Susan Wicklund
Encyclopedia
Susan Wicklund is an American abortion
provider. She is the sole provider in many areas of the midwestern United States
and, as such, has been a prominent target of violence and harassment from opponents of abortion rights.
. After graduating high school, she worked low-wage part-time jobs and earned community college
credits, living on welfare
and food stamps. When she became pregnant, she had an abortion in 1976, three years after the procedure became legal: the poor treatment she received inspired her to make sure that other women would have better reproductive health care and be "treated differently than [she] had been—with respect and decency." She trained as a midwife, having taken childbirth classes and become interested in midwifery while pregnant with her daughter Sonja, whose birth had been supervised by a midwife; an acquaintance whom she told of her passion for making a difference in women's lives recommended that she become a physician. Wicklund became one of the first people in her family to attend college, and as part of her training in medical school, she chose to learn to perform abortions.
, near where she had grown up. Forbidden to perform elective abortions and frustrated at her inability to care for patients seeking them, she would receive a patient after hours and insert laminaria
into the patient's cervix
, inducing a miscarriage that would necessitate a therapeutic
dilation and curettage
in the hospital emergency room the next day.
At the April 1989 March for Women's Lives in Washington, D.C., which she attended with her mother and daughter, she "felt a personal call to action" and soon afterwards sought out clinics, often in underserved areas, where she could work as an abortion provider. That summer, she began traveling a few days a week to Milwaukee and Appleton, Wisconsin
. In October, she left her job at the Grantsburg hospital and began working full-time as an itinerant abortion provider, traveling two hundred miles or more a day to work in St. Paul, Duluth
, and Fargo
as well as the Wisconsin locations. She worked 100-hour weeks, and her travels had her sleeping in motel rooms at least three nights a week; the schedule and strain eventually put an end to her marriage.
In February 1993, Wicklund opened her own clinic, the Mountain Country Women's Clinic in Bozeman, Montana
, moving into the space formerly used by a retiring 72-year-old doctor who had heard about her work and the pressure she was under and offered to sell her his clinic. When she had to leave Montana in order to take care of her dying mother in Wisconsin, she hoped to sell the practice to another abortion provider or arrange with other doctors to keep it running on a temporary basis, but in January 1998, she closed it and donated the equipment to nonprofit health centers. Wicklund later re-opened Mountain Country Women's Clinic in Livingston, Montana
. She had initially hoped to re-open by June 2008, but arrangements were delayed due to political controversy, logistics, and intimidation of landowners and construction firms by abortion rights opponents. The clinic eventually opened in February 2009, sixteen years to the day after the original Mountain Country Women's Clinic had opened. In the meantime, she had been fired from the clinic in St. Paul after treating a patient who could not afford to pay.
Wicklund places a high importance on counseling in her practice, and if she believes that a patient is not completely secure in her decision to end her pregnancy or that she is bowing to pressure from others, she asks her to think it over and return another time. Sometimes this has strengthened the patient's confidence in her decision, while other times it has led her to change her mind and decide to give birth. Such focus on speaking to the patients has also enabled Wicklund to find out when young girls who came to her were being abused, and to have police catch the perpetrators.
Wicklund performs abortions only in the first trimester of pregnancy. Although she supports the legality of late-term abortions, she decided not to provide them after witnessing an abortion at 21 weeks as a medical student.
Without Wicklund, women in North Dakota would not be able to obtain abortions. No North Dakota doctors perform abortions, so the clinic in Fargo, the state's only one, must fly physicians like Wicklund in. Besides patients from Minnesota, Montana, North Dakota, and Wisconsin, the states in which she works, she also sees patients traveling from Wyoming, which has two abortion providers, and South Dakota, which has only one.
In October 1991, protesters from the Lambs of Christ
, shouting "Susan kills babies!" surrounded Wicklund's home and camped outside for weeks. Her daughter Sonja had to go to school in a police car. The protesters blockaded her driveway with cement barrels to try to stop her from going to work; she sneaked through the woods to get a ride from a friend. Twice during that month, Wicklund's house was broken into; nothing was taken, but Wicklund commented, "I think they just wanted to show me they could get in." She believes that she was tracked down when a protester wrote down her license plate number and found her home address in a public database; the incident, and other use of license plate numbers by anti-abortion protesters, led Rep. Jim Moran
to introduce the Driver's Privacy Protection Act
in 1992. It also prompted a permanent restraining order prohibiting several groups and individuals, including the Lambs of Christ, from following Wicklund. During the siege, protesters passed leaflets around Sonja's school that said "Sonja's mom kills babies"; a protester was found in the school library searching yearbooks for a picture of Sonja. One of the protesters was Shelley Shannon, who would later shoot George Tiller
.
Wicklund's dealings with these anti-abortion protesters were the subject of her appearance on 60 Minutes
in February 1992. In 1993, she would also receive 62 letters over two months, threatening her with torture and death, from an abortion rights opponent who was subsequently convicted of felony intimidation and sentenced to ten years in federal prison. The Guardian
named Wicklund one of its top 100 women in March 2011, in recognition of her work in the face of violence.
in 2007; it is a memoir that includes her own life and some of her patients' stories. The title refers to the procedure of abortion, which is "common" in that 40% of American women have an abortion at some point in their lives—making it more prevalent than wisdom tooth removal or tonsillectomy—and a "secret" in that individual women are often ashamed of or reluctant to speak about their abortions. Wicklund said that she hoped the book would foster discussion of abortion on a personal level.
Among the patients whose stories are included are a regular anti-abortion protester at the clinic who turned to Wicklund for help when she had an unwanted pregnancy; a rape victim who found out only after terminating her pregnancy that she had conceived by her husband before the rape; and a woman who lost her job because the state mandated a 24-hour waiting period before an abortion, obliging the patient to miss several days of work for multiple visits. Wicklund also describes the experience of revealing to her maternal grandmother that she was an abortion provider, a disclosure that she expected would receive her grandmother's disapproval. Instead, her grandmother told Wicklund that she was proud of her work, saying that when she was sixteen, her best friend got pregnant and bled to death from an unsafe
self-induced abortion
.
Abortion
Abortion is defined as the termination of pregnancy by the removal or expulsion from the uterus of a fetus or embryo prior to viability. An abortion can occur spontaneously, in which case it is usually called a miscarriage, or it can be purposely induced...
provider. She is the sole provider in many areas of the midwestern United States
Midwestern United States
The Midwestern United States is one of the four U.S. geographic regions defined by the United States Census Bureau, providing an official definition of the American Midwest....
and, as such, has been a prominent target of violence and harassment from opponents of abortion rights.
Early life and education
Wicklund grew up in rural WisconsinWisconsin
Wisconsin is a U.S. state located in the north-central United States and is part of the Midwest. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake Michigan to the east, Michigan to the northeast, and Lake Superior to the north. Wisconsin's capital is...
. After graduating high school, she worked low-wage part-time jobs and earned community college
Community college
A community college is a type of educational institution. The term can have different meanings in different countries.-Australia:Community colleges carry on the tradition of adult education, which was established in Australia around mid 19th century when evening classes were held to help adults...
credits, living on welfare
Welfare
Welfare refers to a broad discourse which may hold certain implications regarding the provision of a minimal level of wellbeing and social support for all citizens without the stigma of charity. This is termed "social solidarity"...
and food stamps. When she became pregnant, she had an abortion in 1976, three years after the procedure became legal: the poor treatment she received inspired her to make sure that other women would have better reproductive health care and be "treated differently than [she] had been—with respect and decency." She trained as a midwife, having taken childbirth classes and become interested in midwifery while pregnant with her daughter Sonja, whose birth had been supervised by a midwife; an acquaintance whom she told of her passion for making a difference in women's lives recommended that she become a physician. Wicklund became one of the first people in her family to attend college, and as part of her training in medical school, she chose to learn to perform abortions.
Practice
In 1988, Wicklund completed her training and began practicing medicine at the hospital in Grantsburg, WisconsinGrantsburg, Wisconsin
Grantsburg is a village in Burnett County in the U.S. state of Wisconsin. The population was 1,369 at the 2000 census. The village is located within the Town of Grantsburg.-Claim to fame:...
, near where she had grown up. Forbidden to perform elective abortions and frustrated at her inability to care for patients seeking them, she would receive a patient after hours and insert laminaria
Laminaria stick
A laminaria stick or tent is a thin rod of dried laminaria, a kelp species. Laminaria sticks are used in obstetrics to slowly dilate the cervix to induce labor and delivery or for surgical procedures including abortions. The rods are inserted into the cervix, and over the course of several hours,...
into the patient's cervix
Cervix
The cervix is the lower, narrow portion of the uterus where it joins with the top end of the vagina. It is cylindrical or conical in shape and protrudes through the upper anterior vaginal wall...
, inducing a miscarriage that would necessitate a therapeutic
Therapeutic abortion
Therapeutic abortion is abortion induced following a medical diagnosis. Many therapeutic abortions are performed today, with some degree of controversy regarding the quality of life, if there is a genetic condition in the embryo or fetus which is incompatible with life Therapeutic abortion is...
dilation and curettage
Dilation and curettage
Dilation and curettage refers to the dilation of the cervix and surgical removal of part of the lining of the uterus and/or contents of the uterus by scraping and scooping . It is a diagnostic gynecological procedure.D&C normally is referred to a procedure involving a curette, also called sharp...
in the hospital emergency room the next day.
At the April 1989 March for Women's Lives in Washington, D.C., which she attended with her mother and daughter, she "felt a personal call to action" and soon afterwards sought out clinics, often in underserved areas, where she could work as an abortion provider. That summer, she began traveling a few days a week to Milwaukee and Appleton, Wisconsin
Appleton, Wisconsin
Appleton is a city in Outagamie, Calumet, and Winnebago Counties in the U.S. state of Wisconsin. It is situated on the Fox River, 30 miles southwest of Green Bay and 100 miles north of Milwaukee. Appleton is the county seat of Outagamie County. The population was 78,086 at the 2010 census...
. In October, she left her job at the Grantsburg hospital and began working full-time as an itinerant abortion provider, traveling two hundred miles or more a day to work in St. Paul, Duluth
Duluth, Minnesota
Duluth is a port city in the U.S. state of Minnesota and is the county seat of Saint Louis County. The fourth largest city in Minnesota, Duluth had a total population of 86,265 in the 2010 census. Duluth is also the second largest city that is located on Lake Superior after Thunder Bay, Ontario,...
, and Fargo
Fargo, North Dakota
Fargo is the largest city in the U.S. state of North Dakota and the county seat of Cass County. In 2010, its population was 105,549, and it had an estimated metropolitan population of 208,777...
as well as the Wisconsin locations. She worked 100-hour weeks, and her travels had her sleeping in motel rooms at least three nights a week; the schedule and strain eventually put an end to her marriage.
In February 1993, Wicklund opened her own clinic, the Mountain Country Women's Clinic in Bozeman, Montana
Bozeman, Montana
Bozeman is a city in and the county seat of Gallatin County, Montana, United States, in the southwestern part of the state. The 2010 census put Bozeman's population at 37,280 making it the fourth largest city in the state. It is the principal city of the Bozeman micropolitan area, which consists...
, moving into the space formerly used by a retiring 72-year-old doctor who had heard about her work and the pressure she was under and offered to sell her his clinic. When she had to leave Montana in order to take care of her dying mother in Wisconsin, she hoped to sell the practice to another abortion provider or arrange with other doctors to keep it running on a temporary basis, but in January 1998, she closed it and donated the equipment to nonprofit health centers. Wicklund later re-opened Mountain Country Women's Clinic in Livingston, Montana
Livingston, Montana
-Geography:Livingston is located at , at an altitude of 4.501 feet .According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of , of which, of it is land and 0.38% is waters.-Climate:-Demographics:...
. She had initially hoped to re-open by June 2008, but arrangements were delayed due to political controversy, logistics, and intimidation of landowners and construction firms by abortion rights opponents. The clinic eventually opened in February 2009, sixteen years to the day after the original Mountain Country Women's Clinic had opened. In the meantime, she had been fired from the clinic in St. Paul after treating a patient who could not afford to pay.
Wicklund places a high importance on counseling in her practice, and if she believes that a patient is not completely secure in her decision to end her pregnancy or that she is bowing to pressure from others, she asks her to think it over and return another time. Sometimes this has strengthened the patient's confidence in her decision, while other times it has led her to change her mind and decide to give birth. Such focus on speaking to the patients has also enabled Wicklund to find out when young girls who came to her were being abused, and to have police catch the perpetrators.
Wicklund performs abortions only in the first trimester of pregnancy. Although she supports the legality of late-term abortions, she decided not to provide them after witnessing an abortion at 21 weeks as a medical student.
Without Wicklund, women in North Dakota would not be able to obtain abortions. No North Dakota doctors perform abortions, so the clinic in Fargo, the state's only one, must fly physicians like Wicklund in. Besides patients from Minnesota, Montana, North Dakota, and Wisconsin, the states in which she works, she also sees patients traveling from Wyoming, which has two abortion providers, and South Dakota, which has only one.
Anti-abortion violence and harassment
Wicklund has often faced death threats, assaults, stalking, and harassment from abortion rights opponents, obliging her to adopt measures to protect herself: wearing disguises such as wigs and heavy makeup, carrying a loaded revolver, wearing a bulletproof vest, employing a security guard, owning a guard dog, taking roundabout routes home so that protesters would not know where she lived, and varying her routine so that they would not be able to predict where she would be. Wicklund describes this situation as "absolutely absurd. I, as a physician in the United States of America performing a legal procedure, have to go to these measures to make it possible for me to go to work." In addition to the threats and violence against Wicklund's person, her clinics, including the Mountain Country Women's Clinic and the Fargo Women's Health Organization, have also been the target of bombing, arson, acid attacks, and violent invasion.In October 1991, protesters from the Lambs of Christ
The Lambs of Christ
The Lambs of Christ, also known as Victim Souls of the Unborn Christ-Child, is a Christian integrist pro-life organization in the United States. It was founded in 1988 by the Rev. Norman Weslin, a Roman Catholic priest and retired U.S. Army lieutenant colonel...
, shouting "Susan kills babies!" surrounded Wicklund's home and camped outside for weeks. Her daughter Sonja had to go to school in a police car. The protesters blockaded her driveway with cement barrels to try to stop her from going to work; she sneaked through the woods to get a ride from a friend. Twice during that month, Wicklund's house was broken into; nothing was taken, but Wicklund commented, "I think they just wanted to show me they could get in." She believes that she was tracked down when a protester wrote down her license plate number and found her home address in a public database; the incident, and other use of license plate numbers by anti-abortion protesters, led Rep. Jim Moran
Jim Moran
James Patrick "Jim" Moran, Jr. is the U.S. Representative for , serving since 1991. He is a member of the Democratic Party. The district is located in Northern Virginia and includes the cities of Falls Church and Alexandria, all of Arlington County, and a portion of Fairfax County.Jim Moran was...
to introduce the Driver's Privacy Protection Act
Driver's Privacy Protection Act
The Driver's Privacy Protection Act of 1994 is a United States federal statute governing the privacy and disclosure of personal information gathered by state Departments of Motor Vehicles. The law was passed in 1994; it was introduced by Rep...
in 1992. It also prompted a permanent restraining order prohibiting several groups and individuals, including the Lambs of Christ, from following Wicklund. During the siege, protesters passed leaflets around Sonja's school that said "Sonja's mom kills babies"; a protester was found in the school library searching yearbooks for a picture of Sonja. One of the protesters was Shelley Shannon, who would later shoot George Tiller
George Tiller
George Richard Tiller, MD was an American physician from Wichita, Kansas. He was the medical director of a clinic in Wichita, Women's Health Care Services, one of only three nationwide which provided abortions after the 21st week of pregnancy .Pro-life group Operation Rescue kept a daily vigil...
.
Wicklund's dealings with these anti-abortion protesters were the subject of her appearance on 60 Minutes
60 Minutes
60 Minutes is an American television news magazine, which has run on CBS since 1968. The program was created by producer Don Hewitt who set it apart by using a unique style of reporter-centered investigation....
in February 1992. In 1993, she would also receive 62 letters over two months, threatening her with torture and death, from an abortion rights opponent who was subsequently convicted of felony intimidation and sentenced to ten years in federal prison. The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
named Wicklund one of its top 100 women in March 2011, in recognition of her work in the face of violence.
Book
Wicklund's book, This Common Secret: My Journey as an Abortion Doctor, was co-written with Alan Kesselheim and published by PublicAffairsPublicAffairs
PublicAffairs is an imprint of the Perseus Books Group, an American book publishing company located in New York City. From PublicAffairs' web site:...
in 2007; it is a memoir that includes her own life and some of her patients' stories. The title refers to the procedure of abortion, which is "common" in that 40% of American women have an abortion at some point in their lives—making it more prevalent than wisdom tooth removal or tonsillectomy—and a "secret" in that individual women are often ashamed of or reluctant to speak about their abortions. Wicklund said that she hoped the book would foster discussion of abortion on a personal level.
Among the patients whose stories are included are a regular anti-abortion protester at the clinic who turned to Wicklund for help when she had an unwanted pregnancy; a rape victim who found out only after terminating her pregnancy that she had conceived by her husband before the rape; and a woman who lost her job because the state mandated a 24-hour waiting period before an abortion, obliging the patient to miss several days of work for multiple visits. Wicklund also describes the experience of revealing to her maternal grandmother that she was an abortion provider, a disclosure that she expected would receive her grandmother's disapproval. Instead, her grandmother told Wicklund that she was proud of her work, saying that when she was sixteen, her best friend got pregnant and bled to death from an unsafe
Unsafe abortion
An unsafe abortion is the termination of an unwanted pregnancy by persons lacking the necessary skills, or in an environment lacking minimal medical standards, or both...
self-induced abortion
Self-induced abortion
A self-induced abortion is an abortion performed by the pregnant woman herself outside the recognized medical system. Although the term can include abortions induced through legal, over-the-counter medication, it also refers to efforts to terminate a pregnancy through alternative, often more...
.