These are the words protesters shout at the women walking into Planned Parenthood’s Bloomington Health ?Center.
Albrecht, who has volunteered for the center for more than a decade, only ever has one response: “You’re shouting to make other people feel bad so that you can feel good.”
As a volunteer escort, it’s Albrecht’s job to meet clients at their cars and walk with them into the center. He walks right up to their car doors, warns them people are going to shout at them and then engages in a conversation about the weather, the drive to Bloomington or other casual topics.
“What we try to do is, in a way, immunize the patients as they arrive,” Albrecht said. “Wave them in and smile at them and welcome them. That way they cannot grasp those full sentences as they come at them.”
The Bloomington Center is one of only four Planned Parenthood health centers in Indiana and Kentucky to offer abortion services. Though it is illegal for protesters to stand on the actual center property, they are allowed to gather on the sidewalks outside.
“Escorts are very important because, first and foremost, we want our patients to feel safe and comfortable, and the volunteer escorts are integral in providing that safety,” Tammy Lieber, the director of communications for Planned Parenthood of Indiana and Kentucky, said.
Albrecht explained that two types of protesters gather every Thursday morning during the hours when abortions are performed at the center. The Catholics, typically about 10 or 12 of them, gather on College Avenue. The other groups, mainly evangelicals, take the alley that lines the other side of the center.
He said the Catholics tend to keep to themselves, praying and singing, but the evangelicals often yell at the patients.
“I myself never have felt unsafe because I don’t care,” Albrecht said. “In years past, it was frightening. They used to film patients as they got out of the cars. They were so bad earlier that Planned Parenthood acquired covers to put over license plates.”
Today, the protesters are less frightening. Albrecht said some even bring their children to take part in the activity.
Two teenagers in particular have been causing problems for the center by standing at the two parking lot entrances with notepads and asking people who enter to roll down their windows. Patients assume they are Planned Parenthood employees and comply, at which point they are told not to enter the facility.
Because of this new tactic and lengthened hours on Thursdays, the center is currently looking for more volunteer escorts.
“We certainly have a track record of nothing ever happening to any of our volunteers,” Lieber said. “Volunteers do go through some training on how to react to people who might be opposed to our mission.”
There is also always a hired security guard on site, just in case.
Albrecht emphasized that volunteering with the clinic does not mean he likes the idea of abortions.
He noted that all patients are required to go through a sometimes lengthy interview process to determine whether the procedure is what they really want and that they are making the choice independently.
“It’s a sense of justice,” he said. “We do what we do to protect the law. There’s also empathy. No one should be exposed to this kind of stuff.”
