What shall I wear?

• Author: Karlin, Elizabeth
• Position: Abortion-providing doctor - Journal Entry - Column

A good friend sent me a baby-blue bulletproof vest after Michael Griffin killed Dr. David Gunn, so that I would have something to wear to work at the clinic where I do abortions. It came in a bag stamped FEMALE, and it fits quite well. I rarely wear it, though--not because it is hot and constricting, which it is, but because when I put it on, I am keenly aware of the parts of me that aren't covered. When friends ask how come I don't wear the vest, I answer, "What's the use? They'll just shoot me in the head."

And so it happened. Dr. John Britton, sixty-nine, wearing his bulletproof vest, and his bodyguard, James Barrett, seventy-four, vest status unknown, were shot in the head and killed. June Barrett, sixtyeight, a nurse, was shot in the arm. Paul Hill, a dedicated Christian terrorist who belonged to a group advocating murder of us abortion providers, shot them while they were sitting in their truck. Since then, I have been practicing crouching on the passenger-side floor of the car. My stiff hips get in the way of a quick disappearance, but after flicking the rear view mirror, I can drive backwards. They never taught me this in medical school.

At the office, things are much the same, but on the Monday after the killings the phone is busier than it has been in months. Women are trying to make appointments before I, the doctor, am offed.

One woman asks for me in a conspiratorial voice. "I can help you," a member of the staff says confidently. "No. I was told to ask for Dr. Karlin," she continues. "Do you need to make an appointment for an abortion?" the staff member asks. The caller is shocked at hearing the word spoken in a doctor's office. Some of our patients make an appointment without even being able to say the word "abortion." That is how I know we're losing. Here it is, 1994, twenty-one years after the Roe v. Wade decision, and every day I hear from at least one patient who believes that abortion is a secret, horrible crime--a torture practiced in some filthy subcellar, away from the prying eyes of even the doctor's own staff.

Nine out of ten women who come into my office have often repeated this sentence: "I would never have an abortion." When they face me and I ask them why they're crying, my patients who are minutes away from having an abortion say, "I don't believe in abortion."

Like me, these women read all around them that abortion is bad, and murder is bad, too, and has about the same moral severity. But abortion is a symptom...