The Women's Clinic
By Dr. Brian Taylor

There is a playground by the Women's Clinic. The playground is filled with swings, seesaws, slides, brightly colored plastic tunnels, and all the trappings used to delight children. It has abundant space for running, jumping, game playing, and all the carefree adventures of childhood. Yet, it is cold and strangely uninviting. Nearly encased in the shadow of the Women's Clinic at sunset on this cold December day, it is empty. An eerie silence fills the air. Only the occasional squeak of a rusted swing moving listlessly in the frigid breeze and the rustle of dead leaves on the ground can be heard. I have never seen a single child in this playground. I realize this and stop my walk to consider it.

There are no Christmas lights hung on the doors or windows of the Women's Clinic. The surrounding shops bustle with people busying themselves with Christmas preparations. They exchange warm greetings-words of concern and cheer. Bright shop-window displays beam gaily in the glow of Christmas lights hung merrily along the street. The cold brick structure of the Women's clinic absorbs the light from the rest of the street in its grim, resolute darkness. People hurry by the Women's Clinic on their way back to hearth and home where warmth and the smiling faces of family await. Some cross the street to avoid the Women's Clinic. This strikes me.

The shutters are never open at the Women's Clinic. They remain defiantly closed even in the morning, shutting out the brilliant sunrise flooding the town, as if they are protecting a secret within. I realize I have never seen an open shutter at any time of day at the Women's Clinic. What business goes on there that has to continually shut out the light?

The entrance is at the rear of the Women's Clinic. The other businesses and professional offices in town have their entrances on the busy main street. I am drawn into the empty playground next to Women's Clinic. I cross the street. The sound of Christmas carolers fades as I approach the foreboding brick structure. I peer over the motionless swings into the rear parking lot of the Women's Clinic. A young woman is being assisted into a car. She is silent. Tears steadily flow from her glazed eyes. The relief of the moment is evident in the motion of the man who helps her into the car. Their car glides away slowly into the darkening night, pregnant with the slow realization of the horror of their decision and the lifetime of consequences. This is the legacy of the Women's Clinic.

No smoke ever rises from the chimney of the Women's Clinic. Pointing heavenward, the chimney marks the path of the many souls coldly dispatched at the Women's Clinic. Souls who will never see Christmas lights, hear a Christmas carol or know the warmth of family eager for them to enter the world for which they were intended. Souls that will never have a chance to play in the playground next to the Women's Clinic. I realize then-I am not standing in a playground. The equipment surrounding me is not for the play of living children but rather a memorial to all of the children who lost their lives at the Women's Clinic. I am standing in a graveyard. I wind my muffler tighter and turn into the frigid breeze, realizing at once that it is not responsible for the cold chill penetrating my body. I remember my own son, Christian, who lost his life at a women's clinic much like this one several years ago. The familiar grief washes over me as my warm tears spill into the cold night. I long for the sound of a child laughing that I will never hear, to feel hair that I will never tussle-to know my son who I will never see on earth.

Someone must tell people about the horror of the Women's Clinic. As I make my way home to my wife and children, with a new snowfall stinging my face, I ponder the tragedy of the Women's Clinic and what transpires there everyday.

Copyright © 2002. All rights reserved. International copyright secured. Used with permission of Focus on the Family.

Brian Taylor, M.D., lives with his family in Puerto Rico, where he practices emergency medicine. He wrote this piece of prose in response to the impressions the abortion clinic forever engraved on his memory