A Book of American Martyrs(54)
My work is—theoretical! No one even knows my name. But “Dr. Gus Voorhees” is a name everyone knows.
That’s a mistake. I’m sorry about that. But I’ve been moving around. I don’t stay in one place. And when I leave a clinic, things quiet down—as in Grand Rapids.
All I can think is if that bomb had gone off today, your children wouldn’t have a father.
I’ve told you, it wasn’t a bomb—actually.
What was it then?
A clumsy threat. A mockery.
A mockery?
A Bible verse . . .
A Bible verse?
A hand-printed message taped to the alarm clock—“Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image.”
That’s a threat . . .
Of course it’s a threat. But I am not “threatened.”
Gus, you have to report that to the St. Croix police! The Michigan State Police . . .
We’ve reported other threats. The police know.
What other threats?
Anywhere. Everywhere. Abortion clinics. The police know, including the state police.
But this threat, today . . .
There are hundreds—thousands—of threats against abortion clinics. We’re not going to back down.
The staff at the Center—how must they feel!
I’ve told them I would understand if anyone wants to quit. And I’m sure that there will be some . . .
Well—other doctors quit, who’ve been doing what you’ve been doing for more than ten years. You’d promised—after Saginaw . . .
But not immediately.
A year? Two years?
Two years is too soon. That isn’t realistic.
You will say—“Three years is too soon!” Your children should mean more to you than these strangers . . .
Of course they do. Don’t be ridiculous, Jenna.
I’m not being ridiculous! There have been abortion doctors murdered—clinics bombed. It will happen again, such terrible things are said on television, that should be outlawed . . .
There are people who support us, too. We have many supporters. Try to see this as a mission—that will have an end, in another five years perhaps . . .
Five years! That is wholly unrealistic. The first thing Reagan said when he was inaugurated was, he intended to reverse Roe v. Wade . . .
But it didn’t happen. It won’t happen.
It certainly can! If the Republicans get a majority—if there’s a Republican President . . .
Look, Jenna: our children will see that we have beliefs. That we don’t give up.
On your grave marker, will that be the epigraph?
DARREN BROUGHT the kayak safely back to the dock. Nimble as a monkey he climbed out of the shaky boat as we all applauded.
By 3:30 P.M. we’d returned to St. Croix. By then, the Chevy station wagon was ready for our mother to pick up.
On the left side of the driver’s windshield was the new inspection sticker for 1997.
“NO GOOD DEED GOES UNPUNISHED”: A PERSONAL TESTIMONY
AUGUST 2006*
Dr. Voorhees!—please help me.
They came to him in desperation. They came to him after dark and sometimes they came in disguise.
It didn’t matter where, really. You’d think so, but no.
As likely in Ann Arbor or Detroit as in some small town like St. Croix or Muskegee Falls, Ohio.
If the clinic was open until 6:00 P.M. they might come then. When the protesters had gone home.
Sometimes one was waiting in the parking lot. Just—standing there, waiting.
His car which was usually the last vehicle in the lot. She’d be standing close by. In winter, gripping her mittened hands and her faint breath steaming.
Hello? Yes? Did you want to talk to me?—but she’d back away hurriedly. Before he could see her face she was panicked and running and gone.
In a light snowfall, her footprints just visible. Such small prints!
In the wintry dark, snow in patches on the ground. Snow in heaps. Snow glittering coldly in lights from the street.
DR. VOORHEES? Is that who you are? Please—help me . . .
She was young—just a girl. Could’ve been sixteen, fourteen.
Or, she was in her twenties. Already a mother, and fatigue in her face.
Or, she was older. Heavy face, frightened eyes. Opened mouth panting in terror of her audacity in so addressing the abortion-doctor-murderer.
In all of these, who approached him in such ways, the desperation of those who believed themselves damned.
What am I doing, what will come of this, what sin, what punishment, what shame and sorrow scathing as the fires of Hell.
Gus Voorhees had been surprised, the first several times. Astonished seeing one of those whom he recognized as a protester who’d been kneeling on the sidewalk in front of the clinic for months chanting in singsong with her comrades—
Free choice is a lie,
Nobody’s baby chooses to die.
Free choice is a lie,
Nobody’s baby chooses to die.
Earnest and maddening in seemingly tireless repetition to infinity you could not hear (except you could imagine) through the shut windows of the Clinic.
Free choice is a lie,
Nobody’s baby chooses to die.
One of those who’d brandished picket signs out on the street—magnified photos of aborted fetuses, mangled and bleeding; signs decrying the clinic staff as MURDERERS, BABY KILLERS; signs pleading DO NOT KILL YOUR BABY, GOD LOVES YOUR BABY.