Witness to a Slaughter

Hope was hired by Planned Parenthood to interpret using sign language for patients who were deaf.  Normally when the paperwork read “medical procedure” it was an ultrasound.  But when she got into the room, she realized it was different.  It was an abortion at eighteen weeks.  Hope thought she’d see blood clots being moved but instead it was body parts and her tears began to flow.  Afterward, she ran out of the room collapsing in the hallway sobbing.  A security guard rushed her into his office, not to console her but because her sobbing was frightening the patients.  Hope resigned that day.  She said abortion wasn’t the right word for what she witnessed.  Even murder wasn’t close enough.  She said it was slaughter because the victim was powerless to fight back.