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    On the frontline: 12 hours in a besieged abortion clinic

    Rachel is a doctor who provides abortions. She commutes 10 hours each way to work in an area of Alabama that would otherwise not provide the procedure at all
    by Vegas Tenold and Glenna Gordon in Montgomery, Alabama Jul 24, 2019 9 minutes
    A patient undergoing an abortion procedure at the Reproductive Health Services clinic in Montgomery, Alabama. Photograph: Glenna Gordon/The Guardian

    Rachel hunches down in the seat of a Chevrolet rental, adjusting her disguise in the mirror. She pulls down a fedora to partly cover her face, but isn’t convinced it offers enough cover. She puts on a pair of oversize sunglasses.

    While the combination conceals her face, it is also not an inconspicuous sight in the pre-dawn Friday hours in a run-down neighborhood in Montgomery, Alabama.

    “I feel like I should have a fake mustache,” she says. “What do you think?”

    Rachel is a doctor who provides abortions, and if recent history is any guide, a disguise may not be a bad idea. Since 1993, anti-choice extremists in the US have killed 11 people, including four doctors.

    Performing abortions can put a serious dent in doctors’ careers; many have been banned, fired or have had job offers rescinded. Fearing for their safety, some doctors have even made the decision to arm themselves. For those reasons, abortion clinics struggle to find local doctors willing to assume those risks.

    This is the American reality that forces medical professionals to travel hundreds of miles in order to provide basic healthcare to women.

    Alabama recently passed one of the most draconian abortion laws in the country, which would have made it a crime for doctors to perform abortions during any stage of the pregnancy unless the woman’s life was in danger. The law has been challenged in court, and as of now, abortions are legal before 20 weeks in Alabama.

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