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I lived in Jackson, Mississippi for two years while working for the local ACLU. That was back in the good old days when Jackson had a second abortion clinic. The Jackson Women's Health Organization has been the target of the fanatical anti-abortion majority in Mississippi for years. The local wingnut in Jackson is Roy McMillan, one of the named defendants in the "Nuremberg Files" case (regarding the website that published doctors' names, addresses, and other identifying information and marked off those who had been killed). He would sit outside the second, now closed abortion clinic in a lawn chair with his bloody fetus signs. When a car would pull into the parking lot, he would write down the license plate number. Then he would hang over the fence while standing on a stepladder, whining, "mommy, mommy, please don't kill me" and making statements such as "if I was a racist, which I'm not, I would say, please don't kill your n***er baby."
Roy didn't hang out in front of the JWHO as much because there was a federal injunction against him pursuant to the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, since he had threatened the staff of the JWHO in graphic terms on several occasions. After I moved to Washington, DC, I saw Roy on the street among other protestors at the March For Women's Lives. He recognized me, too.
Ironically, perhaps, since I only lived there for two years (or maybe the connection was causal, who knows), I had occasion to need an abortion during my time in Jackson. I had to make two trips to Birmingham, five hours each way, in order to gain access to a medical abortion, which was not then, and I'm sure is not now, available in Mississippi. I could only do this because I had the means.
The pro-choice majority in places like DC, New York, and the Bay Area often don't get it that in places like Mississippi, abortion is considered verboten. When I went to the doctor for a pregnancy test, they fully assumed that abortion was not an option. It was an awkward thing to have to tell them that I wouldn't be back for a sonogram at eight weeks, after all.
Abortion is a gray issue if there is one -- full of moral ambiguity. As someone who has had one, I recognize this. But Roy and his ilk, even more than my own experience, convince me over and over again that abortion must remain legal if women's equality is to be achieved.
