This Common Secret: My Journey as an Abortion Doctor (7 page)

It all came out at once, in one big gushing confession. We talked the rest of the flight. I told him about my work, my ridiculous schedule, how I got started, the people at the clinics, the confrontations that had become such a torment.

After that, whenever we flew together, he waited for me as we got off the plane; with his arm wrapped tightly around my shoulders, we barreled through the protesters together. He made sure I was safely in a taxi before heading his own way.

For the first time I understood that I had potential allies as well as enemies.

I continued to use whatever means I had to get into the clinics. Disguises, riding in the trunk of a car, sometimes arriving at five in the morning and sleeping in the clinic until the rest of the staff arrived. It was exhausting and frustrating. It felt as if I were letting the protesters dictate the rules of interaction, as if I had stooped to lies and subterfuge. I didn’t want to interact on their terms, sink to their level.

It was the patients who kept me going. Their situations, their needs, their genuine thanks and relief. Without knowing it, they were the ones doing the comforting. They were helping me through situations I could never have imagined.

On the weeks that I drove the 240 miles to Fargo I would stop on the edge of town and call the clinic for a “protester-of-the-day” report. When I called one day, the activity was particularly bad. The clinic director didn’t hesitate in expressing her concern.

“They’re stopping every car,” Jane told me. “If anyone inside looks like you or a patient, they chain themselves to the axle or lie in front of the vehicle.”

I knew the scene only too well. Protesters jumping on cars or lying in the road while someone wormed underneath and locked on to the axle with a bicycle lock or chain. Any open window in the car would have anti-abortion propaganda shoved through it. Flyers would be slapped on car windshields. Frightened occupants would be extremely upset.

“I’m sending two volunteers out in a car to meet you at the mall parking lot,” Jane instructed. “You can hide in the back or under blankets. Just stay in the car if they stop it.”

By the time the volunteers drove up, I’d put on a blond wig and a heavy coat of makeup. I wore a long black jumper, tennis shoes, and sunglasses. My escorts turned in open-mouthed surprise when I approached them and spoke.

“It’s Dr. Wicklund!” one of them exclaimed. “I can’t believe it!”

“I want you to take me to the McDonald’s and drop me off. I don’t want to be seen with anyone they’ll recognize. I’m walking the last two blocks alone.”

They didn’t like my idea at all, but I was adamant. I knew they were worried about going back to the clinic without me and explaining to Jane. I made sure they would tell the main guard in the front of the clinic to watch for me and let me in when I caught his eye.

On my own, without the protection of a car or friends, I walked toward the clinic, all the while fearing that my true identity would be discovered. What would happen if these people actually got their hands on me? I could see the crowd gathered there, one hundred of them, I guessed, maybe more. All people who hated me, whose only objective was to keep me from my work. Under the pious, prayerful guise of religion, they were after control: Control of me. Control of the women coming to the clinic for help. Control of anyone who believed differently than they.

I had to act as if I belonged. At the edge of the crowd I began mingling, trying to fit with their body language, trying to put myself completely into the act. Being among them, brushing shoulders, and hearing their hateful, vicious lies were almost too much.

“Who is that in that car?” one would yell as the next vehicle approached the parking lot. “Stop that car!” The crowd surged toward the target, and I moved right along with them. I heard myself shouting their awful words just to play the part. Slowly I moved with the human waves, closer and closer to the building.

The nearer I got to the front the more frightening it became. How long could I keep it up? Was it the cumulative effect of being in their midst that was taking my breath away? There was sweat running down my face and my back. I knew I had to stay calm and keep acting as if I belonged. They were shouting, frenzied, on the fringe of sanity. Surrounded by them, choked by their energy, I felt claustrophobic, almost physically sick. They knew I was scheduled to arrive at the clinic soon. Any car could be carrying me.

I gained the front sidewalk. All the crowd pressure was at my back. This terrible, righteous, oblivious hatred beat against me, pounded against the building that offered me safety. So close.

Finally, I was at the front lines. I took off my sunglasses as I moved closer to the guard. He was looking right past me. I was right in his face, silently shouting with my eyes, “It’s me! It’s me!” He kept looking around me, over me, searching the crowd. Then his eyes found mine, stopped. Color drained from his face. I nodded. He lifted his outstretched arm and moved slightly to the side, opening up a path that I darted through.

Five steps from one world to another. I gulped in a huge breath. I had been holding my breath for a long time. It was all I could do to stumble up the steps and pound on the door. A staff person recognized me and threw open the door. I never looked back, couldn’t face the vision of what I’d come through.

Once inside I couldn’t go any further. I tore the wig off and collapsed on a flight of stairs. Great, whooping sobs racked my body. Makeup ran in streaks down my face. All the bravado and fortitude I’d summoned to protect myself deserted me, turning to unbelievable relief and fatigue. And I couldn’t stop crying.

Never again. Never again, I kept thinking.

A woman came down the stairs and sat next to me. She had no idea who I was, what I’d been through, but she put her arm around me and rocked, holding me like a child as I sobbed. We sat together, strangers consoling one another.

Two hours later that same woman was on the operating table, one of my patients, and it was my turn to help her through her ordeal. I was struck again with the affirmation that people are by and large good. I realized how important it is to trust that the good energy and kindness you put out will always find its way back to you.

Never again, I kept repeating to myself during the day. Never will I wear disguises again. Never will I hide and sneak around at crazy hours. I will not stoop to their level, play their game. I can’t live with that any longer.

The protesters had been paying attention, however. They interpreted my behavior as a statement of vulnerability and shame. They thought that I would go to any lengths to avoid confrontation. They also discovered that I was a mother with a teenage daughter, a vulnerability they might exploit.

On the morning of October 3, 1991, I woke to the sound of people shouting, “Susan kills babies!” outside our bedroom window. “Susan kills babies!” I heard again. Must be a nightmare, I thought. I’m home. I am not at work. I am in my bed, right next to Randy. But I was awake. I was in my own bed. This was real. A cold nausea swept through me. Nausea and gut-level fear.

We, the remnant of God-fearing men
and women of the United States of Amerika,
do officially declare war on the entire
child killing industry. . . . Our Most Dread
Sovereign Lord God requires that
whosoever sheds man’s blood, by man
shall his blood be shed.

—EXCERPT FROM MANUAL PUBLISHED BY
THE ARMY OF GOD, AN UNDERGROUND
NETWORK OF DOMESTIC TERRORISTS
DEDICATED TO USING VIOLENCE AS A MEANS
TO END THE PRACTICE OF LEGAL ABORTION

I
woke Randy and stopped him from turning on the lamp. He sensed the urgency in my voice and groggily began to take in the scene outside.

“Call the police. I’m going to check on Sonja,” I choked out in a whisper.

Terror hammered in my throat. I flew down the stairs to Sonja’s basement bedroom. In those slow-motion ten seconds, horrible scenarios rushed through my head. But she was sleeping soundly, completely oblivious to the obscenity outside. I kissed her, touched her warm face, and backed thankfully out of her room.

Randy met me on the stairs. “Police are on their way,” he said. We started to prowl around the house, avoiding windows. No curtains anywhere, I realized. There had never been any need for them. Our house sat in six acres of woods at the end of a driveway that itself was at the end of a three-mile dead-end road. That isolation had always been a comfort. Curtains and drapes had never occurred to me.

I found the only place without any windows at all. The shower. I sat down in the stall, hugging my knees to my chest, trying to swallow the anger and fear, fighting as hard as I could to hold on to some control.

Just the week before, our nearby town had been leafleted by the anti-abortion fanatics. They had put up “wanted” posters all over town—on cars, on bulletin boards for public announcements, even on the school grounds. There was a picture of my face with the words “Wanted for the Murder of Children.” It had caused quite a stir and a rash of letters to the editor in the local paper, most of them condemning the horrendous tactics. For the past week I had avoided going to town, afraid of people’s reactions.

The eastern sky was just beginning to lighten, and we could see shadowy figures in the yard and driveway. When headlights approached from down the road, the shapes began to move from our private land. The police cruiser came right up to the house, and when the officer came up the steps, we turned on lights for the first time, opened the door. There, on the porch, the protesters had left a white bassinet with a doll inside. The doll was wrapped in a crocheted afghan and splattered with red paint. Play money had been scattered around.

The officer was our neighbor. We all stood there looking at the garish doll, then went inside.

“How is Sonja going to get to school? I have to get to the airport. Can they do this?” I began pacing back and forth across the kitchen, seething inside. I felt an intense need to escape and outrage that this could be happening. I was used to clinic protesters, but here they were, at my house!

“These people can do this?” I kept asking. The officer seemed as much at a loss as we did. He and Randy discussed options, but I tuned them out. There was nothing reasonable about any of this. The officer eventually used our phone to call for backup. I put on coffee, comforted by that element of routine, and we sat together feeling trapped in our own kitchen.

More police cars arrived. Sonja came upstairs and got ready for school. She kept glancing to me for signals, reading my reactions. I did my best to appear calm and to convince her that everything was under control.

I toasted bagels. “Sit down and eat, Sonja. I’ll braid your hair.”

“Are you going to work, Mom?” she asked.

“Of course I’m going,” I said. “But first we’re getting you off to school.”

“How?”

“The police will escort you,” Randy interjected.

I tried to downplay the people at the end of the driveway. Then I felt an absolute desolation, a complete disconnect from everything I had ever known, while I watched Sonja’s head diminish down the driveway in the back window of a police car.

I cringed when the cruiser crept past a banner that read “Susan Kills Babies.” I could hear the shouts of the protesters aimed at my daughter. At the end of the drive several dozen antis, men and women ranging in age from twenty to sixty, videotaped Sonja’s departure while she hid her face behind a Spanish textbook.

I didn’t have to leave for several hours, but once Sonja had gone, I couldn’t restrain my need to escape. Randy volunteered to stay home for the day to watch the house.

“It’s okay,” he insisted, “you need to get to work. You have patients.”

“But what about your classes?” I asked.

“I can make the work up next week. Your patients can’t wait.”

We looked at each other for a long moment. I thought of all the ways he had sacrificed his needs and comfort for my career. His eyes held mine. I saw that he was just as appalled and just as determined as I felt.

“Okay,” I said, taking his hand and holding tight.

Two police cars escorted me down the drive after we pulled a white sheet off my car that was spray-painted with “No More Dead Babies.” At the end we confronted a mass of protesters. They parted just enough to allow the cars out, like guards at a military checkpoint, as if they were in charge, as if they controlled who came and went. In the days and weeks to follow, it became obvious that to a great extent they could, in fact, control much of our lives.

I eventually made my way to the Minneapolis airport, flew to Milwaukee, and put in two full days of work. I don’t remember the patients, the routine protesters, what the weather was like, what I wore. I remember only the preoccupation with my home and my family, the anxiety and uncertainty. How could they do this? How could they violate my home, disrupt our lives so rudely? Did the police have them out yet? How long would it last?

A dozen times each day I called home. The antis had leafleted my town again with flyers full of the usual hyperbole. “Your neighbor, Susan Wicklund, is a terrorist to the unborn. Every day she tears helpless, defenseless babies from their mother’s wombs, tears their bodies apart. . . .”

I called Mom from work and filled her in.

“Are you all okay?” she asked.

“Yes, we’re fine. Sonja got to school, and Randy stayed home.”

“Don’t worry, honey,” she said. “I’ll come over soon and help out. I don’t think I’ll tell your dad everything yet, but don’t worry. We can get past this.”

Randy stayed home a second day out of fear for our property. Little did we know that this would continue for weeks and that he would be forced to drop out of a semester of college. I tried unsuccessfully to block the insistent distractions from my mind while I worked. I used the unflappable calm of Mom’s words to steel my determination.