Calla Hales told her date she worked at an abortion clinic. He raped her.

Content warning: This article deals with rape and could be triggering for some readers.

Calla Hales was raped because she works at an abortion clinic.

Soon afterwards, anti-abortion protestors began taunting her about the assault.

When Calla Hales went on a first date with a man in November 2015, she told him she worked in women’s health. Afterwards, he texted her, asking if she worked at an abortion clinic. She said she did.

On their next date, he raped her.

Hales has told Cosmopolitan that the man was “downright rude” to her during the second date. She ended the meal early and turned down his offer to go home with him. He walked her to her car, then raped her.

“He asked how I could live with myself and said I should repent,” she says.

“That I was a jezebel. That I was a murderer. That he was doing no worse to me than I had done to women.”

The man was eventually alarmed by a noise and ran off. Hales went to her friends’ house and told them what had happened, but chose not to go to the police. She went to work the next day.  

Several days later she went to the hospital for treatment, then filed an anonymous report to police. Worried about retribution and not wanting to face the trauma of a court case, she decided not to press charges. She tried to carry on as usual with her life.

But soon, she began seeing her attacker among the crowds of anti-abortion protesters outside her clinic in Raleigh, North Carolina. The protestors started using the word “jezebel” a lot more. She received letters saying she “deserved” it. The letters also mentioned personal details, such as a tattoo she has on her rib.

Following a period of intense harassment via phone and text message, Hales moved to another city, Charlotte. But she continued her work at the abortion clinic there.

Hales always knew that working at an abortion clinic would make her a target. Her mother and stepfather opened a clinic, under the name A Preferred Women’s Health Center, when she was eight. Now there are four clinics operating under that name, and Hales, at the age of 27, is director of all of them.

Hales and her parents own bulletproof vests, and her mother carries a gun in her purse. Her mother admits she has always worried about the safety of her four daughters.

People who work at abortion clinics in the US are used to threats and intimidation. The National Clinic Violence Survey shows more than a third of abortion providers experienced one or more incidents of severe violence and threats of violence in 2016. It’s a figure that’s on the rise.

Doctors and clinic staff frequently find their photographs, home addresses and personal information have been published online or put on “WANTED”-style posters. There’s a long history of deadly attacks on clinics. Doctors David Gunn, Barnett Slepian, John Britton and George Tiller have all been murdered.

Women attending clinics are regularly harassed and abused by protestors. In Raleigh, at the clinic where Hales used to work, an anti-abortion group is trying to set up a centre right next door.

Hales went on local news service ABC11, opening up about having been “physically attacked” by an anti-choice protestor, and saying it would be “irresponsible” to allow the group to move in.

“To have them next door to us to escalate so more people are exposed to that violence, I think Raleigh needs to pay attention to that,” she said.

Hales tells Cosmopolitan the anti-abortion protestors haven’t kept her from doing her job.

“The best thing I can do to prove them wrong is to continue to live and be a loudmouth. I mean, what could happen that’s worse than what’s already happened?”