Jackson Women's Health Organization Abortion Clinic Vest
date: label: date made
content: ca 2020
notes: label: Description
content: Beginning in the 1970s, anti-abortion protests at clinics began to intensify, with protestors often directing threats of violence at clinic patients. In response, many supporters of abortion rights created ad hoc escort groups to protect patients as they arrived at and entered clinics. By the 1990s, violence against abortion providers had escalated dramatically, with the murder of one abortion provider and the attempted murder of a second provider. In response, President Bill Clinton signed the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act. Under the Act, an individual who “intentionally injures, intimidates or interferes with or attempts to injure, intimidate or interfere with any person because that person is or has” obtained or provided reproductive health services” would be subject to penalties including imprisonment and fines (Pub. L. No. 103-259, 108 Stat. 694, May 26, 1994, 18 U.S.C. § 248).
label: Description
content: Despite passage of FACE, protests continued at abortion clinics across the country well into the twenty-first century. After the passage of FACE, some states strengthened this law by creating buffer zones around clinics. Protestors were barred from specific distances around either a patient or a clinic.
label: Description
content: As patients and clinics found themselves under threat, clinic escorts became vital. Typically, volunteer escorts walked patients from their cars to the clinic entrance. Even in states with buffer zone laws, volunteers and patients often found themselves walking through a barrage of protestors waving signs, chanting slogans, and directing verbal attacks on specific individuals. Escorts were trained in de-escalation tactics and did not engage with the protestors, seeing their role as simply escorting a patient into the clinic.
label: Description
content: In 2014, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the Massachusetts law that had enacted a buffer of 35 feet around clinic entrances. This decision led to an increase in protests and tensions at clinics and reflected a growing assault on reproductive rights. Although abortion rights were hotly contested across the country, support for these rights tended to vary regionally.
label: Description
content: In Mississippi, clinics like the Jackson Women’s Health Organization provided reproductive care, including abortions, to women in the face of growing opposition directed at abortion providers as well as patients who sought abortions. By 2015, when the clinic building was vandalized, growing hostility toward abortion rights had led to the closure of all abortion clinics in the state, with the exception of the Jackson Women’s Health Organization. Each month, approximately 200 women sought safe abortions at the “Pink House,” as the clinic was called.
label: Description
content: To protect patients, clinic escorts called “Pink House Defenders” escorted patients from their cars into the clinic. Derenda Hancock was “proud” to become a “Pink House Defender” in 2013 and continued to escort patients until 2022. She received this vest from the Clinic Vest Project, a non-profit organization which provided vests to clinic escorts. The vest’s bright colors stood out in a crowd and enabled patients to immediately identify Hancock as an escort who could safely accompany them to the clinic entrance. The vest also had the benefit of being loose-fitting, allowing escorts to wear it over a coat during the winter months.
label: Description
content: Throughout the 2010s, as abortion rights came under attack, the Jackson Women’s Health Organization became the target of efforts in Mississippi to ban abortion. These efforts came to a head with the court case, Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization. Following the release of the Supreme Court’s decision on June 24, 2022, the clinic was closed on July 6, 2022. The clinic subsequently relocated to New Mexico but the clinics’ escorts, all of whom were volunteers, remained in Mississippi.
place: label: used
content: United States: Mississippi, Jackson
topic: label: general subject association; used; web subject
content: Abortion
label: general subject association; web subject
content: Supreme Court of the United States
label: general subject association; web subject
content: Obstetrics
label: general subject association; web subject
content: Feminism
label: general subject association; web subject
content: Health
label: related event
content: Roe v. Wade
setName: label: See more items in
content: Medicine and Science: Medicine
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Derenda Hancock
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: 2022.0281.01
label: catalog number
content: 2022.0281.01
label: accession number
content: 2022.0281
objectType: label: Object Name
content: vest
label: Object Type
content: Vest
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: polyester; elastic (overall material)
label: Measurements
content: overall (flat): 26 1/2 in x 25 in x 1/4 in; 67.31 cm x 63.5 cm x .635 cm