Once a week or so, I’ve been spending an afternoon volunteering outside a nearby pro-choice clinic. Due to Christian Lent, vigilers around the world have devoted their time to spend 40 days standing outside various pro-choice clinics, and pray for those involved. In response, pro-choice organizations worldwide are offering their services as clinic escorts, meant to act as a physical barrier against vigilers, walk patients to their cars, and remind everybody that people still care. If you are interested in supporting the pro-choice movement, I suggest that you check out your local pro-choice group (Here’s Queensland’s), write to your local MPs, and lobby governments in areas where abortion is still criminalized to modernize and desecularize their laws. Queensland also has a petition available that needs signing. Above all, VOTE!!

Since I started coming to the clinic, and talking about my days there, people have been telling me their termination stories. A friend, who was six years into a relationship that she didn’t want to continue, chose to terminate the pregnancy rather than have the baby trap her in a relationship that stunted her personal growth. One partner who, when his two children were under 2, was so physically and emotionally exhausted that he didn’t feel like they could handle another child in the house. They were financially drained, and despite being a young couple, well supported by family and in a loving relationship, were not prepared to have a third child. A mother, who knows that her 15-year-old daughter will be traumatized by her second abortion but who also knows that the trauma of an abortion is nothing compared to the trauma of raising a child. A friend of a friend, a single mother of three who didn’t feel emotionally prepared to handle a child a severe developmental disability. A woman who was sexually assaulted and couldn’t stand to birth the child. Whatever reasons somebody shared with me for getting this procedure done, they were all valid, and none more so than another.

The volunteers were lovely. It has been refreshing to meet women from different domains come together to do the same thing. I met a massage therapist who tries to introduce her friends to feminist teachings, and a pair of childhood friends who spent the afternoon together in front of the clinic. There was a gender fluid person who thought that the whole thing was shambolic, but wanted to do what they could to help. Overall, everybody was just supportive, happy to be there and interested in sharing the circumstances that brought them together. My favourite part was probably hearing the stories of other volunteers, and spending two to four hours with a stranger who has a mutual interest is a perfect opportunity to really talk to them.

There seemed to be two classes of people that were on the other side of the fence; vigilers, and protesters. Vigilers are strange. They hold no signs, nor do they try to communicate with anybody. It’s one of the strongest displays of body language I’ve ever seen. They come one at a time, floating towards the clinic silently, sheathed in practical clothing. Perhaps the most terrifying bit is that they appear so normal – if the old woman I was watching over the fence dropped her umbrella behind me at the grocery store, I would pick it up for her with a smile. They walk slowly back and forth, shading themselves from the sun with one hand and fiddling with their rosary beads with the other. Occasionally they stop, look up at the clinic sadly, kiss their rosary, and cross themselves. The few times that we made eye contact, they would smile sadly at us, and seemed a bit condescending. They’re almost all at least retirement age, and I only saw one man among the vigilers. It saddened me to see how many women were among them.

The protesters, on the other hand, were deceptively young, friendly, kindly, and male. I only saw them once, but heard stories about them from other volunteers. They come early in the morning, to attract the attention and honks of commuters on their way to work. They bring professionally printed signs saying things like “A person is a person no matter how small” (The lawyer for Dr. Seuss’ estate claims that the quote has no political meaning). They approached us, thinking that myself and the other early morning volunteer were there waiting for procedures. They talked about how they are there in order to offer love and support, and gave us some facts about rate of growth. We politely explained what we were there to do, and otherwise did not engage with them.

Patients and their support people seemed both apprehensive and appreciative. Because the vigilers only come for about an hour a day, but at very unpredictable times, we tried to stay at the clinic for the entire time that appointments were being held. This meant that sometimes there was only one or two of us sat inside the garden, waiting for patients to come through, while nothing went on outside. We smiled, chatted when appropriate, and asked whether people wanted support. A few asked what we were doing, and we happily told them. A few just told us a “good job,” on their way past. Some joked with us; “oh, it’s so kind of them to pray for us!” Some said nothing. Some avoided eye contact all together. Mostly, our role was to demonstrate to the vigilers and protesters, patients and support people, clinic staff, and other volunteers that there are still people who give a shit about this, and people who want to encourage a woman’s right to choose.