anti-abortion protesters are lunatics.

okay, perhaps not ALL of them are crazy.

but i would bet my next paycheck that a hefty percentage are at least mildly unstable.

s and i escorted at the abortion clinic today.

this means we helped women get from their cars to the clinic door without first getting accosted by the anti-choice protester who tries to hand them fistfuls of nasty pamphlets filled with pictures of bloody, dismembered baby parts.

the toenail-painted hat lady doesn't look like the protesters on the news, those mostly men, holding horrible posters of dead babies while screaming "murderer" in women's faces. the hat lady doesn't carry big posters. she wears gingham sundresses and lipstick and pink toenail polish. she wears widebrimmed sunbonnets decorated with floppy, oversized bows. she is petite and even kind of puny. she's married to the president of the alabama christian coalition. she carries a bible with her, and usually a hymnal, and all morning she stands on the sidewalk outside of the clinic, softly singing songs about jesus and meditating and smiling her vapid, churched-out smile. she looks like a sunday school teacher on crack.

several mornings a week, the toenail-painted hat lady paces back and forth in front of the clinic, reciting the same saccharine words over and over to every woman trying to enter the building: "morning! how are you today? if you're here for an abortion, i'd like to help you!"

the clinic is a bland place on the outside. it's one story, brown brick, with a sagging, white overhang. it has narrow windows framing the front door, but they're mirror-coated so you can't see inside. a small strip of grass separates the clinic from the sidewalk, and a gravel parking lot stretches along two sides of the building. even the sign -- white plastic, with plain, black letters that say, "reproductive health services" -- is easy to miss. no brand name. no fancy logo. everything about it fades into everything else. i drove by the clinic for a year and a half before i realized it was there. this is to its advantage, of course.

the hat lady (and the preacher or two who sometimes accompany her) isn't allowed on the grass or the parking lot or the driveway. she can stand only on the sidewalk; one step anywhere else, and we call the cops, and she gets hauled to jail. so, as we walk with women -- and sometimes the men who are with them -- from their cars to the door, we're careful to stay off the sidewalk and stick to the grass. one of us walks next to the woman; the other body-blocks the hat lady. once, i "accidentally" walked backwards, because i knew she was behind me. i didn't knock her over, but i knocked her off guard. and she wasn't able to get to her satchel of pamphlets in time.

the woman who organizes the escorting has warned us to take the protesters seriously. "these are dangerous people," she says. doctors in alabama -- like in new york and elsewhere -- have been murdered over this. clinic-bombings may have died down in the 90s, but the fervor of things seems to be on the rise; who knows what could happen. it's easy to think the hat lady harmless. and on some level i do. i scorn and ridicule her on the inside, and part of me hates her for the weak-minded misguidedness of her actions.

but i know better.

today, she got to a woman. i wasn't fast enough. the hat lady recited her script and handed the woman a pamphlet filled with photocopied images of death. i got to the woman before she could open it. "i can take that from you, if you'd like," i said. she looked at me with a mixture of gratitude and fear. "yes, please," she said.

in sight of the hat lady, i tore the pamphlet into several pieces. i'm sure i looked smug while doing this. then, as i walked back to my post at the front of the driveway, the hat lady and i made accidental eye contact. and i did what i shouldn't have done. i smirked. by the time i got to the curb, she had pulled out her cell phone and was dialing a number. she was probably calling the dry cleaners, or the exterminator, or the daycare. but i made sure not to make eye contact again. she has a fancy cell phone, the kind with a built-in camera. i'm sure she has close-ups of me and my car.

as someone who interviews people for a living and is paid to be curious, i have to stifle the urge to talk to her. i want to ask her a million questions. i want to know what motivates her to do this. i want to challenge her with medical facts and see how she responds. i want to hold her accountable. i can't do this. because, obviously, none of this is about me.