Amid escalating threats and a lack of federal protection, abortion providers and advocates are fortifying clinics, pushing states to act and refusing to back down.
Editor’s note: This is the fourth and final installment of Ms.’ series on antiabortion violence. Read Part 1 here, Part 2 here, and Part 3 here.
Antiabortion violence isn’t new. But this year, the terrain shifted in dangerous ways: First, the Trump administration declared it would not enforce the federal law that had helped curtail attacks. Then Minnesota State Rep. Melissa Hortman, a strong advocate for abortion rights, and her husband were brutally murdered.
This is not business as usual, abortion providers and advocates told Ms. But if the violence is meant to intimidate, it is failing. Providers are steadfast in their resolve to continue to offer abortion where it is legal, even as threats increase, even as states pass laws to reduce access, even as the federal government turns away.
Certainly, abortion providers and advocates are taking the recent surge in political and antiabortion violence seriously.
They are reinforcing security. They are keeping tabs on extremists affiliated with groups and networks like the Army of God, whose followers have murdered abortion providers and bombed clinics. They are working closely with local law enforcement in states where abortion remains legal. And in the absence of protection from the federal government, they are pushing those states to enact laws that will replace the safeguards offered by the federal FACE Act and to step up enforcement of existing measures.
“We really want states to use every tool available to them to pass laws to protect providers and patient communities, and they’re not yet,” says duVergne Gaines of the National Clinic Access Project.
Several states have laws on the books that can be used by prosecutors and in some jurisdictions by providers, the latter in civil cases, she says. Those include measures that address workplace violence, criminal trespassing, cybersecurity and nuisance.
Further, Gaines says state attorneys general can file civil suits to protect clinics under the federal FACE Act.
New York Attorney General Letitia James, for instance, invoked both federal and state laws when she sued Red Rose Rescue for invading clinics and blocking patients’ access to healthcare. A federal judge granted her request for an injunction earlier this year.
Twenty-two states and D.C. have enacted interstate shield laws to protect patients who travel there from more restrictive states to get abortions.
“States have different types of laws addressing safe access to reproductive healthcare facilities,” Gaines says. “But not enough. Not enough.”
Now advocates worry that the administration’s policies and the increased violence could produce a chilling effect. When asked by the New Jersey Monitor in June about abortion-rights bills that were stalled in that state’s legislature, Senate President Nicholas Scutari, a Democrat who supports abortion rights, responded: “Don’t try to get me killed out here. I mean, that’s what killed those people in Minnesota.”
No matter the violence they have experienced or the threats they encounter, no matter the trepidations about their personal safety, the abortion-rights advocates interviewed for this article say they will not give up. They are dedicated to a cause, and they knew what they were getting into, they told Ms.
“A lot of folks describe this work as a calling,” says the National Abortion Federation’s Melissa Fowler. “They go into it knowing that they will likely face harassment and threats and possibly violence.”
That’s particularly true for Calla Hales, who followed her parents into the service of running abortion clinics and who said she was raped during a date a decade ago specifically because of her job.
“He had me in between the seats, wrapped the seat belt around my neck, and at some point, bit me on my chest,” Hales told Cosmopolitan in 2017. “He said things like I should have expected this and that I deserved it. He asked how I could live with myself and said I should repent. That I was a jezebel. That I was a murderer. That he was doing no worse to me than I had done to women. He said he would make me remember him.”
Hales did not press charges because she feared retribution on her family, friends and staff; because she was embarrassed; and because she worried about the emotional and mental trauma of a trial. But she did remember her attacker. In fact, shortly after the rape, she began to see him at protests outside the Raleigh, N.C., clinic where she worked. She told Cosmopolitan that other protesters started yelling things at her that echoed his comments during the rape. She began receiving hate mail, texts and calls, some of which suggested she was being watched. She was scared and panicked, so she picked up and moved to Charlotte.
Now, though, Hales says she is a “different person” than she was 10 years ago. She speaks out regularly about the threats and violence, knowing that raising her profile makes her less safe.
“For me, I feel a certain sense of almost compulsion to do this work, even when it’s awful and, you know, I want to quit,” she says. “There’s always this little sense of in the back of my head of ‘Fuck it, do it anyway.’”
Hales says she does what she can to protect herself. She quit social media because of the hatred aimed at her, she pays attention to her surroundings and she talks to her family about how to deal with threats.
Still, she is public in her advocacy on behalf of patients who have to skirt protesters and on behalf of providers who face risks every time they go to work.
“Without us talking about it, I don’t think people ever understand how bad it is,” Hales says.
Ruth Richardson continues to speak out, even as she grieves the loss of her friend Melissa Hortman, even as she grapples with the reality that she was on the Minnesota suspect’s hit list.
“You know, I come from a long line of people who had to do some really hard things,” says Richardson, who, as a Black woman, often encounters threats laced with racial animus. “And when I think about the critical moment that we find ourselves in, in terms of everything that is happening within our environment, and even trying to process through the horrific events of the past month, I often am reflecting on those who came before me. I’m reflecting on my own ancestors and the difficult walk that they had. And for me, that is an important reminder of the fact that we can do hard things. We’ve had to do hard things. This isn’t new.”
This concludes Ms.’ week-long series on antiabortion violence—but the story is far from over. The lives and safety of providers, advocates and patients hang in the balance, and Ms. will continue reporting on these threats in the months ahead.
Great Job Jodi Enda & the Team @ Ms. Magazine Source link for sharing this story.
