comments_image Comments  My Job at the Abortion Hotline  I never
met the women I counseled, but they taught me what it means to
be pregnant, desperate and afraid.   • submit to reddit  Photo
Credit: Shutterstock.com/Geo Martinez    • submit to reddit  The
murder trial of Philadelphia abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell has
exposed frightening corners of humanity — 30-week fetuses, jars
of baby feet, venereal disease, snipped spinal cords, a refugee
drugged to death, and unfortunately, more. Whatever the verdict,
we may never understand Gosnell’s motivation. But what of the
women who streamed into his allegedly filthy clinic for years?
Who were they? Why would some of them have been seeking such
late-term abortions? Why would they put their own lives at risk?
As it happens, I think I have a pretty good idea.  I was 21, and
for nine months in the mid-1990s, I worked as a hotline
counselor on the toll-free line at the National Abortion
Federation, a voluntary membership group of several hundred
providers nationwide.