Anna Levinzon photo
Aaron Gouveia and his wife were already having the worst day of their lives. Then came the abortion protesters.
“You’re killing your unborn baby!”
That’s what they yelled at me and my wife on the worst day of our lives. As we entered the women’s health center on an otherwise perfect summer morning in Brookline, two women we had never met decided to pile onto the nightmare we had been living for three weeks. These “Christians” verbally accosted us—judged us—as we steeled ourselves for the horror of making the unimaginable, but necessary, decision to end our pregnancy at 16 weeks.
After extensive testing at a renowned Boston hospital three weeks earlier, we were told our baby had Sirenomelia. Otherwise known as Mermaid Syndrome, it’s a rare (one in every 100,000 pregnancies) congenital deformity in which the legs are fused together. Worse than that, our baby had no bladder or kidneys. Our doctors told us there was zero chance for survival.
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I’m not a religious person and I’ve never believed in heaven or hell. But there is a hell on Earth. Hell is sitting next to the person you love most and listening to her wail hysterically because her heart just broke into a million pieces. Hell is watching her entire body convulse with sobs because she’s being tortured with grief. For as long as I live and no matter how many children we have, I will never forget that sound. And I vowed to do everything in my power to make sure she’d never make it again.
Across a crowded street, two people with “God Is Pro-Life!” signs and pictures of torn-up fetuses managed to drive the blade in even deeper. Again, I was left trying to console the inconsolable, feeling even more helpless this time, because I wasn’t allowed into surgery with her.
Running on pure adrenaline, and without even a hint of a plan, I grabbed my cell phone and crossed the street. I didn’t know what to say or how to say it, I just knew I wanted to make public the cowardice of these protesters.
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I learned a few important things from this encounter. First, these people aren’t used to being confronted. They prey on the weak and they pounce on the wounded. It’s easy to berate people and shame them when they’re too beaten down to fight back. But I chose to do just that, and you can see what happened.
They spout the same tired rhetoric passed out at rallies and subway stations. They don’t have one salient response to any of my questions.
The most telling thing about their cowardice is when the woman on the right gets upset that I’m recording the conversation (which is perfectly legal) and then threatens to call the police. The irony is rich. She wanted to call the police because I was peacefully expressing my opinion on a public sidewalk and exercising my First Amendment rights, which is exactly what she was doing. But I’m not on “God’s side,” am I.
She also claims the women at the clinic are suicide risks. Even if she believed that were true, does she really think yelling at them and shaming them in public is going to encourage these women not to kill themselves?
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After I took a walk and calmed down, it was time to pick up my wife and go home. When we pulled out of the clinic, the protesters were gone, and a police cruiser was parked nearby with the lights flashing. My wife, still groggy from the surgery, managed to crack a little smile, and asked, “What did you do?”
I have no idea if it was my interaction with the protesters that got them to leave. I doubt it was, but my wife was convinced that was the case. At first, I didn’t think of it as a big deal, and I actually felt a little foolish for getting so heated.
My wife, suddenly serious, pointed out a women entering the clinic. Within minutes, she said, that woman would be making a serious choice. Whether she kept her baby or not, it didn’t matter—what matters is that she can make the decision that’s right for her. And she can make it without people screaming at her.
My wife and I wanted our second child. We loved her. We even had a name for her, Alexandra.
You never know the circumstances surrounding this kind of decision. Consider this my plea: stop terrorizing women. Stop adding trauma to their trauma. If you’re able, stand up to these bullies in nonviolent ways. Speak out. And if you have a camera, use it.
—Read Aaron Gouveia’s follow-up piece to Confronting LIfe, ”I Will Lie To Patients (Well, Only If They’re Having An Abortion)”.
—Aaron Gouveia is a regular contributor to The Good Men Project Magazine. Want to know when Aaron’s next piece comes out? Sign up for our email mailing list. To learn more about The Good Men Project, click here.
About Aaron Gouveia
So, let me get this straight. Your wife just had to have a baby aborted and the only thing you could think to do was cross the street to take on pro-life protestors? I would question whether you are even a man, let alone a grieving father. If I were either of those two ladies, I wouldn’t have given your despicable ass the time of day. Go comfort your wife. Be a man. Or is it manly to you to go take on women with signs? You’re sickening.
I think what he did was manly. These women were verbally attack his wife. So he defended her. His wife wasn’t waiting for him. She was having the procedure done. HE was waiting for her. Those women are heartless.
Erm what are you talking about?
The guy clearly was extremely distressed at his wife’s grief…he refers to it as hell on earth.
When his wife left the clinic she smiled at the fact he had stuck up for her to these people..
and finally…if you have ever been to an abortion clinic, after the initial signing in bit you are taken through to be prepared for your surgery. And then you have the surgery and then you are put into recovery. At the clinic I went to my partner was physically unable to be with me for about 5 hours and he had to sit in an outer waiting room. Men are not allowed into the surgery itself and in many cases are not allowed to wait with their partner. The guy writing this article probably had plenty of time to confront the protesters in between being with his wife…
Be a man? What do you think he was doing? He was protecting his wife who was already going through the worst time in her life. He stated in the article he wasn’t permitted to be with her during the surgery. You’re the sickening one if you can only sympathize with the pathetic bullies who were making a bad situation even worse. Whatever happened to putting yourself in someone else’s shoes? People shouldn’t just judge others without knowing what’s going on in their lives. You don’t know the reasons they reached the decision to go have an abortion, so why pounce on them and call them baby killers, etc? You think that’s religious, righteous, or even a good use of your time? THAT is what is freaking sickening. I say kudos to Aaron Gouveia, for having the guts to stick up to these bullies and for shedding light on their hypocrisy.
Protecting his wife? From what, a couple of ladies with signs? I’m even a bit doubtful that his ‘wife’ was even in the clinic for a procedure but, hey, I have no proof of that so let’s go with his story because when people are upset and emotional they think to whip out their phone and start filming. The guy is just seeking attention whether the story actually went down like he said or not. Not a way I would want to seek fame upon the death of my child and all. Money makes people do crazy things, huh?
Now to the two ladies on the street. If I had been there, this Aaron guy would have had a much stronger choice of words thrown at him. But protesting at abortion clinics is really not my style. Seems too confrontational to me, but they have every right to do it just as he had every right to confront them. They should have been prepared with a stronger argument because they have the stronger case.
They have a case? What case do they actually have that makes it ok to stand outside with false information (most signs I have seen held up by pro-life protesters are lies…the images on them are often babies from the third trimester…and no one is legally having an abortion at that stage). What case do they have that makes it ok from them to stand outside a clinic bullying women without any knowledge of those women and their personal circumstances or their reasoning for having the procedure that they are about to have? Why do they have a case for making someones life and traumatic experience even worse?
And can you explain to me how it is possibly pro-life to expect a women to carry a near dead fetus in her room for a further 5 months risking all the potential complications of pregnancy and child birth to give birth to a seriously deformed and dead baby? Why is it pro-life to insist on torturing women? And can you explain to me how the second situation is reducing the risk of the women developing mental health problems and becoming a suicide risk? or for that matter how bullying and calling women who are apparently a suicide risk a murderer and showing her graphic and deceiving images of the procedure she is about to have is going to make her less of a suicide risk? You are actually insane.
Protecting his wife for the verbal abuse from those ladies. Can you not read? He stated he went to pick up his wife and they left. He said they started screaming at his wife and him when they went in. You are one sick individual if you think he is seeking fame for this. He just stood up against cowards who attack women who are suffering. Let one of those women confront me. I’ll gladly pick apart their argument. They are not pro-life. They are anti-choice.
Udufus: I can take criticism, but what I won’t put up with is uninformed idiots like yourself.
I only went across the street after my wife went into surgery and I was no longer allowed in the room. It’s not like I left her in the clinic, I was physically barred from the room since it’s surgery. But you’re right in that my wife needed comforting. Wanna know why? Because these mindless zealots were screaming at her while we walked into the clinic, which sent her into a tailspin. The fact that you’re sickened by my actions and not women screaming horrible things at women they know nothing about tells me a lot about you — and it’s not complimentary.
Next, you basically call me a liar and accuse me of making the whole thing up. I guarantee you that’s not the case. I chronicled the entire story on my site, from the time the ultrasound tech saw something wrong with the legs to dealing with these women. I made nothing up. My wife — who also posted — made nothing up. We were seen by doctors from Cape Cod to Brigham and Women’s, who made nothing up. This is all very real. But I guess it’s easier to call me a liar than have to defend the sickening actions of these despicable women, isn’t it?
I wasn’t seeking fame from this and I’m not famous. I also received no money from this so that idiotic argument of yours goes out the window as well. I didn’t even enable ads on my YouTube video (which currently as more than 1 million hits) because I thought it was in poor taste to profit at all from the situation. So again, you clearly have no damn clue what you’re talking about. And I would’ve gone up to the protesters whether they were women or men, but I wasn’t about to shy away from bullies simply because they were middle-aged women. I wasn’t there to fight them and I never physically intimidated them. And if you were there, I would’ve made you look like a heartless, soulless fanatic as well — because clearly that’s what you are if you feel yelling at random people you know nothing about is a “strong case.”
Udufus,
I usually do not reply to postings such as your, but you particularly behaved as your name implies. You should be ashamed of yourself.
Aaron, your wife is a lucky woman.
I’ve confronted these protest idiots before just like this MAN, and like he said above, they aren’t ready for confrontation. They are docile/small minded/ children in adult bodies. Their voices get very quiet and subtle when you confront them. They aren’t ready for intelligence.
@ udufus….Your sickening for making statements like that. He had a right to be angry at ppl making accusations at him not knowing the situation. So how bout you take a step back and not jump down his thoart. From your responses it seems you are a pro-life supportor. Good on you, but if you have nothing nice to say, keep the crap to yourself.
Um… you do realize that the only person allowed to go into the procedure is the woman having it? Right? I mean, you must since you have such a strong opinion about it.
There is a lot of time waiting. He took it upon himself to make a difference. You are just angry because you’re ignorant.
Vous êtes typique dont votre pays. Les mots “Be a man” et “manly” sont renforcés du patriarcat dequel en vous vivez. Je suppose que vous êtes homme, causasien, et et sauvages évangélique. Bonne chance.
How dare you say something so horrible? Of course he was grieving! Did you not read the entire article? Are you one of those people who sees something they don’t like and automatically starts ranting without using their brain? It certainly seems that way to me. People react to stress – and that’s what grief is, a type of stress – in all sorts of different ways. There are also different steps to grief, one of which is anger. Maybe if you’d taken the time to think about things before spouting whatever nonsense came to your head, you would’ve realized this and not written a thing. In anger, he confronted the women who were making his wife’s already devastating choice that much harder. He defended her when she couldn’t defend herself. He couldn’t be in the operating room with her, so he did something else that would benefit her. He got them off the streets so they couldn’t spout their own hatred at her, making her feel even worse. You call him despicable. Well, you, my friend, are a hypocrite. Kicking someone when they’re down is despicable. Telling someone who has just lost a child that they need to grow up and be a man is despicable. Not being empathetic toward someone who is going through a rough time is despicable. It is NOT despicable to stand up for your family.
I commend you, Aaron, on standing up for your family and what you believed was the right choice for them. Don’t listen to people like udufus, who have nothing better to do than hurt people. There are plenty of other people around who know how to show compassion and put themselves in other people’s shoes. I am very, very sorry for your loss.
What this man and woman went through most of us cannot imagine. It is heartbreaking, no question about it. But, you story sir is not in the majority according to the CDC, and I am GUESSING (do not participate in protests myself so I do not have direct knowledge) most of the people who are protesting are hoping to change the minds of 75% who are having abortions because a child would interfere with their life or they do not feel they can afford a child. BEFORE you crucify me for the above statement, my personal belief is protesting and changing laws will not change the number of abortions and therefore they are practically futile. I do not believe in an abortion so I never had one, simple as that. When I got pregnant as a teen however I had people around me who were willing to support me emotionally, not preach, scream or accuse. That may be the way people can make the biggest difference, but that is only my opinion.
you have me in tears