They Know My Name

Republished with permission from Feministified.

Originally posted on Friday, March 11, 2011

Photo courtesy of Flickr user tobyjmarks under Creative Commons 3.0

This is one of the most powerful things I've ever read.  I am in awe of my sister blogger's bravery.  I have never volunteered as a clinic escort-- but now, I totally want to. 

Way to stay strong.  Your "feminist badassery" is an inspiration to us all.

Yesterday was "Abortion Provider Appreciation Day." Yesterday was also day-two of 40 Days for Life (link to wikipedia, because I don't want to give the official page any hits). Yesterday, I spent my morning at a woman's health clinic volunteering as an escort.

By the time I arrived at 8:30 in the morning there was already about ten anti-choicer's there. Images of the Virgin Mary, fetus dolls, signs, prayer beads. They tried to hand me a pamphlet as I made my way to the clinic. I parked on the street, so as to not allow them to park on the street directly in front of the clinic- their reinforcements would have to at least park down the block. They take shifts, you know, 7am to 7pm is a long day.

There was a woman in the second group who was actually annoyed she couldn't park in the clinic parking lot. Seriously.

There was two of us there yesterday. At one point there was about thirty of them. I thought I was going to have a hard time ignoring them. I thought I was going to flip out. I did not, and I am quite proud of myself, considering they know my name.

They know my name.

They over heard me introduce myself to a clinic staff member, and they caught my name. And they used it, fuckers.

"Ariana, why do you support murder?" "Ariana, you are working for evil." "Ariana, you are killing babies, innocent babies, who want to live, and have a choice." "Ariana, you say you support choice, but you are not allowing women to make a choice by killing their children." "Ariana, how much are you getting paid to hurt women?" "Ariana, why do you hate women?" "Ariana, does your mother know where you are?" "What would she say about what your doing here today, supporting murder?"

But I didn't break. Ignore, ignore, ignore. Fuck. Every inch of my being wanted to go over to them and just yell and scream and knock over their displays and bitch slap one or two of them. Mentally, fucking, exhausting.

The clinic has injunctions against some of the people there, basically, an over-sized restraining order. We take pictures of them to document who is there, in case it goes to court. They don't like that. They backlash by setting up a video camera, and recording us. They took pictures of me, recorded me, and harassed me.

But, I don't scare off that easily.

Today is day three. Bring it.