When women visit Planned Parenthood or any other health center they should be free to enter and exit without bother. There are safe, specific rules about where people who oppose health services to stand and speak their minds. Those rules, including the FBI's Freedom to Access Clinic Entrances Act, are incredibly important.
I find anti-choice/pro-life protesters particularly frightening and I cannot imagine how women in desperate situations feel. Even riding my bike by a clinic where protesters stood with signs made me so angry - I felt my whole body clench up as I pedaled by. What if I was trying to walk in to see a doctor?
People who protest aren't just speaking their minds though - and it's not just a freedom of speech issue, obviously. It's an issue of harassment - sometimes assault or stalking or murder. Pro-choicers can be (as demonstrated by Dr. George Tiller's murder in May) stealthy. Certainly most protesters are not criminals - but the damage that the criminal pro-lifers do is horrifying.
My mom's best friend escorts women at a Planned Parenthood clinic. She walks them through gangs of protesters who yell at them as they leave the clinic. I'm so thankful for her, and all the people who push back on behalf of women's rights - keeping women safe as they make their own choices about their own healthcare.
Thank you, Chicago City Council.
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