It was almost 7:30 a.m. when Bonnie Chadwell parked on the street in front of Metro Women’s Clinic. She glanced around, thankful to see protesters already there. She’d never done this before, and she felt more than a little timid. There were three or four people standing by the gate to the enclosed parking lot. Another three or four people were walking on the sidewalk. Most of them carried signs, some hanging like union strike placards on front and back. Suspended over the street by the gate was a rainbow-shaped string of pink and blue balloons. Close to the gate was a baby carriage parked next to a huge white sign that read in letters painted pink and blue: “Goodbye, Mommy. I love you.” Leaning against a car was a huge photo of a baby. “It’s a child, not a choice,” the caption read.
Bonnie saw no familiar faces and sat in her car for a full five minutes before she made the decision to get out and join the picketers. She had hoped Mike and Nancy and Carla would be here already, but apparently she had arrived earlier than they.
Taking a deep breath, she climbed out of the car. She knew she was being eyeballed by every protester within visual range and admitted to herself that it was not a very comfortable moment. The picketers were no doubt alert to any stranger. Bonnie knew she could be mistaken for some girl’s mom, arriving for her daughter’s abortion. However, once across the street, she picked out a woman in jeans and a T-shirt who looked friendly enough and close to her own age, and walked up to her.
“Hi! I’m Bonnie. I thought I’d join you today.”
“Great. I’m here for the first time. I’m Joan Herring.”
Bonnie couldn’t hide her surprise. “Joan Herring? Are you…You couldn’t be! I have to ask, though: Are you Nancy’s mom?” She spoke almost inaudibly, but her eyes were like saucers.
The woman named Joan Herring smiled, and her eyes shone with friendliness and curiosity. “Well, yes, as a matter of fact, I am.” She paused, reaching out her hand. “And you are?”
Bonnie smiled broadly. “I’m Bonnie Chadwell.” Her eyes twinkled. “Does the name ring a bell?”
“Chadwell? Are you…No. Wait a minute!”
“Yes, I’m Mike’s mom.”
“You’re kidding!” Joan smiled warmly and the two women embraced each other. “The kids are parking; they dropped me off. They’ll be surprised we’ve already met.”
“You’re from Pennsylvania, right?”
“That’s right. Nancy wanted me to come out this weekend to meet Mike’s family and help her make wedding plans.” She stopped suddenly, as if fearing that she may have compromised her daughter’s confidence.
“For the wedding?” Bonnie smiled. “Mike didn’t tell me you were coming out; I think we’ve blown his surprise. I arrived a little early.” She smiled. “I know they’re wanting to get married fairly soon. Is there a date, do you know?”
“I don’t think they’ve…”
Joan Herring stopped mid-sentence and turned at the sound of a woman’s voice yelling, “Don’t do it! No! No! Please don’t do this!” Six or seven protesters were calling out to the couple driving into the parking lot of the clinic. One woman held out a pamphlet as the car drove slowly through the gate. “Please take some literature. We want to help you.”
“Don’t kill your baby! Don’t do it!” A man in his early sixties called out, “Your baby wants to live, just like you do.”
The parking attendant waved the car up to the clinic entrance with a wide smile. There were two more attendants by the door. As soon as the girl got out of the car, one of them whisked her inside the building out of earshot of the protests.
“Please don’t kill your baby! Your baby’s innocent. Don’t sign up for a life of regret!”
As the door shut behind the girl, the young man accompanying her drove off to park his car. Bonnie and Joan heard a protester call out in a chanting voice directed at an attendant, “Come on, honey! Bring your money. We’ll kill that baby for you!”
“Oooh!” Bonnie winced. “How would you like to have that ditty aimed at you? It would ring in my ears day and night.”
“It needs to be said,” Joan replied in a serious tone, shaking her head. “When I was nineteen, I brought my money and they killed my baby. Only God knows how many sleepless nights I’ve spent thinking about my first child.”
“But you know…”
“I know I’m forgiven,” Joan interrupted, with a friendly smile, as if she knew what Bonnie was going to say. “And I’ve finally forgiven myself. I’m looking forward to meeting Nancy’s older brother or sister in heaven one day. But that doesn’t keep me from wishing it had never happened. I’m glad for every word of warning to these parents—every plea. If, in all the time Nancy’s out here,” she said, and raised her index finger in emphasis as she spoke, “just one mother or one father is saved a lifetime of regret because they chose to save their baby’s life, all the hours spent will be more than worth it.”
“Yes, for sure,” Bonnie said quietly.
Another car pulled in, and the reaction from the picketers was pretty much the same.
Now another protester arrived, and Bonnie and Joan watched as he unloaded two ladders and set them in place next to the cement wall between the sidewalk and the building. The wall was only four feet high, and the clinic had extended its height by another six feet with heavy canvas sheets to block off the picketers.
“Sheets of shame!” Bonnie commented, half to Joan and half to the man adjusting his ladder.
“Sheets of shame, all right,” he smiled, resignedly. A grin then spread across his face as he added, “And we’re the ladder day saints.”
Bonnie looked at him and then broke into laughter.
Neither Bonnie nor Joan had noticed Carla and Nancy hurrying over to them, with Mike a few steps behind, a huge smile on his face as he saw his mother and Nancy’s standing together.
Carla and Nancy each carried a sign. Carla’s read, “Please change your mind before it’s too late.” Nancy’s read, “Your baby wants to live.” Mike’s sign, the biggest one, had huge letters. “Please, Mom. I don’t want to die.” The reverse side of all of them said the same thing: “Choose LIFE.”
A woman in her early thirties addressed Carla while the rest of the group sauntered down the sidewalk. “Hey! How’re you doing?”
“Hi, Marie. Anything happen this week?”
“Yes!” the woman exclaimed. “Two saves.”
“Wow! That’s awesome!” Carla glanced in the direction of Bonnie. “You know my mom’s here today? And Nancy’s too?”
“No kidding. Oh…” A look of enlightenment crossed her face. “I wondered who they were.”
Carla caught up to the group of people that included her mother, her brother, Nancy, and Nancy’s mother.
“Hi, everybody!” At Carla’s voice, the older women turned, and Carla hugged her mother as she addressed the woman she’d not yet met. “Are you Nancy’s mom?” Responding to Joan Herring’s nod, she grinned and added, “You have a wonderful daughter!”
Mrs. Herring smiled happily as she put her arm around Nancy’s waste and pulled her to herself. “She’s very wonderful to me, I can tell you.”
Nancy’s eyes shone, as she glanced at her mother.
“It’s nice to have two more women down here,” Mike commented. “I think we’re even today: nine men, nine women.”
“Marie said they’ve had two more saves this week.” Carla picked up her sign and offered it to Bonnie.
“Thanks, honey.” She smiled and looked hesitant. “I’ve never carried one of these before.” She turned the sign to read both sides. “So two babies were saved this week?”
“How do you know for sure?’ Joan Herring asked.
“Marie keeps the record. She only counts a baby saved if the mother or the parents tell her as they leave that they’re not going to abort their baby. Actually, there are a lot more who leave and probably don’t come back, but we don’t count them, because we don’t know for sure: some might go to another clinic or come back on another day.”
“But chances are that at least half of those will end up letting their babies live.” It was Marie who spoke, having just joined the group. “We’re thankful for every mother who leaves this place on any given morning, because she’s increasing the chance of her baby’s survival. We just don’t count it as a save unless she actually stops and tells us. Lots of times the mother and father are at odds about what to do, and we just pray that the baby’s not caught in the crossfire.”
“I’m so glad you’re out here,” Joan Herring said, addressing Mike.
Mike nodded. “I figure I’d want someone to be here if my parents were bringing me to be killed.” He smiled. “I look at it as a concrete way of living out the golden rule.”
Just then a car drove by and a man yelled, “Losers!” at the group, his hand out the window in an obscene gesture.
“God bless you!” a woman yelled back.
“You’re not losers, that’s for sure,” Bonnie offered quietly. “It’s the finest altruism I know, to subject yourselves to scoffing and snubbing for the sake of children you’ll probably never see.” She paused, then said thoughtfully, “It makes me curious to know what inspires people to be down here instead of sleeping in, or having a leisurely cup of coffee on a Saturday morning.”
She turned to Marie. “What brings you here? It sounds like you come down here often.”
“About four days a week.”
“How long have you been doing it? Like, when did you start?”
“Six years ago, come October.”
“So…” Bonnie’s eyebrows went up questioningly. “Why?”
“I have a brother who lives in Los Angeles. I had another brother who died in a boating accident four years ago. But my mother had two abortions. That means there were five of us kids, but I lost my oldest and my youngest siblings because my parents didn’t want to face the shame of coming up pregnant before they were married, and because they felt they were too old to have their last child. So I have only one sibling alive.” A sad smile played on her face. “I wish all five of us were here.” She raised her eyebrows. “So does my mother; she’s sorry now. But my dad had no regrets, whatsoever—at least he never indicated it.”
“They weren’t Christians?” Bonnie asked gently.
“My mother is, but my father wasn’t,” Marie replied. She shrugged her shoulders in a manner of resignation and continued. “When they came for an abortion—both times, no one was there protesting.” Her face brightened. “But…I know my siblings that were aborted are in God’s presence right now. Every time I’m out here, I think of them.” She took a deep breath and addressed Bonnie, “So I guess I’m here to keep another ‘unwanted’ person—someone else’s brother or sister—from losing his life.”
“Did you ever talk about this with your parents?” Nancy asked Marie.
“Oh, yes. When I was in junior high my mother sat down with me and told me she had aborted twice. Abortion had become an ‘issue,’ and she wanted me to know, so I could make up my mind, aware of their experience and their own ‘pro-choice’ stand at the time.”
Mike interjected, “Well, it’s a consolation that much as we might regret circumstances now, there won’t be regret in heaven.”
“No, there’s no regret in heaven, and I really look forward to meeting the rest of my family. My mom knows God, and, like I say, she’s sorry now for what she and my dad did. My dad was a wonderful father, and he loved his family. He was honest and hardworking. But the only life he ever knew or wanted to know was this life—on earth. Heaven was…was just people’s imagination to be discreetly disdained.”
Marie lifted her shoulders in a slow shrug and bit her lip pensively. “I loved my dad a lot, and I feel blessed to have had him as a father. But as far as I know, he had no eternal perspective whatsoever.”
The conversation ended abruptly as a late-model dark blue sedan entered the driveway, with a woman in her mid-forties behind the wheel. A young girl, presumably her daughter, sat next to her in the front seat. Amidst cries of “Don’t do it! Please don’t do it!” and “You’ll regret this for the rest of your life!” the woman drove the car up to the doorway of the clinic. The clinic escort opened the car door for the young girl, who walked into the building beneath a barrage of voices. Some chanted in unison, “Don’t kill your baby! Don’t kill your baby!” One man yelled, “I’ll take your baby; you don’t have to kill him.”
Bonnie watched as the grandmother of the baby parked her car and walked determinedly toward the building, smiling and chatting with the clinic escort. Something about the woman reminded Bonnie of Lou Ferguson, and she thought of the stark contrast between the lives of three generations of the Fergusons and this family about to erase a member of their own family tree. She felt sad for the woman, sad for the girl, sad for the baby. But when Mike pointed out the Christian fish symbol on the back of the car, she felt a far deeper sadness. “God,” she prayed silently. “Somehow we’ve failed at being the salt of the earth. I’m so sorry. Please forgive us.”
Three more cars drove in. Each one’s passengers were met with loud pleas and rebukes from the small group of people. One protester yelled, “Please Mom. Don’t do this. God says, ‘Thou shalt not murder!’ Let your baby live.”
Bonnie glanced at her watch and was surprised to find it was almost ten. She decided it was probably time to go. Suddenly a woman, appearing to be in her early thirties, bounded out of the building, walking so fast she was almost running. Marie, having hurried to the gate, asked her if she was OK.
“Yes,” she panted. “I’m OK, but I have to get out of here. I’ve been thinking about those pictures,” she said, motioning vaguely to the signs displayed by the protesters but not looking at them, “and I can’t go through with it. I’ve got to call my boyfriend to pick me up!” Practically hyperventilating throughout her short explanation, the woman stopped to pull out her cell phone.
“Does your boyfriend want you to keep the baby?”
“No. He’s the one who talked me into coming down here. I didn’t want to have an abortion, but my boyfriend and I decided it was the best thing to do.” She was almost in tears now. “But I can’t do it. I just can’t!”
She dialed as she talked, and while she spoke with her boyfriend, turning away from the group for privacy, Nancy slipped two pamphlets into the girl’s hand.
Bonnie figured there must have been eight or nine clients in the building, each waiting her turn to abort her baby. But one child was coming out alive, and Bonnie shared the elation evident in all the protesters.
……….
That Saturday afternoon, after her mother returned to Plainview, Carla found herself in a pensive mood. Marie’s story of why she picketed the clinic was thought provoking for her. She felt a different sadness she’d never experienced before. She found herself thinking about the young woman who had gathered the courage to walk out of the clinic in time to save her baby’s life. Was it that the woman reminded her of Patrice?
Had Marc pressured Patrice to have an abortion like this woman’s boyfriend had? Surely not, thought Carla. She reasoned that he hadn’t been at the abortion clinic that fateful morning; and besides, Marc and Patrice seemed to have parted ways, from what Carla could tell. But what if Marc had given Patrice his consent to abort their baby? It was a disturbing thought.