Anti-abortion protesters at Eugene’s All Women’s Health Services are mostly men over 50 who wear rosaries and pray softly as they sway back and forth on the sidewalk bordering the clinic parking lot, Students for Choice co-director Lauren Manes said.
The protesters are usually peaceful, but Students for Choice members wearing yellow vests that say “pro-choice escort” will stand on the sidewalk to make sure the protesters don’t threaten patients who come to the East 11th Avenue clinic for an abortion.
The group monitored protesters for the first time last week as part of a training session, Manes said. For privacy reasons, she declined to say what day. During that day, the protesters were very nonconfrontational, she said.
Students for Choice are instructed to have minimal contact with protesters and patients. If protesters cross into the parking lot, the student escorts have been told to say, “This is private property. You need to leave immediately,” Phillips said.
Depending on the severity of the situation, the escorts have cell phones they can use to call the police, she said.
Students for Choice members said escorts’ presence is important so that women feel safe coming to the clinic, even when the protesters remain nonconfrontational.
“We stay as long as the protesters. We’re mainly there as security and support and to be a presence for the patients,” Students for Choice co-director Kathryn Phillips said.
The protesters aren’t allowed to cross the sidewalk and go into the parking lot, and they usually obey the rule, according to clinic staff.
The most extreme act of protest was when the protesters blocked the driveway to the clinic and gave pamphlets to the blocked drivers.
Before Students for Choice members began training to be clinic escorts, Willamette University Students for Choice members drove to the Eugene clinic to monitor protesters, Phillips said. The clinic that offers abortions in Salem rarely has protesters, she said.
Willamette University Students for Choice member Nat Okey and a woman in charge of security at the clinic trained Phillips and other students in the group.
Now that University students are involved, the two schools will rotate their escorting duties, she said.
All Women’s Health Services is the only place in Eugene where women can go for an abortion, Phillips said. Sacred Heart — a Catholic hospital — doesn’t offer abortions.
Eugene Planned Parenthood spokeswoman Kitty Piercy said Oregon is one of few states that has never passed any legislation limiting abortion rights. But there is still a strong anti-abortion presence in Oregon. She added that, in the past, abortion clinics in Oregon have been victims of mailed bomb threats and an arson.
“There’s a short distance between mild demonstrating and real danger,” she said.
She said the escorts’ presence is necessary because of the chance that a situation could escalate.
“Here, Students for Choice take it really seriously,” she said. “They want to be there in support in case there is opposition. I very much appreciate what Students for Choice is doing to be part of the vigilance.”