The hardest thing I’ve ever done is carry a sobbing 14-year-old rape survivor from the door of a women’s health clinic to the door of the van that would take her back to a women’s shelter, while a crowd of men stood around us and screamed that she could never be forgiven.

The hardest question I’ve ever been asked is, “Why are they doing this to me?”



I don’t know.

I’ve volunteered as an escort at an abortion clinic for two years. A friend had read about a clinic in the area that needed escorts for their patients and didn’t have any, so she called them and offered to help. Then she called me and asked, “Can you do this?”

The job, on the most basic level, is to bring a patient from their car to the front door of the clinic, shielding and distracting them from protesters in the process. I know now that it’s hard work; the emotional and physical rigor required can burn you out. But at the time I didn’t think about it, because I didn’t know there was anything to think about. I just said yes.

I completed the training, and a few weeks later I was standing on a sidewalk at 7 a.m. in five layers of clothing (it was very damn cold) and a bright yellow vest with CLINIC ESCORT VOLUNTEER printed on it in large block letters, staring down a gauntlet of people ravenous for fear. It wasn’t their volume or their numbers that surprised me. It was their rage. It was how firmly, totally, and viciously they seemed to hate me, and my fellow escorts, and the women we were there to protect.