I stood in the dirt in the July sunshine next to a man twice my age, who was holding a giant sign that read “abortion kills.” He was berating my friend, who stood next to me.
“Dude, you’ve got to stop sinning, man. You gotta repent, bro.”
I think he thought that was how all men speak to each other? I don’t know. I giggled to myself, imagining that he’d next throw on a snapback and offer my friend a PBR.
He rounded on me. “Why are you laughing? Do you know that when you are laughing at me, you are in fact laughing at Jesus Christ?! Were you raised Christian? Why do you have so much hate in your heart?”
Volunteering as a clinic escort over the summer was an incredibly rewarding and educational experience. The protesters were aggressive, shouting at clients and sometimes blocking the driveway of the clinic. But they are not the only people in Triangle trying to obstruct access to abortion.
The most dangerous people are working at a crisis pregnancy center, standing between a pregnant person and her ability to make well-informed decisions.
A year ago, while researching local CPCs, I called a local hotline posing as a young college student facing an unplanned pregnancy. The call lasted thirty minutes, and when I hung up the phone I was shaking and sweating. Even though I knew I wasn’t pregnant, I was terrified that many pregnant people had the same experience as me without the luxury of doing it as an experiment. The woman I spoke to coerced me, relentlessly tried to schedule ultrasound appointments and wouldn’t stop asking me what my mom would think if I had an abortion.
CPCs masquerade as health clinics when, in fact, 92 percent do not have any medical professionals on staff, according to a 2011 study by the National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws, a pro-abortion rights organization. These clinics go by names like “Pregnancy Support Services” or “Pregnancy Resource Center.” Ever seen an ad that starts with “Pregnant? Scared?” Yeah, that’s them.
