The people who run America’s abortion clinics agree: There’s no job like it.
The people who run America’s abortion clinics agree: There’s no job like it. There are the clients — so many of them desperate, in need, grateful. There are the abortion opponents — passionate, relentless, often furious. And hovering over it all are legal challenges, and the awareness that your clinic may be just a judicial ruling away from extinction. That reality became more urgent last week with a leaked, draft opinion from the U.S. Supreme Court suggesting a majority of justices support overturning the 1973 Roe vs Wade decision legalizing abortion. If that happens it could spell the end of abortion in about half the states. The Associated Press talked with three women and one man who run abortion clinics in such states about their work. Some came to the work through personal brushes with abortion; for others it started as a job. For all, it has become a calling. ___ SHREVEPORT, LOUISIANA — When Kathaleen Pittman was growing up in a small, conservative community in rural Louisiana, abortion was not openly discussed. When she started working at the Hope Medical Group for Women, she sat her mother down and told her. “To my shock… she told me then: ‘Women have always had abortions and always will. They need a safe place,’” she recalls. “That moment was kind of a watershed moment.” She was not drawn to the work as an activist. The part-time job counseling women undergoing abortions was a good fit while she was trying to finish her master’s degree. But she knew the fear some women feel with an unwanted pregnancy. When she was in her early 20s, a good friend asked for her help getting an abortion. At the time, in the early ’80s, the procedure was legal but they didn’t know where to find someone in northwestern Louisiana who performed it. Pittman dialed information. It took 20 minutes to find a doctor in nearby Arkansas. Her friend despaired. “I’m sitting there watching her cry,” Pittman says. Pittman was counselor, director of counseling and assistant administrator before becoming director of the clinic in 2010. The clinic has survived numerous efforts to restrict abortion, such as requirements for waiting periods or admitting privileges for doctors. When she started working there, about 11 other clinics operated in the state, and some private doctors performed abortions. Now, Hope is one of three remaining. To alleviate stress, she does needlepoint. She also texts other clinic administrators. A few times a month they gather on Zoom to compare notes or just to vent. “It can be very isolating, particularly running a clinic in the South,” she says. Pittman knows the Supreme Court ruling could end abortion in her state. When the draft opinion leaked, Pittman says she had a “horrible feeling” in the pit of her stomach. But then she took stock, and reminded herself that it was not final. For now, abortion is legal. And as always, she focused on the women who walk past her office every day, after their appointments. “They no longer look like they have the weight of the world on their shoulders,” she says. ___ CHARLESTON, WEST VIRGINIA — Katie Quinonez had the first of her two abortions when she was 17, months after graduating from high school.
