​40 Days for Life lays siege to the Red River Women’s Clinic

By Tom Bixby tom@hpr1.com

We went online and looked at the rules and policies of 40 Days for Life, the largest anti-choice organization. They don’t look unreasonable: no violence, cooperation with the police, no physical contact with clinic escorts or staff. It looks like they would be well-behaved, that the worst for the clinic is that there will be a lot of protestors starting September 28, and then every Wednesday until November 2.

“That’s the thing that can be really frustrating,” said Cate Ross, Site Coordinator at the Red River Women’s Clinic. “These are middle-class, white, heterosexual, cisgender Christians (predominantly Catholic, though several flavors of Protestant are represented as well).

“They’re usually older, at least nearing the end of their childbearing years if not outright elderly. They look like my parents or grandparents. They have cute little kids.

They look like ‘nice’ people, and that’s how they behave when they’re being supervised, recorded, or interviewed.

“But as soon as the scrutiny is off of them, they ‘misbehave,’ said Ross. “They start to yell, or even run after patients, or try to rattle us.

“They just say they’re ‘peaceful and prayerful,’ when it couldn’t be farther from the truth. They’re two-faced. I honestly believe that if they weren’t white Christians, this sort of protest would not be legal.”

If you were from another, more civilized country, and visiting Fargo, the scene in front of the clinic would look like a strange sport to you, a variation of soccer. The escorts guide the patients through the protesters, who try to engage the patient in conversation, talk her out of it, give her things to read, promise help. At the entrance, Cate Ross, the escorts’ coach, tells the patient to say her name into the intercom and the patient is buzzed into the clinic, and that’s a goal.

But it’s a no-contact sport. “Hold your ground, but don’t move into the personal space of the protesters,” says the clinic’s Escort Training Manual. “That’s a hard one,” I told Cate, “especially when there are a lot of protesters.”

“There’s a difference between moving into someone’s space,” she said, “and having someone move into your space. I would never intentionally walk into someone, but I’m going to get where I need to go. I’m very good at playing chicken. I don’t blink.”

A clinic escort in Colorado said that her worst moments were when she’d seen a protester break a woman’s spirit. A Chicago escort said that the protesters are bullies and like to target patients who appear to be weak, scared, and very young.

“I see this all the time,” said Cate. “There are some protesters who are absolutely vicious...I hate that these women are getting harangued by total strangers on a day that will probably be one of the low points of their life. It’s just profoundly wrong to me, doubly so when their target is just a kid. To yell at a visibly terrified 13-year-old rape victim that she’s killing her baby and it’ll give her cancer, just to make her cry?

“I’m an atheist, but I hope there’s a special place in hell for someone who does that.

That’s the part that’s hardest to deal with, the cruelty. I deal with it by reminding myself how small these people’s lives are, but I try not to devote much time or headspace to them.”

George Tiller, MD, who performed abortions, was murdered in Wichita, Kansas, in 2009. Cate remembers that “Dr. Tiller said that you should never let protesters live rent-free in your head, and I see a lot of wisdom in that. If I can see that a patient is really rattled, I try to share that with her, tell her she’s supported, and to let me know if I can do anything to make the day easier for her.

“But it never really gets easier, I can tell you that.”

To do its admirable and necessary work, the Red River Women’s Clinic always needs volunteer escorts, reassuring ones, calm and steady, and if that’s you, go on over to 512 1st Avenue North on a Wednesday and talk to Cate or Director Tammi Kromenaker, and make it better for someone who needs it on the worst day of her life.

_______