I decided to do this article on clinic escorts for many reasons. I think the escorts are some of the bravest, most compassionate and caring people on the planet. However, there was another mitigating factor for me, and that is Mother’s Day.

It is a huge day for protesting lifers. They swarm on this day, to protect the unborn. Clinics all over the country the Saturday before Mother’s day will be inundated with the signs, the plastic babies, and the name-calling.

Clinics that deal with dozens of these protesters on any given day will have at least twice as much to keep behind the property line and behind the line of any individuals’ personal space.

All of the people the escorts protect will most likely be strangers. Strangers they encircle, comfort, guide, and protect, with their own bodies, and lives. Yet no one shouts in support of the escorts. They are already born, there is no need to take a stand and protect their lives.

The stories of hate are many for these escorts. They have a front row seat, to the anger, belittling and abuse, these people put on other human beings, who face the most difficult decision of their lives. The escorts choose to be a shield from the abuse, a guide who has no stake either way, in the outcome of the woman’s trip to the clinic.

Many of the clinic escorts are required to go through training before escorting patients and their families. They are taught to keep the emotions from escalating into physical abuse and violence. They will learn ways to protect patients like safely getting across busy streets, or ways to use their bodies to keep protesters from coming in contact with patients, and ways to calm and comfort both the patients and the atmosphere.

In addition, they do all this as volunteers. These are not people hired and paid to protect these patients. Many of these clinics already struggle with financial difficulties. They have no choice but to leave the escorting to volunteers.

These clinic escorts risk their lives so strangers can access the care that is their right, with the least drama possible. These people are the best of the best. They do they best they can, with all they have, to give these people some sort of privacy.

Not privacy in the sense that they are alone, but privacy for the decision they made and privacy for the reasons they made it. The protesters want the patients to answer for their decisions. The escorts stand for the fact that the answers are of no business whatsoever, to any other human being.

The volunteers are on the right track. They have no judgment for the lives they are not a part of. They do not want to know why your there, who you are, or what your circumstances are. They do not care if your mom was pro life. Just one of the things shouted at patients by protesters to change their decision to abort, because the patients themselves were given birth.

The escorts are not swayed by lifers’ graphic often-misrepresented images. The plastic babies do not foster maternal instincts or erase financial hardships. The crushed toes, the splitting headaches, the pushing, the shoving, the threat of bodily harm, does not waver their compassion for human beings and the human condition. They offer their unconditional best while a larger group, is spewing their conditional worst.

There will never be enough thanks to these volunteers for all they do, and risk, but I want them to know their love for life inspires me to be a better woman and an even better sister to women.

If you are interested in volunteering at the clinics that need, not only clinic escorts, but also a wide range of volunteer services, I have included links to some.

The life, that anti choice protesters cherish, is a difficult one. Support is crucial.
The need for an abortion does not begin, at the end of the line.