Husband Stands Up To Anti-Choice Protesters

Some anti-choice protesters station themselves at clinic entrances to yell at and shame vulnerable patients. But recently, a husband decided to fight back.

In an essay for the Good Men Project, Aaron Gouveia explains that he and his wife sought an abortion when they found out their fetus had no bladder, no kidneys, and “zero chance for survival.” But when they arrived at the clinic, anti-choice protesters “yelled at me and my wife on the worst day of our lives.” So Gouveia took matters into his own hands, literally — he got out his cell phone and taped himself confronting them.

There’s a special awfulness to being told “You’re killing your unborn baby” when you know the fetus you’re carrying could never survive outside the womb — but the tactics of clinic protesters are just as invasive for women whose abortions aren’t for medical reasons. The women Gouveia taped claim to be concerned about women’s mental health — one mentions a link between abortion and suicide — but as Gouveia points out, they don’t seem to be all that concerned with the pain they’re causing. They clearly hope to guilt people out of having abortions, but rather than letting them have the last word, Gouveia stood up for himself and his wife and showed they have nothing to feel guilty about. In a world where the voices of anti-choicers often silence those who have had abortions, his message is a powerful one.

Confronting Life [Good Men Project]
Husband Confronts Abortion Protesters [Broadsheet]