Inside the first two sets of doors is a waiting room that looks like a typical doctor’s office. Chairs fill the room with mundanereprints of flowers hanging just above. Receptionists wait to help patients check in.
Just around the corner from the desk is a stairwell leading up to patient rooms. At the top of stairs, light pours in from the building’s original tall windows. Back on the first floor, opposite the waiting room, is a long, wide empty hallway featuring original neoclassical architecture from when the building was dance hall, historically named Dorsey’s Dancing Academy.
The historic building is not known for its beauty, but instead for the protests, violence and harassment that have been at its doorstep for over 20 years. The building is now the home of Affiliated Medical Services, one of only two abortion clinics in Wisconsin.
Beginning in the early 1990s, Affiliated Medical Services and other legal clinics providing Wisconsin with abortion services were targeted by protesters either acting alone or belonging to churches of different denominations, from in and out of state.
I strongly believe in reproductive rights, what the clinic does and it’s services. [Escorting] resonates with me. I feel like I am doing good. I’m acting on my convictions.
Adam, Affiliated Medical Services clinic escort
To battle these protests, staff implemented what started as a “clinic defense” and is now called escorting. Volunteers are still seen almost everyday standing outside clinic wearing a rainbow vest with “clinic escort” in bold letters on either side. These volunteers have made it their job to help patients and continue the fight for women’s reproductive rights.
Milwaukee Escorts Today
Adam, who asked that his last name not be used, is part of the new wave of clinic escorts at Affiliated Medical Services. Adam, who is in his late twenties, says his job is to get patients in and out of the clinic with as little interaction with the protesters as possible. He says activism is important to him and clinic escorting is something he could do to help.
Tactics like following patients blocks to their cars, preaching bible verses and confronting the partner of the patient while entering the clinic are something Adam sees protesters do every time he escorts.
“The idea is to let them work themselves up, let them be the loud, angry emotionally charged ones,” he said. “We’re there to give these patients a sense of calm, a sense of comfort, and to distract them from the anti’s that will hound them all the way to the door.”
Adam says protesters will be waiting outside of the clinic and across the street before he gets there and before the clinic opens. When patients arrive, he walks with patients as far as necessary to shield them from sometimes violent protesters.
Last summer, Adam took a protester to court to request an injunction after the protester grabbed him by the vest and pulled him away from a car that he had walked a patient to. Although he didn’t get the injunction, Adam said just taking the protester had a chilling affect and he hasn’t seen him since.
Adam escorts at the clinic twice a week in addition to his full-time job and other volunteer work. He began volunteering at the clinic for the same reasons as the other escorts–to ensure women have access to clinic services.
The Clinic
Affiliated Medical Services is located on Farwell Avenue on Milwaukee’s East Side. The clinic is Wisconsin’s only independent abortion provider, and provides over half of the state’s abortion services with only one doctor on staff.
Unlike Planned Parenthood-the only other abortion provider in Wisconsin-Affiliated Medical Services has no public affairs, no marketing or human relations, no security and no fundraising. These jobs are instead taken on by clinic director Dawn Balistreri.
One of Affiliated Medical Services’ signs outside of the clinic. Photo: Alyssa Wiese 
A sign outside of the Jetz gas station across the street from Affiliated Medical Services. Photo: Alyssa Wiese
Balistreri said working at an abortion clinic brings a sense of paranoia, but staff members are adamant that abortion needs to stay safe and legal.
“You never escape if you are an abortion provider. It is constantly in the news, on billboards, even at the Thanksgiving table,” she said.
Although the court ruling Roe V Wade legalized abortion, clinics like Affiliated Medical Services and their advocates are fighting to keep the law in place.
Since Donald Trump was elected president in 2016, the president, who says he is “pro-life with some exceptions,” has increased regulations and restrictions on abortion services.
In Wisconsin and across the United States, restrictions on abortion have made it more difficult for women to obtain abortion services, which have impacted funding and accessibility to clinics.
In 2018, Wisconsin made abortions harder to get. Since May, women must receive state-directed counseling, which according to the Guttmacher Institute, includes information designed to discourage them from having abortions. After that, they must wait 24 hours to have the procedure.
Public funding is available for abortion only in cases of life endangerment, rape and incest, and when the procedure is necessary toprevent long-lasting damage to the woman’s physical health. Under the Affordable Care Act, an abortion is only covered if the woman’s life is endangered, her physical health is severely compromised, or in cases of rape or incest.
These changes to abortion rights also come at a time when the #MeToo movement brought to light the number of sexual assault victims, followed by recently confirmed Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s denial of sexual assault allegations against him.
Milwaukee’s Veteran Escorts
Long-time volunteer and head of escorts Maureen Taylor has helped protect patients from protesters since the 1990s. Taylor, a 75-year-old veteran escort from Waukesha is originally from Great Britain, and still has the accent to prove it. She has worked with the clinic since the 1990s because of her concern about women’s rights.
Taylor says her job as an escort is to act as a barrier tostop interaction between the anti’s-a term for the antiabortion protesters-and the patients.
Taylor has been working with Wisconsin abortion clinics since 1992, when the protests were most frequent. Back then she became part of the Milwaukee Clinic Protection Coalition. This group acted as “clinic defense” and helped patients through crowds of protesters who filled parking lots and sidewalks while shouting scripture trying to stop patients from entering the clinic.
Taylor had read in a local newspaper that volunteers were needed at clinics because of an influx of demonstrators who were planning to protest clinics around the Milwaukee area.
“They were looking for volunteers. I got out my map and found out where it was, and I’ve been involved ever since,” she said.
At that time protesters came out by the hundreds, crowding Milwaukee streets, homes of doctors and positioned at the doorsteps. These clinics included Affiliated Medical Services, Imperial Health Center, Wisconsin Women’s Healthcare, Summit Women’s Health Organization and Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin.
Protesters at Wisconsin abortion clinics in the 1990s. Photos: David Ritz for MCPC Images 
Wisconsin clinics faced constant protesting for years until the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrance Act (FACE) was passed in 1994.The act prohibits the use or threat of force and physical obstruction that injures, intimidates, or interferes with a person seeking to obtain or provide reproductive health services, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.
Before the FACE act was passed, protesters’ tactics included blocking access to clinics by gathering in front of the doors, driving their cars into the front doors of the building and crowding the sidewalks. Protesters were also known for putting super glue in the locks of the doors to the clinic and putting acid under the doors so that the clinic would have to close due to the smell.
In addition to physical protesting, protesters associated with religious groups such as Missionaries to the Preborn, Youth for America and Collegians Activated to Liberate Life used scripture and praying as a form of protesting. Protesters recite bible verses and pray in front of the clinic, something that is still common today.
Taylor has seen protesters follow harass patients while following them to their cars, put religious pamphlets in their car windows and beg patients not to kill their baby.
Taylor has also seen the dangerous side of escorting at an abortion clinic.
“I’ve taken different ways home, I’ve had them follow me in a car,” she said. She has had lug nuts on her tires loosened or pulled off, and almost run off the road.
While Taylor says some protesters are just praying, others are “lawless and do not abide by the rules.”
Protesters carry a banner outside of a Wisconsin abortion clinic during the 1990s. Photo: David Ritz for MCPC Images
Another veteran escort, David Ritz, also began his volunteering as a member of Milwaukee Clinic Protection Coalition, working alongside Taylor. Prior to volunteering, Ritz had his own business recording performances by top classical musicians for Milwaukee Public Radio. He was also a photographer and scuba diver, and he and his wife traveled the world to combine photography with their love of scuba diving.
His wife at the time was an abortion clinic volunteer when Missionaries to the Preborn, a Christian pro-life extremist group, was protesting abortion in Milwaukee in 1992. She invited him to join her.
I didn’t feel as threatened with a school of 100 sharks as I did around protesters.
David Ritz, Affiliated Medical Services clinic escort
“I said, ‘What’s going on here is wrong and I will do my part to ensure access to the clinics,’” said Ritz.
Shortly after, Ritz began documenting protesters with his camera at different clinics five or six days a week to help identify protesters for police and in court hearings.
“I didn’t think I had the temperament for it. I had heardstories of what these people were like,” said Ritz. “So I thought I would lose it, I thought I’d go ballistic.”
Ritz’s photos were shared with Wisconsin State police, theFederal Bureau of Investigation, the United States Marshalls office, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and Interpol. In Milwaukee, the photos were most commonly used in court for contempt motionsagainst protesters.
Over time, Ritz witnessed the extreme actions of protesters. He photographed protests against Bernie Smith, the doctor who was performing abortions for AMS at the time, car blockades in front of clinics and tactics like “speed bumps,” where protesters would lay in front of cars entering clinic parking lots, and “hood surfing,” where protesters would throw themselves on the hoods of cars as if they had been hit.
Protesters acting as “speed bumps” at Wisconsin abortion clinic in the 1990s. Photos: David Ritz for MCPC Images 
Protesters “hood surfing.” 
Protesters blocking a police car during the Bernie Smith protest in Wisconsin. 
Firefighters work to remove a man from a car during a car blockade outside Affiliated Medical Services.
Ritz was one of the volunteers who began serving injunctions to protesters who threatened the safety of patients and escorts. Some of these protesters, as young as 10-years-old, could be seen crawling on their hands and knees across Farwell Avenue to the clinic as a part of their demonstrations.
After photographing protests for almost three years, Ritz was asked by clinics in 1995 to no longer come to the protests because his presence was deemed inflammatory. Ritz says that this may be because of the number of protesters he testified against in court, or because of the number of death threats made against him.
After being involved with Wisconsin clinics for years, Ritz is able to pick out specific dates and incidents off of the top of his head. Stories that would shock the average person are easy for him to discuss. He can slip in a joke, shrug his shoulders, and continue on to the next story.
It wasn’t until 2015 that Ritz would come back to Affiliated Medical Services as a clinic escort.
“I doubt [protesting] is ever going to stop,” said Ritz.
Phyllis, who asked that only her first name be used, began volunteering at Planned Parenthood in 1992 after word had spread about anticipatedprotests for the upcoming summer in Milwaukee. She attended meetings and learnedhow to protect patients from protesters after deciding it was “something that needed to be done.” She, like Taylor and Ritz, has seen the worst of the protests and faced similar threats.
She often hears protesters yell things like, “You should know better. You’re old enough to know that. You’re going to burn in hell!”
After Planned Parenthood stopped using escorts, Phyllis came to Affiliated Medical Services and has been with the clinic ever since.
Phyllis said she has seen some of the same protesters from Planned Parenthood also come out to Affiliated Medical Services. She says it’s not the fear that patients will be physically harmed by the protesters, but the intimidation and what the patients have to listen to.
“[Abortion is] a decision that the patients have made and thought about before they came. They don’t need to hear that they’re doing the wrong thing,” said Phyllis. “’Don’t kill your baby’ is the way they phrase it. They have no idea what the situation is for the patient,” she said.
Now that there are far less protesters at the clinic these days, the older escorts are ready for younger generations to fill their shoes. Adam says that what may motivate a younger crowd to start escorting to support abortion rights is the current occupant of the White House and his appointments to the Supreme Court.
“I think specifically with the election of Trump and everything that’s been going on,”he said, “I think more and more younger people are coming around to the idea that this is something that actively needs to be fought for.”