At 64, Paul Valette, who served 25 years in the U.S. Army, is still protecting people.
On June 18, he spent his Saturday morning much the way he’s spent hundreds over the past 15 years walking alongside women entering a Silver Spring building that is home to one of the county’s abortion clinics.
Valette is among a group of volunteer escorts who station themselves outside clinics in Silver Spring, Germantown, Rockville and Gaithersburg to serve as buffers between clinic patients and anti-abortion protesters. The escorts are affiliated with the Washington Area Clinic Defense Task Force, an all-volunteer group founded in the 1980s to promote peaceful access to women’s health clinics.
“Our focus is on the patient, on making things as easy as possible for the patients and giving the patient permission to keep moving,” Valette said. “When you’re approached on the street, your instinct is to stop and see what they want. Frequently, we have the effect of giving them permission to keep moving.”
Valette, who wore a faded orange vest that read, “Pro-Choice Clinic Escort,” was referring to anti-abortion protesters, who numbered about half a dozen on June 18. Among them was Janet Baker, 55, of Gaithersburg, who parked a van covered in posters with images of aborted fetuses and the message, “Babies are for loving,” at the entrance to the building.
Baker said she has been handing out literature outside clinics in Silver Spring, Germantown and Gaithersburg for more than 15 years. She can tell which women are going into the clinics because they have a sad, “deer-in-the-headlights” look about them, she said.
“I just hate seeing babies killed,” Baker said. “I hate seeing these little people be hurt, and their only crime is they were inconvenient in some way or another.”
Other protesters said the rosary as they paced in front of the clinic. One woman, who declined to give her name, stood on the corner asking people headed for the building if they were getting abortions.
“You can leave her alone,” she called out as one woman walked past. “She’s not going to have her baby killed.”
As women walked toward the building at 1400 Spring St., Valette asked if they needed assistance. He also told protesters who were blocking the sidewalk that they had to allow pedestrians to pass.
“We’ll say, ‘Hi, we’re volunteers here with the clinic. As you can see, we have protesters here today. I’ll be happy to walk with you,’ ” Valette said.
Task force volunteers go to clinics at the request of clinic staff, said Bill Falls, a Washington, D.C., resident who has volunteered with the group since 1995. Volunteers, who typically participate two or three times a month, go through training on the organization’s mission and on how to avoid conflict. He declined to discuss how many escorts work with the task force. There are no significant dangers for volunteers, though escorts have been injured in other parts of the country, Falls said.
The Silver Spring Planned Parenthood building, which is also home to other groups, does not have parking for its clients, so visitors either park at a meter or walk from the Metro, Valette said. That means patients have to walk half the length of the building to get inside. The sidewalk outside is public space, so the anti-abortion activists are permitted to hold signs, pass out literature and talk to people as they pass by.
Women who come to the county’s clinics for an abortion have already thought through their decision, volunteers said, adding that by the time they arrive, they do not need someone to dissuade them.
“It’s really gratifying, because you’re actually seeing the effect of what you’re doing right there when you do it,” Falls said.
jderbedrosian@gazette.net
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