By Rachel Kahn
In the wake of the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh (“carpool dad” and anti-abortion trash bag) to the Supreme Court, Abortion Access Front took to downtown Detroit to keep that fight going. Kavanaugh was one of the judges who ruled against an undocumented 17 year old’s right to access an abortion, but at least he coaches kids’ basketball!
Given the avalanche of shit that’s been tumbling down from the highest court in our nation’s judiciary, staying angry, active, and informed is more important than ever. So, along with a dedicated crew of volunteers, Abortion Access Front became a Human Fake Clinic. The Human Fake Clinic comes complete with all the parts of a fake clinic we know and despise: a purposefully misleading name, spooky pamphlets, M.D.-less “doctors,” and a dollop of sugary-sweet fake compassion on top to mask the taste of deceit. Plus, 20 people dressed like a brick wall!
The Human Fake Clinic action works by taking a volunteer from the crowd and guiding them through the process of what it would be like to go to a fake clinic. First they meet a receptionist who gives them a “medical-grade pregnancy test,” which we learn from the Tour Guide is exactly the same as one you’d get from CVS-- it’s all part of the ruse to make the clinic seem like a medical facility.
The receptionist takes the volunteer’s belongings and clothes and sends them in to be examined by “somebody.” A person in a lab coat performs an ultrasound on the volunteer and says “there’s your baby!” Big red flag. But what’s scary is, at this point, even if the volunteer had caught on to the fact that this clinic was fake af and probably not gonna give them the abortion they came for, all their clothes and belongings are gone. Plus, they’re lying on a table covered in ultrasound goo.
Sadly, we all know what happens next: the non-doc tells the patient that they can’t recommend or refer abortion, says some literal lies about the side effects of abortion (depression and breast cancer, anyone?) and tells the volunteer to come back in three weeks-- easily long enough to push them past the cutoff for legal abortions in their state.
For those of us who have been lucky enough never to have stumbled into one of these dens of deception, witnessing firsthand what it would be like is truly terrifying. And with Kavanaugh’s nomination and the looming possibility of Roe v. Wade being overturned, the presence of these miserable ministries becomes even more daunting-- if we don’t stop Basketball Bro over here from getting onto the Court, give it a few years and they could be our only options.