I know, I know what it's like to come from this area, and be told that choice
is wrong. There is no way that you should be going through with this.
You're killing that person, you're killing a human being, and by definition
you're a murderer. My grandma and grandpa would travel the
country and protest out of all kinds of abortion clinics. The times that I came
to Fargo, we just had the red tape over our mouth, it said "life." Yes. And we just
had to stand there as small little children, yes. I remember sitting on
panels at church camp, telling everyone women don't deserve choice, yeah.
And now here I am, helping them make the decision.
The day we were in Fargo, North Dakota, the Red River Women's Clinic saw 23
patients and they performed 22 abortions.
The 23rd couldn't find her credit card to pay the $625 fee.
She thinks she left it at a gas station six hours away, which is not
an uncommon distance to drive for an abortion. So she'll have to come back
next week because this clinic only performs abortions once a week and it's
the only clinic in the state. The youngest woman the day we were there was
18; the oldest was 47. They came with their boyfriends, husbands, dads, and
friends. For patient confidentiality reasons, we basically filmed none of this.
But what we can show you in Fargo is a scene that plays out weekly: anti-choice
protesters outside. In your ideal world, this clinic would be closed, right? Killing
innocent human life. It's not right, it shouldn't happen.
And inside, a staff that's kept the clinic open for 20 years. We're under enormous
pressure. From the beginning of time, women have been ending pregnancies they
don't think that they can continue. And when abortion is illegal, it doesn't mean
it ends, it means that safe abortion ends. What many people don't know is that
there's already 1,200 state-level laws restricting abortion. I definitely think
that we're in the forefront with passing laws and we definitely want to be
putting some more laws into place. North Dakota has some of the strictest,
including what's called a "trigger law." If Roe v. Wade were to be overturned,
North Dakota would go to be 100 percent, you know, restricting abortions,
banning abortions, so that would obviously be the goal. But another reason
we came to North Dakota was to meet registered nurse Sarah. I come from a
huge family, I have 80 cousins just on my mother's side. We were taught that
abortion is murder and that the people who perform abortions and provide
abortions are murderers. We went protesting in the summertime
usually because, you know, we were in school. What was that like, did you
understand what you were doing? Um, I knew that I loved my grandma, and I
knew that I respected her, so of course I thought I was doing the right thing. When
we went to Wichita, that was the last time that I protested. That was my
sophomore year of high school and that is where Dr. Tiller works. He's one of
the late-term abortion doctors in the country, and he was actually murdered in
2009 in his church. So we were there protesting, and I think it was at that
point that I first started to question things because it was so crazy. Why is this
so crazy and they're just being so horrible to these women? And ugh, yeah. But
I still didn't think it was wrong. When Sarah was in college, things changed when
she helped a friend through an abortion. That was the first time that I'd ever
really thought about what it meant to be a woman and what it meant to have a
choice. Then in her mid-20s, at the beginning of a new relationship, Sarah
became pregnant herself while on birth control, and returned to the Red River
Women's Clinic for her own abortion. I had no regrets and I immediately
wanted to know how I could work here. Quit my full-time job so I could work
one day a week at the clinic. Every single time I had any interaction with
my grandma, the first thing she would say is, "What
about all the babies? Sarah Marie Haeder, do you not care about
all the little babies being killed in this world? Did you ever think about that,
that you would have to make a choice between your family and your work? Most
definitely. The women that come to this clinic need
me so I was definitely willing to sacrifice. Sarah started as a patient
educator and then returned to school to become a nurse. I would love to be
working at Red River Women's Clinic when I'm 60. I hope it doesn't change. But now
for the first time in decades, there's real discussion about whether Roe v. Wade
will be overturned if Brett Kavanaugh is confirmed to the Supreme Court. Our
senator, she is in a tough reelection campaign, and she was one of three
Democratic senators who voted for Neil Gorsuch. And so we're very concerned
about her vote. So while Tammy and clinic supporters are fighting to keep abortion
legal, anti-abortion protesters are revving up for their annual campaign: 40
Days of Life. That's 40 days of protests outside abortion clinics nationwide that
ends two days before the 2018 midterms. We're still going to have lots of, you
know, states across the country that are going to have legalized abortion even if
we do see the reversal of Roe v. Wade, but we hope here in North Dakota that we
wouldn't be one of them. It's the flyover country,
it's where women's rights have really been used as political tools. It's hard
to have this argument because it seems like the compromise is at an impasse.
Sarah's grandmother now has Alzheimer's. As horrible as the disease is, it means
she can't remember what Sarah does for a living, so the two women once again are
able to have a relationship. Only within the last year or two have I been able to,
like, sit down and have a great conversation with her just about regular
things in life. I feel like our movement is resilient.
Women are still gonna have abortions. We just have to decide whether America is
going to continue to care, and love, and respect us by allowing abortion to be
safe and accessible.