We Engage was founded on two beliefs - that the bad anti-abortion laws that reach all the way to the Supreme Court, have their start on the sidewalks, and that ignoring anti-abortion protesters’ behavior and messaging on the sidewalks isn’t good for patients or our rights. This year alone, almost 400 anti-abortion laws have been introduced in the states and antis have blocked access at 3 clinics and caused all kinds of other problems outside clinics.

We Engage and the Pinkhouse Defenders at Jackson Women’s Health Organization are kind of unusual when it comes to interacting with antis at clinics, and elsewhere for that matter. While We Engage believes every person, every clinic, every situation is different and there is no “one size fits all” policy of engagement with antis, unfortunately not everyone else in the reproductive rights and justice community feels that way.

And while We Engage advocates for letting antis know they aren’t welcome to force their beliefs on others’ healthcare decisions, wherever they may be, including outside clinics, we understand that not all clinics and clinic escorts may want to or be able to. And that’s ok too.

The common belief held within the reproductive rights and justice community is that clinics escorts and defenders should have absolutely no interaction with anti-abortion protesters outside of clinics, that it should be a given and that non-engagement automatically makes a safer, calmer environment for patients. In this time of continued escalation by antis, that is disputable.

In just the past month, anti-abortion extremist behavior has escalated, without any engagement with clinic defenders. The latest incidents at clinics in Tennessee, North Carolina and Kentucky were at clinics without escorts (TN) or at clinics with non-engagement policies (NC & KY). We make this point because many clinics and escorts embrace the non-engagement ethic that ANY interaction with antis escalates their behavior; this obviously was not the case in these incidents.

We have heard it often from people working in the repro community, even from escorts, “We don’t talk to antis, it just riles them up, and escalates their behavior.”

Statements like this basically places the blame and responsibility on escorts for the behavior of antis. We Engage believes that blaming escorts for the behavior of antis is wrong. Antis come to clinics to harass, terrorize and sometimes even worse, and the responsibility for antis’ behavior lies squarely on the anti-abortion protesters. Escorts are NOT responsible for “riling” up antis.

 Antis are at clinics because they already believe they are entitled to be horrible to people, “called by God” even, and no one – not the police, not the courts, not the public, NO ONE - is telling them any different.

Just over the last month, we have seen antis escalate their activities outside of clinics. It is a risk to be at the clinic door for clinic escorts and we all understand this when we volunteer; clinic escorts and defenders are the front line, we do so willingly.

We Engage doesn’t believe that having responsible interaction between escorts and defenders with protesters will make things magically better for patients outside of clinics, but we do believe there is no “one size fits all” answer.

Patients are smart and appreciate the fact escorts and defenders are there for them, and advocate for them. At all times, escorts and defenders should ALWAYS keep patients’ safety and comfort at the forefront of their actions and interactions.

At clinics with escorts that choose to interact on the sidewalks, escorts and defenders can do a lot to deflect and distract anti behaviors toward patients. Defenders and escorts can make an anti’s time on the sidewalk a bit less of a “cakewalk” and be a check on some of their activities, otherwise who will?

Without any other interaction, the anti is free to do whatever they please and they already believe they are entitled, so many “sent by God”, to come “sidewalk counsel”, to terrorize complete strangers about what they believe they should do with their bodies, their lives and more.

And as we all know, too often the police support the antis’ rights above any others, and as we have seen lately, some police ARE antis.

Ideally, neither the escort nor the protester would be outside clinics; that’s the goal We Engage works toward – ending stigma so we can all go home with abortion safe, legal and accessible. But today, unfortunately, that isn’t the reality we live in. 

And it all starts on the sidewalks. With the antis holding the horrible signs, shouting, “sidewalk counseling’, stigmatizing abortion. Sending money to lobby legislators to make the bad laws that make abortion inaccessible, that end up at the Supreme Court.  All the anti-abortion groups – both “pro-life” and “abolitionist” - are working to make this country an “abortion-free” one. We ALL have to work together at full capacity to make that “anti-free” goal a reality. 

We can do it. Together. Solidarity, y’all.