Hunting Humans in the Name of the Lord
Operation Rescue known stalkers and murderers of doctors and medical care providers, has uncovered the identity of a female abortion services provider who went to great lengths to conceal her identity.
Dr. Clara Taylor, who wears a mask to avoid becoming the next Dr. Tiller, travels to dangerous parts of the country to provide abortion services to underprivileged women:
Clara Taylor, whose name has been changed to protect her identity, is a family doctor licensed to perform abortions in five states. Known as “fly-ins” or “circuit providers,” doctors like Clara travel to work in clinics that can’t find local doctors willing to do the procedure. Though there are no official figures on fly-ins, or on the overall number of physicians who do abortions, Clara estimates that there are about 100 doctors in the US who, like her, are willing to work in places other doctors simply won’t.
~snip~
Instead of holding down a traditional full-time job, Clara flies every week to one of two states, for two to four days at a time. But a traditional full-time job was never something Clara desired. She had been a hospital administrator in New York for many years when she realized she wanted closer contact with patients. At the age of 39, she enrolled in medical school, then worked in southern Africa for six years running an HIV clinic.
After she returned to the US two years ago, she received an email, via a listserv for abortion providers, about a job opportunity to staff clinics in need of doctors. It was from a budding placement program called “Goose,” perhaps because it helped doctors fly, and was run out of Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains. Clara began flying to the Midwest twice a month. Last year, via another job announcement, she added a second clinic to her circuit, this one in the Deep South.
Clara’s unconventional career choice stems from what she describes as a deep-seated desire to “save the world.” But by electing to leave her home city for parts of the country where people are less hospitable to abortion, she has sacrificed her schedule, her personal life, her salary, and even her health care (she is considered a consultant, not an employee). “I don’t have benefits,” Clara says with a laugh, “but I do have frequent-flyer miles.”
~snip~
Clara thought all clinics would be just like the Midwestern Planned Parenthood, so she had no reservations about taking a second job at another clinic in the Deep South last fall. But she quickly discovered that her two workdays were very different. The first time she drove up to the front gates of the clinic, around 20 protesters were waiting for her, many of them holding cell phones, the cameras aimed at her and ready to shoot.
They wanted her face. They shouted; they sang hymns; but mainly, they wanted to get a good look at Clara, immortalize the image in digital form, and post it on anti-abortion websites like Operation Rescue. Since this clinic didn’t provide Clara with a ride past the protesters, she couldn’t take her eyes off the road by hiding her face in her turtleneck as she drove past.
By Thanksgiving weekend of 2010, Clara hatched a plan. During a stay at a family home in a Northeastern coastal village, she decided to come up with a disguise before returning to work in the South. Unfortunately, it was the off-season; the Halloween stock at the area’s only costume purveyor was stashed away in favor of plastic Santas and, this being a beach town, swimsuits.
“Do you have any Halloween masks?” Clara asked the store clerk desperately. She needed something that would hide her long hair, and something with big enough eyeholes that she could see while driving.
Clara tried on a few options before narrowing them down. At first, she considered wrapping herself in a burka, which hid her hair without obstructing her eyes. But something about dressing in others’ cultural garb made her hesitant. Next, she slipped on a Sarah Palin mask, but quickly nixed the idea. “I don’t want to promote Sarah Palin in any way,” she says.
At last, the clerk handed her a flaccid, pale man’s face with deep-set eyes and a receding curly red hairline. It was Larry from The Three Stooges. Clara tucked her mane into her coat and then slipped the mask over her head.
She looked in the mirror and didn’t see herself at all. For a comedian, Larry is awfully creepy, she thought.
A week later, Clara was back in the South, only that time, as she drove past the protesters into the lot, she looked them right in the eyes. One by one, their cell phones snapped photos of Larry Fine.
It’s the end of a recent workday in the South. As Clara, mask-clad, walks out to her car, she hears something unexpected from one of the protesters.
“God doesn’t have that much patience, Dr. Taylor.”
They know her name.
Clearly, Teabilly pro-life evangelists are nothing if not obsessive, and they have apparently made a connection between Dr. Taylor and whatever Dr. Taylor’s real name is (or, at least, whatever they think it is.) Not only that, in a move straight from a mob movie, they have found and “outed” this woman’s mother:
Freedom from relationships made it easy for Dr. X to travel abroad providing abortions in third-world African and South American countries. But in 2004, it was her relationship with her aging mother, who she strongly resembles, that brought her home. X continues to stay with her mother, X Mom, Professor of Anthropology, Emerita at Harvard University, at her home in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Abortionists don’t deserve anonymity,” said Operation Rescue President Troy Newman. “It keeps them from being held accountable for their actions. In some states, patients aren’t even told the full names of their abortionists and when things go wrong, women don’t even know who to file a complaint against.”
Identifying abortionists has helped Operation Rescue and other pro-life groups to warn women of abortionists with histories of abortion abuses.
People who are proud of their work are willing to put their names on it. People who are ashamed or are trying to get away with something, like bank robbers and abortionists, wear masks.
That these people cannot make the connection between “Crazy Assholes Trying to Kill Abortion Services Providers” and “Abortion Services Providers hiding their identity” is astonishing.
Moreover, likening bank robbers to abortionists is perhaps the biggest failure of logic since the last time Sarah Palin strung two words together.
Yes, Crazy Person — abortion services providers are exactly like bank robbers: Bank robbers are “trying to get away with” robbery while abortion service providers are “trying to get away with” NOT BEING MURDERED BY YOU CRAZY ASSHOLES.
These people are lunatics and should be locked up.
[via Jezebel]
[cross-posted at Angry Black Lady Chronicles]
rikryah
they hate women
Amanda in the South Bay
How are these people not terrorists? Oh yeah, that’s right, they are Christians.
Ruckus
They say there is no sharia law here.
They say they don’t want sharia law here.
And they practice exactly the opposite of what they say they want.
balconesfault
Wheres RICO when you need it?
Chuck Derperton
RICO statutes etc. exist right?
gnomedad
They make the connection just fine.
The Snarxist Formerly Known As Kryptik
None dare call it terrorism.
I’m sure Congress is just peachy keen with these guys’ work too. You know, considering they just had the House pass a bill that will allow doctors to let women die on the goddamn hospital floor if they require an emergency abortion. You know, Pro-life.
Gravie
The anti-abortion stalkers are monsters who use this cause to justify their insanity. They LIKE having people in the crosshairs.
Ash Can
These people are terrorists and need to be treated as such by all levels of government and law enforcement.
Catsy
@Ruckus:
The only reason American theocrats hate Sharia law is because they consider it copyright infringement.
HelpThe99ers
That’s why groups like Voice of Choice can play an important part in the debate.
If abortion providers should be held accountable for their actions, so should their protestors.
Rick Massimo
Ah, but just because THOSE crazy assholes murdered someone doesn’t mean these crazy assholes will. You can’t hold everyone in a movement responsible for the actions of a crazy few.*
(* This rule applies to Christianist conservatives only, of course.)
The Snarxist Formerly Known As Kryptik
@Ash Can:
Problem is everyone knows that terrorists are brown. You know, those swarthy types. These folks are just good ol’ Americans who can’t possibly be terrorists because they ain’t dark ’nuff.
Citizen Alan
When I read things like this, I often wish Obama hadn’t even tried to close Gitmo. He should have picked up Scott Roeder on domestic terrorism charges, had him shipped down to Gitmo with a bag over his head, and water-boarded his ignorant, hateful ass until he signed confessions naming every single Operation Rescue member he knew of (or “knew of”) who had supported his terrorism. Then, Obama should have rounded those fuckers up and done likewise, until either the Republicans in Congress demanded that Gitmo be shut down or until there were no Operation Rescue freaks left to round up.
The Snarxist Formerly Known As Kryptik
@Citizen Alan:
What part of ‘Only brown people can be terrorists’ do you not understand?
Zifnab
Maybe if we could somehow link Operation Rescue to Iran – then we could get some serious police action.
Wlmo
When I read stories like this, I understand how civil wars start. Because I could calmly shoot every last one of these inbred motherfuckers in the head.
Joseph Nobles
Held accountable for her actions????
Her actions are LEGAL. Her actions are between her patients and herself!
Statements like that should be prima facie evidence of conspiracy to commit murder and/or assault.
Ivan Ivanovich Renko
@rikryah: And I hate them. With the heat of a fucking supernova.
Barry
@Amanda in the South Bay: “How are these people not terrorists? Oh yeah, that’s right, they are
Christianswhite.”Corrected
Barry
@Citizen Alan: @Citizen Alan: “When I read things like this, I often wish Obama hadn’t even tried to close Gitmo. He should have picked up Scott Roeder on domestic terrorism charges, had him shipped down to Gitmo with a bag over his head, and water-boarded his ignorant, hateful ass until he signed confessions naming every single Operation Rescue member he knew of (or “knew of”) who had supported his terrorism. Then, Obama should have rounded those fuckers up and done likewise, until either the Republicans in Congress demanded that Gitmo be shut down or until there were no Operation Rescue freaks left to round up.”
Seconded.
arguingwithsignposts
@HelpThe99ers: Could that web site be any more from 1996?
waving flag gif? check
Red text on blue background? check
All caps calligraphy font? check
tables for positioning? check
(nothing against the idea the organization is doing, but, wow)
julie
how long till Bill O’Reilly takes up the mantle and calls for the killing of this lady doctor like he did for Dr Tiller? O’Reilly was unrelenting…for 4+ years…..until someone in his audience actually carried out the charge and murdered Dr Tiller.
we need to keep these docs safe.
SteveinSC
Thank you Jesus! for helping us find this sinful woman. Now in the name of Christian love she must be put to death, according to Proverbs 28:3-13. And at no extra cost we find that Orthodox Jews pray 5 times a day just like the Mooslims, which might explain where these deluded loons got it from.
AxelFoley
Is that a bullet or a dildo in that cartoon?
HelpThe99ers
@arguingwithsignposts:
The man who started the organization did so because protesters showed up in front of his kid’s school, with a banner calling him out by photo, name and phone number.
He was interviewed on Rachel Maddow’s show, because he came up with the idea to counter-protest by recruiting volunteers to phone the protesters individually and talk to them.
His website might be crude by current standards, but he’s come up with an elegant method of engagement.
PIGL
@Citizen Alan: I would have absolutely no problem with this. The cats of arbitrary detention and torture are out of the bag. We may as well oppress our enemies out of existence, because they sure as fcuk will stop at nothing.
Wordsmith
@rikryah:
Simply put, that’s it, rikyrah.
Bo Alawine
It’ll only get worse here in MS should this benighted state pass the Personhood Amendment this November.
suzanne
GOD. Just… GOD.
I feel like going and getting an abortion out on the sidewalk in front of the clinic just so scumbags like this would have to watch.
joel hanes
This post motivated me to get off my butt and to use my employer’s gift-matching program to drop a pretty good sum on my local Planned Parenthood regional development center.
burnspbesq
@balconesfault:
Here’s what you have to prove.
Go to it. Good luck.
burnspbesq
@Citizen Alan:
Nice to see that your commitment to civil liberties and the rule of law is so unshakable.
rb
@The Spy Who Loved Me: go jump off something tall.
rb
.
Jebediah
@The Spy Who Loved Me:
How so? Does her existence (a good thing) mean that women should not have autonomy over their own bodies? That isn’t a ponderable; it is a simple yes or no. Women own their own bodies or they do not.
Darkrose
@The Spy Who Loved Me: Seriously? You’re actually making that argument?
No one of importance
@The Spy Who Loved Me:
And if your mother had been a bit more adept with a wire coat hanger, we wouldn’t be subjected to your drivel now.
Something to ponder.
The Spy Who Loved Me
@Darkrose:
I’m not making an argument, just an observation. I’m pro-choice, but I can sympathize with those that are not and understand their position. I’ve got a couple of friends that are very active with pro-life organizations, and both of them were adopted. They both admit that the fact that their birth mothers chose life has a huge bearing on their beliefs.
Firebert
@The Spy Who Loved Me: Concern troll is concerned.
Xenos
Talk about being 2000-and-late. Concern trolling is a pretty pathetic hobby, but this is truly a lame attempt. This script is right out of 2003-era whingeing about how gay marriage would make society collapse, or some-such.
Darkrose
@The Spy Who Loved Me: It’s a ridiculous observation. “How would you feel if you’d never existed?”
Interrobang
I’m adopted and my reaction to finding out that my birth mother was statutorily raped*, and then the state made her have the baby, was rage. I was furious at the assholes in the government who decided for my tiny little hundred-pounds-after-she-had-a-kid, didn’t have the hips to carry me to term, birth mother that she had to risk her fucking life to have me. Honestly, I wasn’t worth someone else nearly dying for me to come into the world.
Nobody ever thinks about that perspective when they use the “But what if your mother had aborted you?” bogosity.
______________
* By a thirty-some-odd year old douchebag who apparently couldn’t keep it in his pants and knocked up a seventeen year old girl — under the current laws of my jurisdiction, that’s a jail term. Yes, I just called my biological father a douchebag, and if I were to meet him, I’d call him worse to his face.
No one of importance
@Interrobang:
I also love the idea that the *only* reason a woman bears a child to term and adopts it is because the law and morality forces her to. Like, no woman, given the choice, will decide to carry the child for her own reasons. So of course, ABL’s birth mother would *certainly* have aborted her, not adopted her, even though ABL is young enough that her birth mother possibly did have a safe choice, and chose to carry her to term.
Fuckers who don’t understand the word ‘choice’ should never describe themselves as pro-choice. And fuckers who can ‘understand’ the screaming loons who want women to act as mobile, unwilling incubators, are pro-nothing except keeping women under control.
I’m so sorry your mother went through that experience, and I share your rage. ABL’s birth mother gave the world a great person, and I sincerely hope it was her free choice to do so.
TenguPhule
So list the names and addresses of Operation Rescue’s biggest names and donors. And provide helpful cross hair displays for emphasis.
If one side is destined to be slaughtered, let it be the other one.
TenguPhule
Seconded, only I’d aim lower. Bleeding out through the groin is apparently a horrible way to die.
ppcli
@The Spy Who Loved Me:
“ABL was adopted. If her birth mother had chosen abortion, she wouldn’t exist. I wonder if she ever thinks about that, and is grateful that her birth mother chose life? Something to ponder.”
God this argument is moronic. Even more than most issuing from this quarter. Direct analogy: I was born to a teenage unwed mother. I love my life, so I suppose in some sense I’m glad that my mother had sex at seventeen, without birth control, despite the untold hardship and grief it caused her back in 1959. Therefore I am supposed to be in favor of teenagers getting pregnant at 17? That I should be opposed to birth control and encouraging teenagers to wait until they are older to have sex? That I should regard teenagers abstaining from sex as intrinsically bad?
Move on to the next stupid argument please.
Julia Grey
If people don’t exist, they don’t have a problem with not existing.
Idiot.