RIGHT AWAY, THERE WERE PLENTY OF REASONS TO FEEL UNEASY about the women’s clinic where I worked in North Carolina. The owner lived in the clinic and came out of her room every couple of days, disoriented by drugs of some sort, presumably sleeping pills. She would slur on about being protected by fairies and a few other oddities that …
Quitter of the Month: Margie Gintoli
I remember the dirty street corner in New York City very well on that cold November day in 1973, and the feeling of being scared for what I was about to do. My 17-year-old boyfriend and his buddy had picked me up early in the morning at the house of a girlfriend I stayed with the night before, and we …
Quitter of the Month: Alicia Davis
THE NUMBER OF DANGERS—AND MAYBE EVEN CRIMES—perpetrated against the women of our community in Charlotte, North Carolina by the owner of the reproductive clinic where I worked are staggering. I watched, along with my coworkers, as she facilitated abortions for minors and sex trafficking victims, presented herself and functioned as a licensed nurse when she was not, found it unnecessary …
Quitter of the Month: Sue Thayer
*Note: The stories shared by And Then There Were None about the courageous Quitters of the abortion industry are deep, personal, and sometimes very raw testimonials of the lives of those who have worked behind the scenes of abortion and have come out on the other side, often wounded, but nevertheless triumphant. We begin this year with a diversion from …
Quitter of the Month: Annette Lopez
Annette Lopez with Dave Franco I LIKED WHAT I DID FOR A LIVING. Between 2005 and 2010 I was working for the Planned Parenthood Los Angeles Teen Center seeking out schools and organizations that would allow me and the other educators in the office to make presentations about sex to middle and high school aged kids. Kids needed, especially in …
Quitter of the Month: Annette Sosa-Rodriquez
In the driver’s seat of the van that drove us deep into the heart of Texas in sweltering summer heat was a white girl driving and talking to her white co-passenger about Pokemon Go. The rest of us black and brown girls sat in the back not entirely sure if where they told us we were going was actually where …
Quitter of the Month: Sonia Torrez
When my husband started going to church after his mom passed away, I began to go with him despite not wanting to attend. That is when everything began to change for me; when my heart could no longer accept where I was in the world, and what horrors I was seeing and contributing to day after day. Of course, there …
Quitter of the Month: Shelley Guillory
You would think that a clinic that was going to lie about what they hired you for might wait a little bit before revealing the truth. But it was on my very second day that I drove up and saw a packed parking lot. “All these ladies are here for contraception? Is there a run on the stuff?” I said …
Quitter of the Month: Noemi Padilla
The tragedy of working at the women’s clinic is how slowly but surely they took me away from me. It’s slow enough that you can’t see it coming, and slow enough to put the fear of God in you with the eventual realization that the person you’ve become is now the real you. Of course, it didn’t start out that …
Quitter of the Month: Myra Neyer
The day that I heard my coworker gasp loudly was a fateful one. I was just outside the room where she was performing an ultrasound on a young, shy, petite black girl. Wondering what would make her react that way, I ran in to find her with her hand over her mouth, staring at the screen. I quickly stepped around …