This Common Secret: My Journey as an Abortion Doctor by Susan Wicklund Read Free Book Online Page A

and don’t get back until late Tuesday. Wednesday I drive to Duluth and won’t be home until late.”
    “What about Thursday night?” he asked.
    “Nope. I go to Milwaukee this week, so I fly out Thursday morning and don’t get back until Friday night, and I’ve agreed to work on Saturday in St. Paul.”
    “Sunday?”
    “Please, I need one day at home,” I said. “You and Sonja go if you want, but I have to have one day staying put.”
    If Randy was disappointed, he hid it well. He was totally supportive of my work and the choices I’d made, but I know there were many times he had to swallow hard and walk away. Sonja had her own busy schedule, full of swim team practices and homework and friends, but she missed the trips to see family.
    My professional life was hitting sonic speed, heady and rewarding, but I was suffering from tunnel vision.
    Part of my work preoccupation came from the fact that I still had so much to learn. One of the counselors in Appleton was a clinic veteran named Dottie. She taught me valuable lessons about how to talk with patients and how to really hear what they are saying. Dottie always made it clear that we did abortions for the woman, not for her partner or husband or mother. For the woman. It was her choice, and she needed to completely own that. Dottie taught me that no matter how good the counseling was before the abortion, there would be times when issues wouldn’t come to the surface until the woman was actually undressed and facing the beginning of the procedure. I learned to ask every patient if she was absolutely sure of her decision.
    “Is anyone pushing you or telling you that you have to do this?” I’d ask.
    Any hesitation whatsoever and I stopped and asked her to get dressed again, and we talked more. It wasn’t uncommon for me to send her away to reconsider her options. My biggest fear has always been to do an abortion on someone who will later come to regret it.
    In the early years, when issues of this nature came up, the staff and administration always allowed the time and resources to support a woman’s choice and to help her reach a point of resolution. The patient took first priority. That supportive, nurturing environment within the clinic made it possible for me to endure the increasing efforts of the anti-abortion zealots and to overcome the hate they directed at me.
    By the summer of 1990 the protestors had figured out that I was one of the doctors. When I approached a clinic entrance, tried to get out of an airport, or walked from my car to a clinic entrance, they went into a frenzy.
    “Murderer!” they screamed. “Baby killer!”
    I dreaded seeing them—every time. How could they hold up a Bible while screaming through clenched teeth? When in a public place and being singled out, I cringed at the looks people gave me. I hated the thought that anyone witnessing this spectacle would believe I actually did kill babies. My stomach would knot and churn.
    Sometimes I was close enough to see the hateful, twisted facial expressions of the protesters. It was horrifying. Their voices were shrill and loud and unstoppable. I was engulfed in a tornado of frenzied emotion, out of control and very dangerous. I fought the urge to panic, to flee, but I never reacted outwardly, never responded to their taunts, never made eye contact. When they tried to block my way, I’d shove past, hurry on.
    “Baby killer! Their blood is on your hands, Susan!”
    Entering a clinic, I would often stop to look back and see how the patients were faring. Many times clinic escorts were available to help the patients get through the protesters, but not always. Without the escorts present, and sometimes even when they were, protesters would rush at a patient on the sidewalk, surrounding her and shouting awful rhetoric. They reminded me of a pack of wolves. You could see their frustration when a woman refused to stop and talk to them, but pushed her way into the clinic instead.
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