As Anti-Choice Fundamentalists Descend on Alabama, One Abortion Doctor Refuses To Be Bullied

(In These Times) Dr. Willie Parker and I both grew up in Alabama: he in Birmingham and I in Huntsville. At 52, he is eight years older than me. But our lives never intersected until now. Parker is an African-American, feminist, Christian man who provides abortions; I am a white, feminist, spiritual but non-Christian woman who defends clinics on behalf of Alabama Reproductive Rights Advocates (ARRA).

Parker travels between clinics in Alabama, Georgia and Mississippi. He is the only abortion provider in Mississipi. Targeted Regulation of Abortion Provider (TRAP) laws have shut down clinics in many states, including Mississippi, by imposing unnecessary, expensive and sometimes impossible requirements on clinics, such as minimum hallway widths. Abortion doctors face stigma and, in some cases, danger; late-term abortion provider Dr. George Tiller was murdered in Kansas in 2009 by an anti-abortion extremist.

Providers in the South are attacked by many and defended by few. But outside of the Alabama clinics a multi-racial group stands vigilant to protect our doctors, nurses, staff and patients. Parker is among a number of black abortion providers in the Deep South who are committed to reproductive justice—a concept that goes beyond abortion rights to encompass the rights to birth control and parenting, and acknowledges the racial disparities in access to these rights. He spoke to In These Times about what motivates him to do this work and how feminists can remain engaged and compassionate in the face of ongoing hostility. .............(more)

http://inthesetimes.com/article/18157/dr_willie_parker_wont_be_bullied