While reading a few NOLA blogs just now, I came across this post.

I'm not gonna repeat any of the info. You can go there and read it. If you're pro-choice and have the time, emotional stability and energy, help out somehow if you can.

I was a volunteer worker for NARAL (the National Abortion Rights Action League) as well as a clinic escort back in Baton Rouge several years ago. Back in the day when Operation Rescue went from city to city having BIG events where they blockaded clinics, Baton Rouge was their target in the summer of 1992.

It's sort of hard to believe it's been ten years. I have a lot of extremely vivid memories of that period.

In 1992, Operation Rescue was trying to repeat the success of their "Summer of Mercy" the previous year in Wichita. I think they thought they'd find a bunch of idiotic southerners who would pretty much turn a blind eye to them and let them have their way. They were very wrong. The pro-choice community mobilized and the city leaders did an exemplary job of preparing the city. The police department sent people to Wichita to learn all they could about the previous summer. When Operation Rescue arrived in town, they found that the city had blocked off a several block area around the main women's clinic in town and built a chainlink fence around it. The police department controlled the access and trained escorts were inside the fence to provide protection.

As one of those escorts, I began the week spending the middle part of the day at the clinic. By the end of the week, I was basically living at the clinic around the clock. It was July and we had very little shade during the day. And all day every day, we were hit with verbal abuse from the "Christians" on the other side of the fence. The clinic stayed open the entire week though.

Being a NARAL volunteer before the siege started, I had a bit more responsibility thrust onto me than a lot of the volunteers. I spent a lot of time just standing in the corners of the clinic lot with a walkie talkie watching the crowds.

Moments I remember that week...

-watching over the fence while several hundred people rush through the back field towards the clinic after breaking one fence while being chased by the police (they never made it to the inner fence);

-wading out into the crowd of "pro-lifers" once to bring in a woman who I suspected had come to the clinic without her prearranged escorts, trying to confirm her identity against a list I had in my pocket while not drawing the attention of the crowd and then getting her through the police cordon once the crowd realized what was going on. the look on that one woman's face made the whole week worth it...

-sleeping on concrete curled up next to Dave, who came to escort as much as he could, giving up school or work time...

-gatorade... i remember drinking lots and lots of gatorade...

-the cops being surprisingly sympathetic to us, but I guess the fact that they were being screamed at as much as we were helped in that area...

In the end, their Summer of Mercy failed miserably. It sort of broke the momentum that Operation Rescue had built up and they never really managed to have anything on a really large scale again.

I kept working as an escort at the clinic for a while. Finding myself as part of a non-violent human barricade holding crazy people away from the door of the clinic more than once. After a short while though, it took an emotional toll on me and I realized I had to stop for my own sanity. And I did.

And, honestly, i dunno if i can go back and do it again. I have to think about it a bit before I decide to volunteer this time. I want to, but...

I wouldn't, however, change one moment of the volunteer work I did before. So, again, if you feel you can help, please do so...