This Common Secret: My Journey as an Abortion Doctor

by Susan Wicklund

  The eastern sky was just beginning to lighten, and we could see shadowy figures in the yard and driveway. When headlights approached from down the road, the shapes began to move from our private land. The police cruiser came right up to the house, and when the officer came up the steps, we turned on lights for the first time, opened the door. There, on the porch, the protesters had left a white bassinet with a doll inside. The doll was wrapped in a crocheted afghan and splattered with red paint. Play money had been scattered around.

  The officer was our neighbor. We all stood there looking at the garish doll, then went inside.

  “How is Sonja going to get to school? I have to get to the airport. Can they do this?” I began pacing back and forth across the kitchen, seething inside. I felt an intense need to escape and outrage that this could be happening. I was used to clinic protesters, but here they were, at my house!

  “These people can do this?” I kept asking. The officer seemed as much at a loss as we did. He and Randy discussed options, but I tuned them out. There was nothing reasonable about any of this. The officer eventually used our phone to call for backup. I put on coffee, comforted by that element of routine, and we sat together feeling trapped in our own kitchen.

  More police cars arrived. Sonja came upstairs and got ready for school. She kept glancing to me for signals, reading my reactions. I did my best to appear calm and to convince her that everything was under control.

  I toasted bagels. “Sit down and eat, Sonja. I’ll braid your hair.”

  “Are you going to work, Mom?” she asked.

  “Of course I’m going,” I said. “But first we’re getting you off to school.”

  “How?”

  “The police will escort you,” Randy interjected.

  I tried to downplay the people at the end of the driveway. Then I felt an absolute desolation, a complete disconnect from everything I had ever known, while I watched Sonja’s head diminish down the driveway in the back window of a police car.

  I cringed when the cruiser crept past a banner that read “Susan Kills Babies.” I could hear the shouts of the protesters aimed at my daughter. At the end of the drive several dozen antis, men and women ranging in age from twenty to sixty, videotaped Sonja’s departure while she hid her face behind a Spanish textbook.

  I didn’t have to leave for several hours, but once Sonja had gone, I couldn’t restrain my need to escape. Randy volunteered to stay home for the day to watch the house.

  “It’s okay,” he insisted, “you need to get to work. You have patients.”

  “But what about your classes?” I asked.

  “I can make the work up next week. Your patients can’t wait.”

  We looked at each other for a long moment. I thought of all the ways he had sacrificed his needs and comfort for my career. His eyes held mine. I saw that he was just as appalled and just as determined as I felt.

  “Okay,” I said, taking his hand and holding tight.

  Two police cars escorted me down the drive after we pulled a white sheet off my car that was spray-painted with “No More Dead Babies.” At the end we confronted a mass of protesters. They parted just enough to allow the cars out, like guards at a military checkpoint, as if they were in charge, as if they controlled who came and went. In the days and weeks to follow, it became obvious that to a great extent they could, in fact, control much of our lives.

  I eventually made my way to the Minneapolis airport, flew to Milwaukee, and put in two full days of work. I don’t remember the patients, the routine protesters, what the weather was like, what I wore. I remember only the preoccupation with my home and my family, the anxiety and uncertainty. How could they do this? How could they violate my home, disrupt our lives so rudely? Did the police have them out yet? How long would it last?

  A dozen times each day I called home. The antis had leafleted my town again with flyers full of the usual hyperbole. “Your neighbor, Susan Wicklund, is a terrorist to the unborn. Every day she tears helpless, defenseless babies from their mother’s wombs, tears their bodies apart. . . .”

  I called Mom from work and filled her in.

  “Are you all okay?” she asked.

  “Yes, we’re fine. Sonja got to school, and Randy stayed home.”

  “Don’t worry, honey,” she said. “I’ll come over soon and help out. I don’t think I’ll tell your dad everything yet, but don’t worry. We can get past this.”

  Randy stayed home a second day out of fear for our property. Little did we know that this would continue for weeks and that he would be forced to drop out of a semester of college. I tried unsuccessfully to block the insistent distractions from my mind while I worked. I used the unflappable calm of Mom’s words to steel my determination.

  On my return to the Minneapolis airport I was completely caught up in my thoughts, anxious to see that Sonja and Randy were safe. I abandoned my usual vigilance, wondering instead how Sonja had come home from school that afternoon, whether the antis would be waiting for me at the end of my driveway.

  The elevator opened on the fifth floor of the parking garage. It struck me how empty and devoid of people it was at ten P.M. I began walking toward my car, listening to the sound of my own footsteps. I saw movement inside a van about fifty feet away. Three people emerged, two men and a woman, and they all moved purposefully in my direction. Protesters. I knew it with certainty and with a dread that filled me like ice water.

  I slowed. My first instinct was to turn and flee, to give in to the panic clawing at my insides. But I had to keep on. I couldn’t allow them that triumph, couldn’t let the fear take over. They came at me with that infuriating righteousness, that blind indignation that ignored courtesy, discretion, even law—right at me until they stood an arm’s length away. I avoided eye contact, looked at their chests, their shoes. I felt like prey.

  They began with their stream of words. The words that, by then, were stamped in my mind, words fueled with venom: “Susan, you have to stop killing babies. Susan, you are a killer of the unborn. Your victims have no say.” My name in their mouths was always the most repugnant sound. How dare they speak my name as if they knew me. Their words ran together in a meaningless babble.

  My body felt hot, as if my skin couldn’t contain the heat building inside. I knew exactly how vulnerable I was, how outnumbered, how completely ambushed I was here. I recognized two of them, protesters I’d seen regularly in Appleton, Wisconsin. One of them was a large, violent-looking man. They’ve come three hundred miles to meet me in a dark parking lot? Are these people crazy?

  I couldn’t allow them to corner me. I have to make myself big, I thought. Have to be strong and fierce. Overpowering. Can’t give in to feeling trapped, to the bone-deep panic. Inside it was as if I were exploding, this heat welling up in a volcanic, explosive rush. For the first time I looked into their faces, two feet away.

  “How dare you?!” I screamed. “How dare you?” Over and over the words came. The only words in my mind. Screaming at them. Now I was attacking, stabbing them with my eyes, speeding up, rushing at them. “How DARE you?”

  Never before had I even considered speaking to them. “HOW DARE YOU? You go to my home? You terrorize my daughter? You walk all over my land? You self-righteous, lying hypocrites! HOW DARE YOU?” Words were my only weapon, my only power, my bigness. Words and the heated force pushing them out of my body, making my body huge. HUGE!

  They stopped. Backed up. I could see shock and indecision register. They exchanged uncertain glances. Now they wouldn’t meet my eyes. I kept pushing on them, not letting up, screaming out my rage. Whenever I paused, they started their litany of damnation again, their blind catechism, but the words had lost their power. I shouted them down and pressed onward with my HUGE presence.

  Suddenly I was at my car. I unlocked the door and threw my pack inside, started to get in as I watched them over my shoulder. The attackers turned and moved toward their van. Something inside me fired, and I knew I couldn’t let them off that easil
y. I reached into my backpack and grabbed the camera.

  “HEY! I’m not done with you! I want your pictures!” I raised my arm high, then swung it forcefully downward, jabbing my finger toward the ground. “Come back here. All of you. I’m not finished!” Between words I could feel my heart racing, this rage barely containable, my body barely capable of coping. “STOP! STOP AND LOOK AT ME!”

  They had retreated to their van, clustered together in a confused clump. They hid their faces from me. I ran toward them, began taking pictures, the flash stabbing out again and again in the half-lit space. “Why are you hiding?” I screamed. “You’re so proud of what you do, right? Then look at me! LOOK AT ME, YOU COWARD!” The big man turned away, hunched over. “Show your face!! If you are so damn proud, SHOW YOUR FACE!”

  I marched back to my car, beginning to shake all over. Got to stay together. Hold it together. Inside. Lock the doors. Start up. The engine revved loudly, a noise big and powerful. Then I squealed back, straight toward the van, stopped just short of it. My heart beat like a charging horse. All the way down the spiraling ramp I laid on the horn, five floors down, loud and furious.

  Then the toll booth. Had to find money, act normally, make an exchange. Finally out in the big night, the cool air, and all the heat in me collapsed, all the torrent of emotion fell off. I managed to get on the freeway, shaking fiercely. Got to stay together. My body was still functioning, but the bigness that had empowered me dissolved.

  First exit. Can’t drive. Can’t do anything. Pulled over, actually up onto the sidewalk, stumbled out. I was crying. I sat against the fire hydrant and cried uncontrollably while people passed by. Then I started to vomit, heaving up the terrible fear inside, everything collapsing, sobbing, letting it drain away. The inner screaming subsided, my heart slowed. Periodically I retched, bringing up nothing. Inside, taking the place of heat and fear, I added another layer to my resolve.

  For weeks the siege continued. Sonja stayed with her father, David, on weekends whenever possible. David was now living in St. Paul and had remarried, but he saw Sonja regularly. The police car was her school bus many times. My mother would come to stay at the house on days when neither Randy nor I would be there. Protesters stayed outside the house day and night. They would always move aside to let me drive in, but would frequently delay or block me from leaving.

  Sometimes they would block me with their bodies; other times they’d haul in huge cement-filled barrels with trucks. Over and over they spread their leaflets around town, six miles away. They called themselves the Lambs of Christ.

  Not long before the onslaught, we had signed papers to buy an old farmstead four miles away. We were trying to sell the house we were in, but had not let the real estate agents put up “for sale” signs. Somehow, however, the antis found out. One of the members of the Lambs of Christ masqueraded as a potential buyer. She toured every room, looking at pictures of family members, checking entrances and exits, learning the layout of the house, even finding names of relatives.

  Days later I recognized our “potential buyer” as she was being arrested outside the clinic in Fargo, North Dakota.

  I often stayed alone at friends’ homes so I could be sure of getting to work in the mornings. I took a different route to and from the airport each time, sometimes driving for hours, feeling hunted, watching the cars behind me. Every time I went to my car I checked the tires, looked for nails on the ground. Each time I turned the key I waited for the bomb explosion, held my breath while the engine caught.

  The protesters became more and more bold and self-righteous. At every airport I had to run their gauntlet. Life had turned into an awful game. I couldn’t trust people, had to suspect every unfamiliar vehicle, every strange voice on the phone. Although I didn’t know it then, Shelly Shannon, the woman who years later would shoot Dr. Tiller in Kansas, was a regular at the airport and outside my home with the other Lambs of Christ.

  Journal Entry, October 16, 1991:

  Slept last night at Kathy’s. Arrived at 1:30 am after 6-hour drive from Appleton. Too many antis at the house, so Randy sent Sonja to Kathy’s and said I should go there too. Am so frustrated. So sad. So tired. Is this worth it? Am I just being a martyr?

  Pulled into the yard. Turned off the car and sat there. Numb. Strange buildings. Not home. But Sonja inside and I needed her comfort as much as she needed mine. Found my way into the house and greeted by Kathy’s mom. Talked a bit. Thanked her. Followed her to where Sonja was sleeping.

  Stripped down to t-shirt and crawled into bed. Held her. Held her and cried hot tears. No sobbing. No sound. Just rivers of tears.

  My God, she is fourteen years old. Fourteen years old and riding to school in police cars. Fourteen years old and sleeping at strange homes because her own home isn’t safe or peaceful. Fourteen years old and brave. Am I asking too much of her? Should I send her to live with her Dad? Should I quit? Will she hate me for all this when she is thirty?

  Yesterday I felt anger and determination and strength. Today I feel sad and scared and confused. Had to pull my arms away from Sonja at 5:15, shower and dress and head for the airport. The tears haven’t stopped.

  More than three weeks into this nightmare, Randy, Sonja, and I were at the house on a Wednesday night. I was due in Fargo the next morning for clinic at 9:00 A.M. The three of us only wanted a quiet family evening before I left again. Just one night to have supper together and gather our thoughts.

  A great many protesters began collecting outside. We saw a motor home pull up at the end of the drive and then groups of men moving huge cement barrels into place to block our way out. This can’t happen, I told myself. I called the police and pleaded with them to come and help. I was told that it was too dangerous for the officers to come in the dark and try to remove the barrels or make arrests. The fifty or sixty protesters far outnumbered the few officers in our entire county.

  If the “problem” was still there in the morning, backup help from other counties would be called, and they would start to clear the way once it was light. They said the process could take three to four hours. It meant I wouldn’t get out in time to make the four-hour drive to Fargo.

  Prisoners in our own home! What if there was a fire or if one of us needed emergency medical help? These people were allowed to break the law and hold us hostage because it was dark outside and they outnumbered the police!

  I began pacing around the house. I will not let this happen, I repeated over and over. I had fifteen patients scheduled for the next day, and I was determined to get there. Many of those patients would be traveling four to six hours themselves, missing work or school to go to the appointment, having to arrange child care or a ride or deal with any number of other obstacles. Besides, missing clinic would be a major victory for the protesters. That was not an option.

  I made a phone call to a woman in town who had given me her home number and offered help. This would be an extraordinary request, and I woke her up to ask for it, but she agreed.

  For the protesters’ benefit we played out our normal nightly routine. I didn’t tell Sonja anything, but saw her to bed as usual, holding her much longer than normal to say good night, fighting back the lump in my throat. I prepared the coffee pot for the morning. Randy and I brushed our teeth and had lights out by 9:30.

  We were lying on top of the bed covers, talking quietly about the details of my plan. I’d be on foot and would meet my friend at a set point on a nearby town road. She’d drive me to our pickup truck, which was parked at a nearby stable where we boarded a few horses. Once I got to the truck, I would drive through the night to Fargo, perhaps catching some sleep at a rest area.

  After talking through the details one more time, we lay quietly in the dark. Throughout all of this Randy had been unwaveringly steadfast, completely supportive. He never questioned my commitment, never even hinted that I should quit my work. But I felt the rush of his anxiety when I asked him to get the pistol out of the drawer.

  In a lifetime around guns I
had never carried one for self-defense. I had never even loaded a gun inside a house before. But I loaded this one.

  For a brief moment as I was leaving the bedroom I wondered how crazy I must be, how insane my life had become. But my momentum carried me out the bedroom door and down the stairs to the back door, ready to step out into the night.

  Randy had followed me. He stopped me and quietly wrapped his arms around me. We held each other fiercely, silently.

  “Call me when you get to Fargo,” he whispered.

  I stepped back, slung my clothes bag over one shoulder, and held the loaded pistol in both hands.

  As soon as I was out the door, l listened intently for strange noises. Noises that didn’t belong in a backyard and woods at night. I grew up in the country. Night sounds are generally comforting to me, and those were all I wanted to hear. Nothing more.

  Once my eyes had adjusted to the dark and the roar of my heartbeat had quieted, I took two tentative steps away from the side of the house. I had my route planned exactly—down hill on a very narrow, brushy trail that I knew well, down to the edge of a swamp, then along the river on the old trail until I came to the dirt road. There was a turnaround where I’d wait in the ditch for my ride.

  The plan was great in theory, but my legs were weak with fear. I wasn’t sure I could get beyond those first two steps. Why was I doing this? For the patients? For the principle? To prove something? I went through all the things I’d thought about earlier and came to the same conclusion: I absolutely couldn’t let the antis have the victory of keeping me from clinic for even one day. A victory for them would fuel their flames, and they’d increase the pressure even more. I had to keep one step ahead, even when it meant resorting to the sort of tactics I’d never wanted to use again.