The morning started with me hitting snooze a time or two, and then when I got up I checked out of the hotel and brought my bags to my car. I got coffee at 7-11 and headed for the workshop. I was a block or two away when I noticed a few women standing around in yellow smocks. I thought “oh boy, they’re going to be handing out literature,” but as I approached I saw their smocks read “Planned Parenthood Escort.” As I approached the intersection, I was astonished to see several dozen protesters reciting the rosary, along with a great big picture of the Virgin Mary and so forth. I went up to two of the escorts and asked them about it; apparently every third Saturday this group comes down after their 7:00am mass to do this. It turns out that the building where my workshop was has the surgical center for all of Planned Parenthood Southeastern Pennsylvania, and abortions are done on Saturdays…hence the protest.

I chatted with the escorts for a couple of minutes and they offered to walk me in; I didn’t think I needed it but I let them come along. They ended up leaving me, though, to join a phalanx of escorts that was hustling a young woman into the building. Most of the protesters just kept saying the rosary, but a few walked alongside the woman and begged her not to go inside. They tried to shove literature at her, but she kept her head down and ignored them. The protesters aren’t allowed into the PPSP courtyard, so once we were past the gate the escorts broke away and the woman continued inside with her male friend. I was right on their heels and I could see that the woman was crying; her friend had to go up to the receptionist because she was too upset.

I went upstairs to the workshop room and dropped off my stuff, and I took a cell phone picture looking down onto the crowd. A couple of other students were already there, and one had ended up with literature in pretty pastels while the other had been presented with a tiny stuffed dog that had a note tied around its neck saying something about “don’t kill your baby.” I decided to go back downstairs to gawk a bit (from the safety of the courtyard), and I ended up taking a couple of pictures. As others arrived for the workshop, some were escorted and some were not; the protestors were telling every female walking in - including obvious staff members - that they didn’t have to do this, etc. Another woman from the workshop had a real camera with her, and she took pictures too; I gave her my email address so I will get to see them. One workshop student who was watching with me said she wasn’t sure she wanted to be in a building where abortions were being performed, but she ended up coming in anyway. When the deaf workshop participant arrived, she was guided by several escorts and I followed her into the building because it was almost 9:00 anyway. I explained on the way upstairs what the protestors were there for.

When the workshop began, we spent the first half-hour talking about the protest. The facilitator explained that there is rationale for doing the workshop on protest weekends, and rationale for not doing so; if they are at the same time, she has reasons for warning the participants on Friday, and reasons for not doing that. She hadn’t warned us because she wanted to see how we would respond, because as interpreters we could potentially encounter things like that and it’s good to have examined your feelings beforehand.

The workshop itself was about domestic violence in the morning and interpreting practice in the afternoon. For lunch I had a roasted tofu sandwich I’d bought the night before…at 7-11 of all places! The deli case there had multiple vegan sandwiches from a Pennsylvania company called Moshe’s; I was very impressed, and the sandwich I had was delicious. When the workshop ended I hightailed it back to my car and got on the road as quickly as possible, stopping only to pay $50 (!) for parking and only once along the way for gas.