Kari Crowe is always looking over her shoulder as she sits on the front porch of the Power House next to Montgomery’s Reproductive Health Services.

Crowe is the deputy director of Power House, a reproductive justice organization that provides housing for out of town patients, volunteer patient escort services and a place for patient companions to sit and wait. She leads more than 20 volunteers each day who come out to shield patients from anti-abortion rights protesters who film, photograph and yell at them when they enter and exit the abortion clinic. Crowe said she is used the the heckling, the accosting, the damning to hell, but it’s made her function on high alert. She always has her guard up.

“The main thing is to make sure that patients can get in [the clinic, and] are getting as little harassment as possible.” Crowe said. That usually involves volunteers putting their bodies and the umbrellas they use to protect patient privacy, in between protesters and patients.

Wednesday began the international 40 Days for Life campaign, which aims to end abortion through prayer and outreach. For staff at the Power House this means more protesters and higher foot traffic around the house.

Life On Wheels, a mobile ultrasound clinic, is usually parked in the lot across from the clinic, with staff encouraging patients to skip their abortion appointment and get free ultrasounds and pregnancy tests instead. But today a Catholic Mass and a hot dog lunch with around 50 participants, including a high school pro-life group, is taking up most of the lot. Life On Wheels, head up by Dr. Matthew Phillips, an OBGYN in Montgomery, recently bought the lot this summer so protesters can have places to park in the shade instead of on the street.

Mary Ann Gould, Montgomery’s community organizer for 40 Days for Life said Catholics and Protestants from across the community will hold vigil outside Reproductive Health Services every day from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. until Nov. 3.

“Forty days is all about prayer and fasting, peaceful vigil, standing, praying, and then outreach,” Gould said. “That’s it. That’s what we do. And we’ve had amazing results.”

Gould said Life On Wheels is responsible for “lots of kindergarten classes, that would have never been.”

Crowe said clinic protesting began ramping up immediately in May following the Alabama Legislature enacting one of the nation’s most restrictive abortion bans. Planned Parenthood and the ACLU of Alabama have challenged the ban and are waiting on a ruling from Judge Myron Thompson before the ban would go into affect in November. But things have died back down, until today when the the 40 Days for Life started. That’s why Crowe looked over her shoulder, she didn’t recognize the man walking by the house. He wasn’t a usual protester.

“When you have a large group that comes out, you don’t know who’s coming with them," Crowe said. "And so that’s the scary part.”

Wednesday is a slow day in terms of protesters, because it is not “procedure day.” Come early Friday morning, Crowe said a dozen or so protesters will be out starting at 5 a.m. to accost and film the patients there to receive an abortion. She’s there every day, but will get there at 4:45 a.m. to walk patients from their cars to the clinic.

Abortion is still legal in Alabama. There are three clinics that provide abortions in the state including Reproductive Health Services in Montgomery, Alabama Women’s Center in Huntsville and West Alabama Women’s Center in Tuscaloosa.