Artwork above on left, by Bay Area abortion defenders Joe and Agnes Sampson, circa 1988. (Courtesy of Joe and Agnes Sampson’s personal collection), from this Ms. Magazine web page. On right is cover of Angela Hume’s new book Deep Care.
Making-Visible: Protective Presence for Abortion Access
with Angela Hume
Abortion access is about a woman’s right and ability to access needed healthcare.
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RESOURCES
Article by Lizzie Chadbourne: History Shows Community Solidarity Is Essential for Making Abortion Accessible
Dear Friends,
We would like to welcome you to a very special conversation happening Wednesday, May 8 at 7-8:30PM ET / 4-5:30 PM PT focusing on how abortion clinic defense can be understood as a form of protective presence.
We are thrilled to have Angela — who just published Deep Care; the radical activists who provided abortions, defied the law, and fought to keep clinics open — join us as our speaker. Two activists, Brenda Cummings and Lizzie Chadbourne will join us. Read about Angela, Brenda, and Lizzie below.
In Deep Care, Angela tells a story of the San Francisco Bay Area-based clinic defense movement, in which ordinary people used their bodies to defend people seeking abortions from anti-abortion extremists who, starting in the 1980s, descended upon abortion clinics, sometimes by the hundreds, to harass women, block clinic doors, and shut clinics down. Clinic defenders linked arms to form defense lines. They put their bodies between patients and "antis" to protect patients and help them get into clinics. Sometimes they used their arms to lift patients up over the bodies of antis and through the doors.
Clinic defenders played a central role in resisting the Far Right’s militant anti-abortion campaign. This event will explore how the clinic defense organization BACORR (the Bay Area Coalition for Our Reproductive Rights)—a diverse group of queer antifascists, socialist feminists, anti-imperialists, health care providers, labor organizers, trade unionists, and others—executed a creative, tactically sophisticated, and highly effective clinic defense movement with nationwide reach. Clinic defense, Angela will show, can help us understand the power of community self-defense, an essential form of protective presence.
Our last online session on Protective presence was led by Katie Loncke, who describes it as the following:
A beautiful phrase, perhaps with a double meaning. On the surface, protective presence describes a tried-and-true political activity of strategic nonviolent accompaniment, where the privilege and presence of outsiders means protection for [others].
On another level, protective presence might describe the inner, spiritual refuge that true presence offers practitioners of mindfulness who choose to engage in political nonviolence.
About Angela:
Angela Hume is a feminist historian, critic, and poet. She is the author of two poetry books, Interventions for Women (2021) and Middle Time (2016), and co-editor of the book Ecopoetics: Essays in the Field (2018). She teaches writing at University of California, Berkeley. Learn more at linktr.ee/angelahume.
Follow Angela on Instagram: @angelamhume
About Brenda:
Brenda Cummings was a key organizer for Bay Area Coalition for Our Reproductive Rights, a clinic defense organization established in the mid 1980s. She also co-founded ACCESS RJ, California's statewide abortion fund and practical support network.
About Lizzie:
Lizzie Chadbourne organizes clinic defense with NYC for Abortion Rights. She is also a public health researcher and facilitator who focuses on sexual and reproductive health, LGBTQ health, and disability justice.
Closed captioning thanks to Don Rombach.