We reached out to a frequent commenter of our blog to ask if they would write a guest post. The comments were so strong and the stories were ones we wanted to share with all of our readers. This is the first post from Oubli, but we hope there will be more in the future.
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I have experienced abortion clinic protestors many times in my life.

• – for my own abortion, I got pamphlets shoved inside my open car window
• – for my friend K, while heavily pregnant with a wanted pregnancy, I took my friend for an early medical abortion and was the target of all the protestors
• – for my sister E, this time I engaged the antis and explained that her pregnancy had fetal abnormalities, so they wouldn’t barrage her walking in or out. They didn’t – they surprisingly kept silent.

All of these experiences with abortion clinic protestors led me to terminate my own pregnancy at home with herbs. I had many reasons for doing so but one of the biggest reasons was not wanting to be exposed to the protestors once again. Their judgments, their pamphlets, their prayers and clicking rosary beads were enough stigma for me not to want that thrown in my face again.

Don’t get me wrong I would take any one of my friends or family members for theirs in a heartbeat to shield them the best I could from the protestors, but for me I didn’t want to go through it again.

So there I was 3 weeks past due for my period, definitely pregnancy, and I opted out of a legal, safe and available abortion. (My Planned Parenthood that performs abortions is only 12 miles away)

Let me preface this by saying, I know my herbs very well, I know my body and for me this was a safe avenue for ending a pregnancy.

But there’s the rub. Many women opt out of a safe clinical experience because they do not want to deal with the stigma and shame the protestors are trying to push upon them; they do not want to be photographed or videoed; they do not want gory pamphlets or plastic fetuses shoved at them either; and because of that they are put in a very unsafe situation of trying many unsuccessful, dangerous and unsanitary methods to terminate their own pregnancies.

Many women here in Texas first try to terminate their own pregnancies using Misoprostol incorrectly to avoid going to a clinic. Most of the time it fails because the Miso wasn’t used appropriately, but it’s cheap and very easy to obtain it in Mexican pharmacies right over the border.
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Clinic protestors are destroying the access women need to abortion providers. For some of us, facing them is so daunting we are willing to take our health and our lives into our own hands. Abortion is safe and legal and yet for many of us it’s inaccessible simply because of the clinic protestors.
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