The Guadalupe Partners went to Washington, D.C. last week in order to participate in the March for Life. We also set up our own display table in the Hyatt, the March for Life headquarters. The weather was beautiful, the Hyatt was elegant: I had many good conversations while sitting at the Guadalupe table, and on the march I saw several friends I had not seen in a long time. Nevertheless, on Friday we loaded up, all with one purpose in mind–to get back to Michigan in order to be, Saturday morning, on that harsh, bitterly cold sidewalk in front of the abortuary.
This week we were out Friday and Saturday mornings. On Saturday we met a 54 year-old mother taking her 24 year-old daughter in for an abortion. At least, that’s what she told us–though it did seem a little strange that, while the mother was on the sidewalk talking to us, the daughter called out from the abortuary door, “Mom, they need you now.” (Was the mother trying to conceal the fact that she was taking in a minor?) The mother seemed to despise us, yet compelled to talk to us at the same time. Early in the morning, before the door was open, I was talking to a boyfriend sitting in a car, and this woman had opened her own window to inject her own comments. People had choices, she kept insisting, people had choices. She had worked in an abortion mill she admitted, and she had had an abortion. She tried not to think about it, she said, except people like us made her feel guilty. Obviously, she was full of conflict. As it turned out, her daughter did not have the abortion yesterday.
And then there was an Hispanic couple. It reminded me of the couple I met several years ago at Woman’s Choice in Ypsilanti. The woman was in a hurry, but the boyfriend was willing to hold back and talk. The couple in Ypsilanti was the first couple Alicia had ever engaged in front of an abortuary, and yesterday she again succeeded in convincing the boyfriend to pull the mother away from the abortuary. She, the mother, seemed genuinely happy when she came out. She explained that the boyfriend had told her that he would take care of her–and that was enough to transform her from the hurried, enclosed woman we met at 8:05 to the smiling, receptive woman we met at 8:45.
We made three visits afterwards–to Fayth, to Lily and to Alma. Fayth is due in about 2 more weeks and Lily, even as we arrived, was packing in order to go to the hospital. We haven’t yet heard anything from her.
