What's happening in an Alabama clinic that continues to perform abortions (HBO)



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The day after the decision of the governor of Alabama Kay Ivey, a Republican, to sign a bill banning almost all abortions, a 20-year-old woman from Tennessee entered an abortion clinic with a old boyfriend and underwent the same treatment. procedure.

"I am a single mother of three," said the woman, who asked to remain anonymous after an abortion. "I have nothing to offer this child. You know, I'm already very thin. I have three others to take care of. "

She was one of more than 20 women who had surgery that day at the Alabama Women's Center. Because there, everything went as usual. The prohibition – which will certainly be challenged in court – will not come into effect until several months later. Meanwhile, abortion is still legal in the state.

Dalton Johnson co-founded the Alabama Women's Center in 2001, and since then the center has had to adapt and prosecute many new laws and ordinances designed to close down.

"It's one thing after another. You know, I almost feel at home at the federal courthouse, "said Johnson. "It was to admit privileges. It's zoning. "

"The anti-choice group sued the city of Huntsville for issuing my license. So it was a whole battle for which we had to fight and pay for ourselves. And, of course, we prevailed in that one. Building codes, "she added. "And probably more than I can not even think of."

So for Johnson, the last law is not surprising. But that does not mean it did not affect the clinic staff as they answered the phone and looked after the patients.

"Leaving the house this morning, I started to feel like those butterflies in the stomach. Fear was invading me, "said Makeda Harris, the center's receptionist. Most of the time, this is the first face a patient would see at the clinic.

Outside the clinic, protesters queue up daily to hold placards and implore women walking inside to choose life. Many of them are regulars, and the staff knows them by name. A mother and her daughter prayed outside Thursday after a woman, protected by bright umbrellas from escorts who volunteered on the parking lot, either entering.

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