her kindness was such a bizarre counterpoint to the screams and vitriol. She asked me about school and what I liked to do for fun. She made me feel almost normal, and safe, which I never thought I would feel again.
As soon as I met the age requirements, I immediately signed up to escort patients into my local clinic. I have been volunteering ever since, over fifteen years.
Here’s what I, a legal child impregnated by violent rape, encountered outside of a clinic that had no patient safety area as protection. A woman with a poster of a dismembered baby screamed “whore” and “murderer” who suggested I needed to keep my legs closed.
A man shoved a pamphlet in my hand saying that God hates me and that I will burn for an eternity in hell. An elderly gentleman with small children loudly told them I’m a person who wants to murder my sweet little baby, a baby just like them, as they looked at me like I was a monster.
As a volunteer, I’ve been spat on, threatened, shoved, and followed from the parking lot.
I know I didn’t have the worst experience possible. At other clinics at other times, people pretending to be volunteers and doctors try to physically steer their victims away from the clinic, lying about the side effects of abortion and how far along patients are in their pregnancy. Protestors attempt to bait volunteers into physical violence. In the nineties, they formed blockades and attacked clinics with bombs.
In the last 40 years, there have been 11 murders, 26 attempted murders, 42 bombings, 194 arsons, and thousands upon thousands of incidents of criminal activities directed at abortion providers and their patients.
The largest decrease in violence occurred directly after President Clinton signed a law introducing criminal and civil penalties for blocking the entrance to an abortion clinic. We already know that keeping physical distance between anti-abortion protestors and their intended victims saves lives.
No one is entitled to commit violence and emotional harm to others. Maintaining a physical distance between protestors and their targets is not a new concept.
If you believe that what these people are doing is a protest, then you must also admit that no one is stopping them by requiring them to maintain distance from clinic workers and patients. If they need to be next to their victims to achieve their goals, then what they’re hoping to achieve is abuse, not protest.
If your aim as a legislator is to prevent violence, your duty is clear. Keep these protestors away from their intended victims. The New Hampshire House will soon vote on a bill to remove the patient safety zone from reproductive health care clinics. We need this important tool for patient safety. I urge lawmakers to oppose HB 1625.
(Annie Johnson lives in Ashland.)