Chrisi West, who volunteers as an abortion clinic escort, said she’s working nonstop to help educate Virginia voters on their historic chance to enshrine reproductive healthcare protections into the state constitution. Here, in her own words, she shares her story with Dogwood special correspondent Bonnie Fuller.
The worst situation that I’ve seen during my time as a volunteer escort at the Falls Church Healthcare Center abortion clinic in Falls Church, Virginia was when a little girl came in with her parents.
I think she was 12 years old, but she looked like a baby to me. She had been sexually assaulted by a family member, and she was carrying a teddy bear. It just hurt my soul.
Another grown woman drove with her parents all the way from Idaho because there was a problem with her pregnancy and she couldn’t get the care she needed there—it’s illegal.
Editor’s note: Idaho has a strict ban on abortion from conception, except to prevent the death of a pregnant person or if she has reported a rape or incest to law enforcement during her first trimester. Doctors face prison terms of two to five years for performing an illegal abortion.
The woman’s parents were afraid they could go to jail for driving their daughter out of Idaho to access abortion care. They came across the country to Virginia because they have a son here, who they could stay with.
The mother told me that the escorts and the medical providers at our clinic were doing really critical work, and she warned me that you don’t realize when they start taking your rights away—like the right to an abortion in her state—that your rights can go away really fast.
‘We’re not there to argue with them’
The people who protest outside our clinic don’t consider what somebody is going through in their life and what their economic or other circumstances are. They verbally accost everyone.
The protesters tell patients entering the clinic that they “are going to hell” and that they are terrible people. They yell that “every woman wants motherhood,” and when a woman of color gets out of the car, they will scream that “Black lives matter in the womb.”
The anti-abortion protesters—we call them “antis”—outside the clinic don’t care whether a woman is there because a fetus is unviable or a woman has become very sick during her pregnancy; they harass everybody.
They hold up these grotesque signs with photos of fetal tissue blown up. Some patients are very confused and distraught when they see the signs and are getting yelled at. They ask, “Why are they here? Isn’t this legal?” and we reassure them that abortion is legal and that we are here to get them safely into the building where they can access the care they need.
Other patients yell back at the “antis” and tell them to mind their own business, and others will just matter-of-factly walk into the building to get their abortion medication or their procedure because it’s like any basic medical care.
I’ve been a volunteer abortion clinic escort at the Falls Church for 12 years. I get up at 5:30 a.m. on two Saturdays a month to be there to help patients into the building when the clinic opens at 6:30 a.m.
I am there when it’s freezing, in my North Face coat; I’m there when it’s hot and humid and I’m sweating in workout clothes; and I’m there in the pouring rain under a huge orange poncho that reads “ProChoice Clinic Escort.”
I really like and admire the other escorts that I work with. Some of them have been doing this for 30 years. We have folks of different political persuasions; some have kids, some don’t. Some are gay, some are straight, but we’re all pro-choice.
The other escorts are all so dedicated. I am really proud to stand alongside them. We don’t engage with the “antis” at all. We’re not there to argue with them. We are there to de-escalate if any patients or their partners do respond to things they say.
In general, most of the “antis” are the same older men who have been coming for even longer than the 12 years that I have been at the clinic. There are usually 10 to 12 of them, although we can get busloads of 80 college students who will line up all around the building.
Since I’m a shift coordinator, I make sure that we have at least three escorts on to ensure that the protesters don’t block the driveway entrances and exits.
The right to get reproductive healthcare, including abortions, is so important to me because I believe that bodily autonomy is the most basic right. If you don’t have control over your own body, it’s like a form of servitude. You have no freedom.
Unless I’m a registered organ donor, other people can’t harvest my organs if I die. My body has more rights when it’s dead than I would have when I’m alive and pregnant in an abortion-ban state. Then I could be forced to carry a baby to term that I didn’t want.
From grassroots organizing to abortion clinic escorting
Ever since I was a kid, I’ve always wanted things to be fair and equitable. I wanted to take care of animals and the planet. I would make flyers with a friend of mine filled with facts about the environment and recycling, and we’d post them up in the neighborhood.
My parents divorced when I was about 12. I stayed with my dad when my mom moved to Oklahoma to be close to her family. Then, when my dad got sick, I went to live with my aunt and uncle and cousins in Virginia.
I love my aunt and uncle dearly, and they were really there for me when I needed them. Their household was pretty religious. We went to church on Sunday morning, to an evening service on Sunday, and I’d go to a church youth group on Wednesdays.
There were these church bulletins we would get that had information inserts from this very conservative Christian group called Focus on the Family, which describes itself as “helping families thrive in Christ.”
I remember reading these inserts, which talked about having lots of children, opposing gay marriage, and opposing abortion. I remember thinking that there wasn’t anything wrong with being gay and that you should only have children if you wanted to.
I didn’t agree with what I was reading, and I didn’t know at the time if I was the only one who felt this way. I didn’t have anyone to talk to about this.
It wasn’t until I went away to the University of Pittsburgh to study that I figured out who I was, and who I was, apparently, was very liberal!
When Obama announced his candidacy for the presidency, I immediately signed up to be a volunteer. I got very involved in being a grassroots organizer for his campaign. Ever since then, I’ve been politically involved and very passionate about women’s reproductive freedom.
I got really angry in 2014 when I heard that the Supreme Court, in the McCullen v. Coakley decision, had ruled against leaving in place the 35-foot “buffer zone” around abortion clinics in Massachusetts. The buffer zone protected patients and medical providers from protesters when they were trying to enter abortion clinics.
I was just tired of states trying to roll back protections for people accessing care. I decided to sign up to train as an abortion clinic escort. I felt that you can’t complain about things if you’re not going to do something to help change them
What Question 1 means for Virginia’s reproductive rights
That’s the way I feel now about working to pass Question 1 on the Virginia midterms ballot. My full-time job is as the senior communications director for REPRO Rising Virginia, which is a nonprofit that works to protect and expand access to abortion, contraceptives, and other reproductive health services for Virginians.
We’re incredibly focused on getting folks out to vote for ballot Question 1, which will amend the state constitution to protect Virginians’ freedom to make reproductive healthcare decisions (including abortion, childbirth and miscarriage care, and fertility care).
We have field organizers on the ground in every region of the state who are knocking on doors and making phone calls to educate people about what the amendment will do.
It’s a really reasonable amendment because it allows for regulations in the third trimester, but with exceptions so a pregnant person can’t be stopped from getting an abortion if their physical or mental health or life is threatened. Or if the fetus isn’t viable.
I was in a meeting on June 24, 2022, when we got the news that the Supreme Court had overturned Roe v. Wade and the Dobbs decision had come out. Someone had their phone and was like, “Oh, God, it happened.”
I was devastated. I cried.
I have two nieces—on my husband’s side—who were in high school, and I just kept thinking about how they would grow up in a country where they would have fewer rights than I did when I was their age.
I think it’s incredibly unfair, and I didn’t want to leave them this legacy. I really try to make the world a better place, and I hadn’t been able to stop this from happening.
I was surprised when I got to the clinic to do my escorting the next day. I thought the “antis” would be jubilant and that they would be very aggressive and come onto our property and harass people instead of staying on the sidewalk.
But they were actually more subdued than usual. It was like they didn’t know what to do with themselves.
I was also surprised when my aunt, who I grew up with, told me that she didn’t want the Supreme Court to have overruled Roe. She said she wanted people to make the decision about whether or not to have an abortion themselves.
I’m super open about all the work I do. My aunt and uncle aren’t excited about it, but they’re accepting.
Across the state, even in really rural areas, folks have been really receptive about Question 1. I feel really good about it. I plan to keep doing this work until the “antis” just stay home and let people access healthcare in peace.
