After decades of small steps and endless setbacks, America’s anti-abortion movement is poised for the possibility of a Supreme Court ruling that may seriously curtail the right to abortion.
COLUMBIA, S.C. — The first of them arrived outside the clinic past 4 a.m., before a steady rain fell and a scalding sun rose, and all along, they had prayed for a moment like this.
A majority of Americansbacks abortion rights, and Terracio believes the anti-abortion group's sidewalk coterie uses trickery, empty promises and manipulation in the guise of kindness to sway women from something they've already carefully thought through.People are also reading… As the patient walks away with the counselor, it feels as if every eye on the block has followed.
And yet, here they are, all these years later, in the fight so long some have grandchildren at their side. "They're expecting to get yelled at that they're going to hell," says 53-year-old Baumgartner, who left behind his job as a pilot to create the organization."We're here to be different." Terracio, a 45-year-old who also serves as a county councilwoman, says those due in to take an abortion pill or undergo a brief surgery have already thought through what they wanted. Nothing Baumgartner and his crew can offer, she says, will change the circumstances of the prospective mother's life.At the property's edge, no one can hear what Terracio is saying to the woman, but she is now turned away from her car toward the clinic's doors.