Dolores P., a nurse practitioner back east, writes about what it's like to help women have abortions—why she's doing the work she's doing, what inducing abortions is like, what the patients are like (one pro-life woman says, "I think you should be killed" as she's getting her abortion), and so much more.

Her writing is sincere and funny. Here's an excerpt:

When I started I knew intellectually that half the country wished I hadn’t gone to work that day and a smaller percentage probably wished I hadn’t even woken up, but pro-life was never part of my life until I actually took on the job. The idea of “sin” had eroded out of my parents’ Catholicism so that the only part they passed on was the punishment style (“I want to let you know that if you have sex you can get a yeast infection in your eyes and you would deserve it”). I am lucky to be training in a liberal Northeastern state: the biggest impact of "antis” on my training is that I have to bring my lunch every day because it’s not really a good idea to go outside more than you have to. The protesters only figured out that I was a clinician-in-training and not a nightmarishly fertile young woman by my 3rd or 4th visit, and when they called me “babykiller” I was like “No way, I’m still working on ultrasound technique!” A couple weeks later I finally got my shit together to look directly at them and I saw that they were (a) a scraggly group of five or so and (b) all old white dudes, historically the least likely demographic to spiritually or morally lead me. Relief!

Seriously, the whole thing demands your attention. And Dolores P: If you're ever in Seattle, I would love to buy you a drink.

Curtsies to Shanna.