{"id":139258,"date":"2013-05-13T10:00:17","date_gmt":"2013-05-13T14:00:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.prosebeforehos.com\/?p=139258"},"modified":"2013-12-09T11:28:47","modified_gmt":"2013-12-09T16:28:47","slug":"tammi-kromenaker-north-dakota-abortion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.prosebeforehos.com\/article-of-the-day\/05\/13\/tammi-kromenaker-north-dakota-abortion\/","title":{"rendered":"The One Woman Screwing Up North Dakota’s Plan To End Abortion"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Article:<\/strong> The One Woman Screwing Up North Dakota’s Plan To End Abortion<\/a> by Winston Ross in The Daily Beast.<\/p>\n

The Text:<\/strong> An FBI agent sat quietly in the lobby of the Red River Women\u2019s Clinic on Thursday morning, arms folded across his lap, waiting for the director of North Dakota\u2019s only abortion provider to wrap up a local television interview, her umpteenth media appearance in the past few days. The agent asked to speak to Tammi Kromenaker privately, so she escorted him back to one of the few places in the small two-story building with a closed door, and they talked.<\/p>\n

Just a courtesy call, the agent told Kromenaker; to let her know he was the person to contact should anyone decide to violate the federal law that prevents people from trying to stop women seeking an abortion from getting into a clinic, a law described in several bold-lettered signs at the clinic\u2019s door, guarded by two security cameras that feed into the office. None of the protestors who have turned out to hurl invective and prayer at women on the one day each week Red River sees patients has ever actually tried to block someone from getting in the building.<\/p>\n

At least, not physically. At the Capitol building in Bismarck, lawmakers are doing everything they can to make sure Red River\u2019s three physicians aborts their last fetus by August 1, when a trio of America\u2019s most restrictive anti-abortion laws just signed by Gov. Jack Dalyrmple will take effect, unless a court intervenes. The new laws have swept North Dakota, Fargo, and this tiny clinic into the eye of the country\u2019s never-ending debate about a woman\u2019s right to choose\u201440 years after the Supreme Court supposedly settled the issue in Roe v. Wade.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

One of the three bills signed by the governor this week will ban the practice as early as six weeks into a pregnancy\u2014at the first detection of a fetal heartbeat. (Roe allows abortions until a fetus is viable outside the womb, around 24 weeks.) Another law requires doctors who perform abortions in the state to get admitting privileges at a local hospital, and a third bans abortions for reasons including gender preferences or genetic defects, an unprecedented law in the U.S.<\/p>\n

As the only abortion-performing clinic in North Dakota, Red River is the main target. An average of 25 abortions take place here each Wednesday. That\u2019s why Kromenaker has found herself the focal point of the national debate this week, the latest target amongst a host of state-by-state attempts to do away with a woman\u2019s right to choose. For someone facing the closure of her clinic in a few scant months, though, Kromenaker is surprisingly upbeat. The \u201cheartbeat bill,\u201d as it\u2019s known, is \u201cblatantly unconstitutional\u201d and won\u2019t survive the scrutiny of federal courts, she is convinced.<\/p>\n

Representatives of the National Center for Reproductive Rights have assured her they will pay to take the case to court, she said. The gender preferences and genetic defects law wouldn\u2019t have much of a practical impact, because no one has ever come into her clinic wanting to terminate a pregnancy simply because it\u2019s a boy or girl, and by the time most genetic abnormalities are discovered, the fetus is too far along to be aborted at Red River, which will abort up until 16 weeks. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe receptionist at my dentist\u2019s office asked me, \u2018Aren\u2019t you scared?\u2019\u201d Kromenaker said in an interview. \u201cIf I was scared all the time, if I let this stuff get me down, I couldn\u2019t do the work. I wouldn\u2019t have lasted as long as I have.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some of Kromenaker\u2019s former clients, on the other hand, are furious. Amy Will says she had an abortion at Red River 11 years ago, just after she turned 21. She was living in nearby Jamestown at the time with \u201ca really shitty boyfriend,\u201d she said. Her mom had told her about the clinic long ago, when she was 15, and had made clear that if she ever got knocked up, terminating the pregnancy was absolutely what she should do and Red River was absolutely where she should do it, and that \u201cno one is ever going to be mad at you\u201d about it. \u201cShe was the mom who would hand out condoms before we went to parties.\u201d<\/p>\n

So Will didn\u2019t have any doubt. She made an appointment, pushed past the protestors assuring her god would take care of the baby, walked up the well-worn stairs to the second floor and had an abortion. She had no regrets that day and she doesn\u2019t now.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d be living in a trailer in Jamestown, North Dakota, with a guy who didn\u2019t have a job and liked to beat the shit out of me,\u201d she said. \u201cIt wouldn\u2019t have been a good situation for anybody. I probably should feel bad, but I don\u2019t. My life turned out great.\u201d<\/p>\n

A year later, Will met her future husband, they quickly (and accidentally) had their first of two children, and are happily married still. North Dakota\u2019s new laws have left many in the state \u201cin shock, that they actually passed. It\u2019s so ridiculous.\u201d<\/p>\n

Adding insult to that injury, for Will, is the governor\u2019s acknowledgment, when he signed the bills Tuesday, that there\u2019d be a court challenge and that the state would need to set aside money to fight. This, in light of cuts in funding for programs such as Women Infants and Children\u2019s, that provide food to the underprivileged children, already?<\/p>\n

\u201cThat blows my mind, when we won\u2019t pay for kids to have milk in school; to take care of those babies,\u201d Will said.<\/p>\n

Thirty-two-year old Amanda, who asked that her last name not be used, feels similarly. She has two daughters, 7 and 11, and when she got pregnant last February, it was with a man who had become \u201call of a sudden not a very nice guy to my kids.\u201d She moved out, and two weeks later found out she was pregnant. Staying in a friend\u2019s basement at the time, Amanda \u201cknew right away that was my choice,\u201d to have an abortion. \u201cI had to do this, or I would be stuck with another child, with no help.\u201d<\/p>\n

Amanda\u2019s youngest daughter found the pregnancy test in the trash, and at first, she lied about it, saying it must be someone else\u2019s. But when the laws passed in North Dakota, Amanda\u2019s daughter wanted to go with her mom to one of the abortion rights rallies held in Fargo recently.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s when I talked to her about it,\u201d Amanda said in an interview. \u201cI said mommy had to make this choice.\u201d<\/p>\n

She doesn\u2019t know what would have happened if Red River hadn\u2019t been there, she said. \u201cI knew I really did not want to be pregnant. I couldn\u2019t eat. I couldn\u2019t sleep.\u201d<\/p>\n

The North Dakota statutes upset her, she said. \u201cClosing the clinic isn\u2019t going to stop abortions. It\u2019s going to stop safe abortions. That\u2019s scary.\u201d<\/p>\n

Woman after woman is reacting across North Dakota the same way. Emily, 29, had an abortion at Red River three years ago because she and her boyfriend felt they weren\u2019t ready to bring a child into the world. Now that they\u2019ve been together for six years, they\u2019re talking about children. But she has no regrets about her visit to the clinic, and thinks North Dakota lawmakers have stepped out of line. \u201cEvery woman has a right to make that decision,\u201d Emily said.<\/p>\n

Former clients and people from all across the world have reached out to Kromenaker in recent days, she said, flooding her telephone lines and email inbox with offers of support and donations \u2014$10,000 in the past three days. One woman she met at a recent rally stopped in after the TV interview to give a $40 cash donation. She didn\u2019t write a check, she said, because she doesn\u2019t want her husband to find out. They do not agree on the topic of abortion rights.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m embarrassed for my state,\u201d the woman said. \u201cThere are people all over the country, all over the world now, asking what is wrong with these people in North Dakota?\u201d <\/p>\n

The hate mail\u2014the pictures of babies and fetuses, the veiled threats \u2014 goes in a file in Kromenaker\u2019s cabinet. The positive letters are pinned to a bulletin board. More than anything, people want to know what they can do. She believes the best tact is to wait for the court battle and fight it there, but she knows that\u2019s not a satisfying answer.<\/p>\n

\u201cTelling people \u2018Let the lawyers litigate\u2019 is not what they want to hear. They\u2019re mad,\u201d she said. There\u2019s talk of a rally this weekend, a referendum drive, fundraisers, campaigns to oust those lawmakers who supported the bills, and more. \u201cThe hard part is channeling that energy until November 2014. How do you sustain anger?\u201d<\/p>\n

As she fields a slew of phone calls and emails, the clinic\u2019s director is trying to prepare for the worst. Red River\u2019s three doctors will all apply for privileges at the two local hospitals, Essentia Health and Sanford. A spokesman for Essentia told The Daily Beast on Thursday that the staff there is \u201copen\u201d and that physicians from outside the hospital can apply for a range of privileges there, from admitting patients to performing procedures. That said, \u201cwe do not perform abortions at Essentia Health-Fargo, and we would not credential a physician to perform a procedure that our hospital doesn\u2019t offer. We do not have plans to challenge this law.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sanford\u2019s spokesman said the hospital has bylaws that apply equally to any physician requesting privileges, though the hospital takes no position on abortion and does not allow them to be performed there.<\/p>\n

As Kromenaker awaits more clarity from the courts and the hospitals, she\u2019s keeping an eye out, a la the FBI agency\u2019s visit Thursday. On her way to work Thursday morning, a man was stumbling around near the clinic\u2019s entrance, shouting incoherently, something about George W. Bush. Kromenaker\u2019s pace quickened, and she avoided eye contact, but at some point the man pointed at her, and screamed \u201cHEY YOU!\u201d<\/p>\n

Kromenaker stopped.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re saving women\u2019s lives!\u201d the man yelled. \u201c Good for you.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Article: The One Woman Screwing Up North Dakota’s Plan To End Abortion by Winston Ross in The Daily Beast. The Text: An FBI agent sat quietly in the lobby of the Red River Women\u2019s Clinic on Thursday morning, arms folded across his lap, waiting for the director of North Dakota\u2019s only abortion provider to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":49,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[259],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe One Woman Screwing Up North Dakota's Plan To End Abortion<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Thanks to Tammi Kromenaker, the culture warriors have made Fargo, North Dakota their latest stop.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.prosebeforehos.com\/article-of-the-day\/05\/13\/tammi-kromenaker-north-dakota-abortion\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" 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