{advertisement}

Ask The Patient

It’s frickin early in the morning as I write this and I have to decide if the cold weather (ah, Minnesota in the springtime) is too cold for escorting this morning. #livinglavidachronicpain

I’ve been sitting on this here link for days now, because it needs to be shared.  The awesome folks at the much beleaguered EMW Women’s Surgical Center in Louisville, KY (follow them on Twitter to see just how much fuckshit they have to deal with EVERY DAY the clinic is open) have been giving out anonymous questionnaires to patients asking about what they go through to get into the clinic.

The results are fucking terrifying. These patients have had to contend with motherfuckers pushing against their car doors, shoving fetal snuff porn into their faces, being pushed, being physically blocked (hello there, violation of the FACE act), screamed at, and video taped. They reported feeling scared, threatened, HARASSED.

Now, EMW is collecting this info to use to try and get some sort of buffer zone in front of their clinic – not a big one, even 8 feet would do. And I support them in that struggle.  I’m glad they’ve been collecting this info, because it gives me some actual numbers for this following rant:

Dear Former Chief Justice Antonin Scalia,

If only you were alive so you could see these numbers and watch the videos that the antis proudly post on YouTube. If only you could see that this protesters aren’t sweet old grannies just trying to peacefully offer pamphlets of lies.  Hell the “grannies” sometimes are the most viscous and persistent people I’ve personally seen.

Then again, you probably wouldn’t have paid attention anyway. You sure didn’t when you were sitting in that seat in the Supreme Court.

May you continue to rot into pieces.

 

To everyone else alive enough to read these words,

THIS IS A THING THAT IS HAPPENING. Right now. Today. In the year of our Calendar 2016. Escorts battle with these antis, the patients battle with these antis, all in the name of some fucked up twisted interpretation of “freedom of speech”. This “freedom of speech” turns into harassment when someone says “No” and an anti continues anyway. You’d think it would be obvious.

But the patient can’t report them to the police. Not right then and there. And we can’t call the police on their behalf. Fuck, when we call the police for shit like crossing the property line/buffer zone/blocking the way, we mostly get nothing.  NOTHING. They are useless.

We can’t fix this all by ourselves.

What can you do? If you have the time and spoons, why not call your local women’s clinic and see if they have escorts.  Join us. If you don’t have those, then we need stronger harassment laws or to push our lawmakers to push the police to take these calls seriously while not forcing the patient to miss their appointment. There are violations of the FACE act and outright harassment that they can see, again, on YouTube. They call it “sidewalk counseling”, we should be calling it “evidence”.

This isn’t a free speech issue and it never was. This is (SPARTA!!) harassment. It needs to stop. It needs to be made clear that when you keep bugging someone after they’ve said “no”, you are committing a crime.

It needs to stop. Help us.

Ask The Patient

*raptor screams*

Rewire shares a story that has just made me see red way too early this fucking morning: Anti-Choice Activists, Using Bogus Legal Threats, Trick Teens Into Signing Away Abortion Rights.

Did you read it? Did it piss you off? GOOD!  Now let me piss you off even more with a little secret!

Anti-choicers enjoy skirting and/or outright breaking the law in the name of “saving da behbehs”.

From crossing property lines to harassing patients (and anyone who isn’t walking by fast enough) to harassing doctors at their own homes, to running fake clinics, to this intimidation shit, they behave as if they are somehow above the laws of man.

And you know the real shitter about this? Most of the time, they get the fuck away with it.  The police don’t want to help and it’s damn difficult to get local lawmakers to give a shit because these jackwagons with throw a tantrum faster than a toddler in the candy aisle. Oh noes, their free speeches is violated!

It gets even worse (well, of course it gets worse. These motherfuckers whip people up into blowing up or shooting people at clinics. This isn’t that level of “worse”). Are you considering an abortion and share that info with someone you trust, a friend or your church leader or a teacher in that story above? You may end up fodder from some group’s attempts to saaaave you.  That trusted person may hand out your personal information to complete strangers (to you) to call you and/or email you and/or come visit you and/or call you by name in front of the clinic to “encourage” you to keep your baby.

Normally, one might call that stalking or at least, pretty fucking creepy.  Normally.  But in upside-down fucked up “pro-life” land, it’s perfectly kosher.

What wouldn’t I give to be THAT entitled and get the fuck away with it.

*raptor screams*

Observe Compassionate Sidewalk Counseling!

In “other things I like post about”, the fine folks at A Women’s Choice in Jacksonville, FL posted this gif on their Facebook page:

notcounseling

 

Such compassion.  See, the clinic set up this privacy fence for reasons that should be obvious.  It’s already bad enough that these jackwagons wear fake volunteer vests, but they decide to get up on a damn ladder, over the privacy fence…to “counsel”.

Apparently trickery and abuse of privacy is considered ‘compassion’ to these folks.

If you happen to be new to this whole “clinic protest” thing (and I am regularly in awe of people who don’t know that this is still a Thing), here are some resources you can click on to see just how shit it is.  I promise you, it’s not just, as the recently decease Scalia (May he rot to pieces) once described as kindly old ladies passing out lit.

If tumblr is your thing, follow Shit Anti-Choice Protester Say. There are videos, taken by these shitmunchers themselves, of people being harassed.

Or, you can follow the fuckery on Twitter using the hashtags #notcounseling #protectthezone or #clinicescorts. These are used by a couple of escorts around the country to document the fuckery.  Including yours truly, once I get back into the game.

You don’t have to volunteer, but at the very least, educate yourself and spread the information around so no one has the excuse of ignorance of what these poor excuses for caring human beings really are.

Harassers.

 

Observe Compassionate Sidewalk Counseling!

On the Front Lines

By now everyone’s heard of the rat bastard who held hostages and killed and injured people at a CO Planned Parenthood.  It’s…how do you even start to process that?

It happened last Friday, and I was reloading the local news page over and over, took a nap and went right back to it.  I needed to know when or if they would apprehend this fucker.  And of course they did, alive because white, even though he killed one of their own, but that’s a different rant.

The next day, I went to escort after a long break (I was sick, then Turkey Day, and oh, my father’s been contacting me after like over a decade of silence from me.  Shit’s been stressful as fuck, kay?).  One of the clinic staff checked in with each of us as we suited up, just telling us to be careful, to be aware, and thanking us for showing up even after the day before happened.

20151128_085838
Me last Saturday, failing at proper prep for the cold weather.

 

Now escorting has always been serious business to me, even as I joke and make fun of the merry band of fools.  Each patient is important to me, and getting them into the building with as little harassment as possible is my JOB.  Serious business, folks.

I always known that clinic violence was a risk, but Friday really made it hit home.  Let’s be real, we’re practically screaming “Shoot us first” in our bright yellow vests, standing outside.  To these people, this ignorant jackasses, we’re the handmaidens of Satan – yes even the guys – escorting poor innocent ‘mothers’ into Hell. To someone entitled* enough to think that taking matters into their own hands will do a damned thing, we’re sitting targets.

And on the real, that’s pants-shittingly terrifying. Having to swallow that shit and show up was emotionally draining.  I had so many excuses – allergies, frost on the car windows, now I’m tired from scraping all that damn frost off the windows, now the windows need defrosting because I still can’t see, do I really want to do this?  We’re in Minnesota, the protesters are more annoying than scary.  But it doesn’t have to be a regular, it only needs to be one person.  Can I really do this?

I can do this.

I will do this.

I NEED to do this.

Of course, the accusations of ‘mentally ill loner’ are being thrown about because white and that’s another rant.  Let’s get one thing straight – even if he has a diagnosis of a mental illness, doesn’t matter.  It’s the entitlement that is the issue.  Shit, I’m crazy.  My grasp on reality sometimes isn’t all there.  Some days I’m filled with so much self loathing that I stay in bed.  Other days, anxiety fills me with so much dread that I don’t leave the house for days. Also, I know which end of a gun to point when I want something destroyed, and I’m a slightly less than shitty shot.

But the thought of going up to another human and blowing a hole in them makes me sick.  I could never do it.  Many of us with mental illnesses couldn’t do it either.  Fuck, we’re most likely to BE victims of violence, so please keep that in mind as the same bullshit rhetoric we always hear when a white guy gets murdery is being trotted out.

Please keep the three victims of this shooting and all of the injured in mind.

Please keep the clinics that have suffered violence in mind.

Please keep the fact that the faction that keeps fueling this fire has the nerve to continue to call themselves “pro-life” in mind.

Please keep the security measures clinics and doctors have to go through just to do their jobs in mind.

This shit isn’t easy.  It weighs on my mind every Saturday.

 

*I’m calling it entitlement because, well it is.  It takes a nerve of steel to think that YOU, yes, YOU, you special snowflake you, will be the savior of babies for a day or a week or forever by destroying other people’s lives and/or livelihoods with your gun or your bomb or your vandalism or your wee little hatchet. That is some entitled bullshit right there, especially when your actions will have no negative effect on the fact that ABORTIONS HAVE AND WILL ALWAYS HAPPEN, YOU FUCKING FUCKS! You ain’t stopping shit.  You’re just giving the less violent pro-lifer fodder to secretly wank over while they publicly denounce your fucked up actions.  Fuckers.

On the Front Lines

Counter-Protesting: How Not To Fucking Help

The issue of counter protesting at women’s clinics can be a dicey one.  Some places, like the Pink House in Mississippi, do it very fucking well, with clinic defenders at the front lines.  Others would rather that not happen, at least not during clinic hours.

I’m of the latter, I feel that having too many voices yelling would further upset and confuse patients, and it’s my job as an escort is to be very aware of the patients’ safety and comfort.  So far, among escorts, anyway, we’ve most decided to live and let live, do what works for your location, etc.

But…

BUT…

BUT…

There is a way to fuck it up.

  1. Be a white dudebro who apparently has never interacted at a clinic before.
  2. Be doing it less for the comfort and safety of the patients and more for attention.
  3. Make the goddamn escorts uncomfortable.
  4. Assault the fucking protesters.

So, Nik Stevenson (read down to the updates to see what the fucking problem is) and Nik Stevenson AKA “Judo Jesus” (yes, same guy), you’re not helping.  Go away.  Go FAR the fuck away from any clinic.

This isn’t for you.  Yes, being spat on by a protester IS assault – but if you had any understanding of how these fuckers operate, which the escorts could have happily told you if you weren’t such a fucking toolbox towards them, confrontation is WHAT THEY FUCKING WANT, especially a physical one.  They want someone to give them that sort of attention.  I don’t even want to think about the buzzing around on social media by pro-lifers about how one of their own was assaulted by one of those pro-aborts.  What you should have done, what you have the privilege of doing since you’re the not the one who either have an appointment to get to OR be an escort who is iffy about getting their name on a police report, is CALL THE POLICE.  REPORT THEIR ASSES.

Are you actually here to help patients? Obviously fucking not. So go away.  Stay away.

This is why I don’t want a bunch of angry counter-protesters showing up.  Y’all don’t know even how to act. You seem to think that just showing up and yelling at the protesters is going to do anything.

It will not. It only makes them feel more empowered. It might make you feel like you’ve done something really important, but let me assure you…YOU ARE NOT. You really want to help, show up, put on a vest, stand with us (or again, learn from groups who are already doing a fine job of C-P, like the aforementioned Pink House). Otherwise, this is more about you than the patients, and we don’t need you.

Look, if you wanna play in this game, learn the rules or stay the fuck home.

Counter-Protesting: How Not To Fucking Help

At Least SOMEONE’s Being Honest…

Mere Pleasure

I even made it bigger so you could get a good look.

We knew this.  We’ve always known this, and they’ve always denied it.

Sometimes you gotta argue them down to this point.

But it’s “nice” to have one of these assholes actually ADMIT that they’re anti-“sex for pleasure and not for making of the babies”.

It makes it easier to mock them, yes. But I worry.  I worry that even if every single anti-choice flapping lips admitted this, it wouldn’t matter to anyone on the fence.  Anyone who is pro-choice, but not willing to admit it (“I’m pro-life, but I wouldn’t stop anyone from having one themselves”, those people), won’t care to stop listening to these toolboxes.

But it’s nice to hear one of them admit just how pie in the sky their wants are.  People have been having sex for recreation since they figured out what sex was.  You can close down every Planned Parenthood and other reproductive health clinics, promote abstinence education at every school in the nation, make divorce illegal, make abortion a capital fucking crime, and ban every type of contraception except for Natural Family Planning, and people are gonna have sex for recreation.

Good luck stopping that.  You’re gonna fucking need it.

At Least SOMEONE’s Being Honest…

Saturday Storify: Did You Miss Them?

It’s been a while since I escorted, thanks to two months of mental and financial fuckery (things have smoothed over with my public assistance, thanks much), so I returned last week, just in time for 40 Days of Life.  Again.

I don’t understand why.  It’s not even Lent.  Do they need attention that badly.

Don’t answer that.  I already know the answer. Yes.

Since WordPress doesn’t play nice with Storify, here’s the link.  I hope you enjoy!

Saturday Storify: Did You Miss Them?

Mourning Someone Else’s Choice: Pro-Life Selfiness

So, last night the hashtag #ShoutYourAbortion trended, thanks to one Lindy West, with people declaring that they’ve had an abortion and don’t feel the first lick of shame about it.  It was a challenge to the pro-lie of the miserable sad wretch who regrets their abortion and cries at hypothetical birthdays, either that or they never, never, never reveal such a shameful secret.

Because abortions are something to be ashamed of, right?

BLEH.

I have never had an abortion, though it’s the plan should the unfortunate happen, so I started Tweeting supportive stuffs, like the website for Exhale, an organization where people can call and talk about their experiences without judgement and a guilt trip. Because who needs that shit when you’re already working out how you feel about the abortion you’ve had, right?

Yes, I know, I’m acknowledging that not everyone skips out of the clinic afterwards (well, given how the procedure actually works, there’s probably very little skipping anyway). It can be an easy decision for some, it can come to be an easy decision for others, and for even more others it’s complicated.  Because this is how reality works.

As I said up top, it trended wildly.

There were pro-lifers on the hashtag of course, yelling out the same shit and boy oh boy do I wish I screenshotted the best/worst.  There were people going “use birth control!” right above or below someone Tweet about how their BC failed.  There were calls to come to Jesus or God contrasting with condemnations of burning in hell. The usual deluge of fetal snuff pictures, ‘whores’ left and right, and the Pro-Choice Butts* were out in force.

Usual stuff.  But what got me all writey/ranty was the number of people who seemed…entitled?…to someone else’s choice.  Here’s a Tumblr post to illustrate my point:

Say WHAT?
Say WHAT?

You read that right, cats and kittens. Some Nonny has the sads because some stranger may have aborted their future wife.

Again, I wish I had screenshots, but the number of people saying crap like “did you tell your children about the sibling they’ll never play with” or “my best friend had an abortion and now my kid doesn’t have a best friend”  or “that’s one child I couldn’t adopt” or “I’ll mourn your baby FOR you”  was mind boggling.  My flabber was gasted.

And then I got pissed.  Because for all the claims that people who have abortions are selfishly prioritizing their lives over the ‘baby’ inside them, these oxygen thieves have the nerve to stake a claim on the reproduction of complete strangers. What the entire fuck is that about?

It shows, once again, that this isn’t about the pregnant person at all.  They really do care more about the ‘baabbbee’ than anything else. Nothing else matters, not the situation, finances, relationship status, or fucking health of the walking uterus.  Nope, everything will work out perfectly once you decide to keep that baby, by gum.  As you know, pregnancy is super easy to endure for everyone, especially when you didn’t want to be pregnant in the first place. And just think, you’re providing some rando with a potential friend or even a spouse! Isn’t that amazing! Praise Jesus! Diapers for everyone!

And they still want to claim that WE’RE the selfish ones.  Get that shit out of my face.

I needed an excuse to use this gif again.
I needed an excuse to use this gif again.

(EDIT: realized I didn’t address that aside)*”Pro-Choice Butts” are my name for those who have to have conditions for their support of the right to an abortion, usually starting their sentences with “I’m pro-choice, but”.  I don’t think they’re actually pro-choice, and are more like judgmental assholes.

Mourning Someone Else’s Choice: Pro-Life Selfiness