Questions and Answers

Tuesday's clinic was pretty tame. The protesters were slow coming out, and then went inside when the escorts left. The only thing out of the ordinary was that Crazy Legs was out (I guess her leg healed) - they had her holding a sign, though; presumably to hamper her ability to chase people down and throw herself in front of cars.

When I got here on Tuesday the first person who spoke to me was a woman who came up to my desk with her forms and asked me how to spell 'chlamydia' (even now I don't think I have it right). It got me thinking about all the funny (and sometimes heartbreaking) things people ask or say to me in this job.

Here are some:

"Is your doctor qualified?"

No, actually every week we pick a new hobo off the street to come in and perform the procedure. This week it's the guy who masturbates in the Pita Pit bathroom. Enjoy!

"Can you tell me if --- has an appointment there this week/was there last week?"

Sure, why don't I just give you a list of the people who were here, along with their phone numbers and medical histories? It's called confidentiality.

"My daughter got herself pregnant, and needs to have an abortion."

Amazing! Did she artificially inseminate herself just so she could have an abortion, or did her male genitals accidentally touch her female ones (hate it when that happens!)?

"Do I have to wait in the waiting room with everyone else?"

Of course not! We have individual waiting rooms for every patient. The building is a lot bigger than it looks from the outside.

"Is it legal?"

Nope, so some of the money you pay us goes towards bribes for the cops. Oh, and for the phonebook people.

"Is there any way I can find out who the father is before you do the procedure?"

Yes, it's called DNA testing and it costs a lot of money. Strangely enough, we're not equipped to do it here.

...so those are just some of them. They make me laugh, which makes the sad questions a lot more bearable. I also get a lot of questions that come from general misinformation and ignorance about abortion, like if they will be infertile afterwards, and if it causes breast cancer. A lot of people just cannot believe we are a legit operation like any other doctor's clinic. I guess a lot of the lies spread by the anti-choice movement have worked (to a certain extent), which is too bad.

In other news, I'm going to have an article about repro rights published in the Colorado-based Weird Sisters West magazine, which is pretty cool.