A carefully coiffed woman broke away from the circling line.
“Hi. I’m Betty Craft, the one who called the station, and you are?”
“Debbie Hanson.” She offered her hand. “We’re going to get a few pictures and we’d like to talk to you on camera.”
“Of course.” The woman gave a pink-lipsticked smile.
Cappy, the photographer, set up his tripod on the sidewalk. New smiles and vigor swept across the women. A happy chattering broke out and the smiles broadened each time their march took them past the camera.
“How long do you plan to picket the clinic?” Debbie asked.
“As long as it takes,” the woman told her. “It is murder, thousands and thousands of babies are being murdered. We have the pictures.”
Debbie nodded.
The temperature was already in the high nineties. It promised to hit one hundred and three.
“You better get over there now,” George Harding told her. “They’re not going to be doing much marching after noon.”
“There wouldn’t be marching at all, George, if we weren’t going to be there,” Ellen commented.
“No, they’ve been marching for quite a while,” he said. He knew that because Betty Craft called, demanding to know why no television station covered their protest.
“We are going to march until they close and we’ll go to another abortion clinic and another until they are all closed or until our legislators do something about this murder,” Betty Craft told Debbie Hanson.
“Keep it up, girls,” she called out. “No more murder. No more murder.”
They picked up the chant and the camera followed.
The interview took only a few minutes. The answers to Debbie’s questions were short and complete. She and the photographer went into the clinic before the polished woman could say anything else.
“You know,” said the woman in the white coat, “we don’t do abortions here. They don’t seem to understand. This is a family planning clinic. That’s what we do. Look,” she motioned to a table display of diaphragms, condoms and plastic packets of birth control pills.
“We show women how to prevent pregnancy, if that’s their choice. We tell them about birth control, the different types, the benefits or problems with each.”
Cappy knew the rules. He shot the diaphragm case, the pill packets and the wrapped condoms, not the unwrapped one. In the examination room, he avoided shooting the metal stirrups. They would give Carter an opportunity to made one of his jokes.
“And don’t show our clients,” said the woman who led them through the spotless rooms. They have a right to privacy. We guarantee them that. Although, it is almost impossible with those women out there.”
“Only the back of their heads, shadows,” Debbie assured her and gave a nod to Cappy which he didn’t bother to acknowledge.
“The point is we don’t do abortions and we’re serving a poor section of the city. If our clients choose to terminate pregnancy, we direct them to other support organizations. We don’t advise them. That’s their choice.” There was a haunted look in her eyes.
Debbie gave a reporter’s nod, showing neither agreement nor judgment.
“What those women are doing out there is scaring away frightened young women, children themselves. That’s our biggest problem, the teenage girls who need our help. Tens of thousands of teenage girls get pregnant every year in this country. That’s the problem, not abortion. Tell them that.”
It was going to be an easy piece to put together. A quote from each side, a few shots from inside and out. Debbie cut a transition stand-up in the clinic and moved back outside for the close.
“Got the marchers?” she asked Cappy.
He nodded, one eye glued to the camera. If the shot held, it would be Debbie slightly left of center screen with the marchers moving behind her.
She began practicing her stand-up as he fiddled.
“With what some view to be almost an epidemic of teen-age pregnancies this country, the people who run this clinic believe …”
“Ah, Miss?” came the voice. “Miss?”
She turned. Betty Craft stood there, a tight-lipped worried mouth having replaced the thin pink smile.
“Yes?”
“That thing, that thing you were saying about an epidemic.”
“Almost an epidemic is what I said.”
“Yes, well, but what does that mean?” The smile was back and it was small.
“It means a lot of young girls get pregnant who may not be able to handle it.”
“So what? Does that mean abortion is okay? Is that what it means? Because it isn’t. Abortion is never okay.”
“If you would let me finish,” Debbie said. She was anticipating the pain of holding her eyes open in the sun’s glare. There could be no squinting as she spoke to the camera, no lowering her gaze and never any sunglasses. She could feel the sweat under her arms.
Cappy waited, annoyed. It was hot and they had another story before he could break for his brown bag lunch in the photographers’ room.
Debbie gave a nod, lowered her gaze and then raised her eyes painfully wide to the camera.
“Three, two, one. The people who run this clinic believe they are offering an important service for women in this community. But other women say they want this clinic closed and plan to march until it is.
“This is Debbie Hanson for …”
Suddenly the cry went up. “Abortion is murder! Abortion is murder!”
As each woman in the short parade passed, she looked directly into the camera. Betty Craft had given the signal, a tight, clinched fist held at face level.
Cappy straightened up and gave Debbie a quick nod. Betty Craft smiled.
“Want to do another one?” Cappy asked.
Debbie shook her head. What was the use? It was the best she could do, considering the sun and Betty Craft.
“I sort of wonder something,” she said to her as she wound the microphone cord.
“Yes?” It was a smile of condescension.
“Do you have any adopted children?”
Now it was a smirk.
“Why, yes, I do. Thank you for asking.”
Ellen told her to ask that question. She said they all marched and shouted about abortion and murder and little baby fetuses with fingers and toes, but how many actually adopted any of the babies other people didn’t
