It was only a year ago, on November 27, 2015, that we heard and saw on breaking news reports that an attack was taking place at a Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood clinic.
By the time it was over:
A police officer and two civilians were killed; five police officers and four civilians were injured. After a standoff that lasted five hours, police SWAT teams crashed armored vehicles into the lobby and the attacker surrendered.
The attacker, Robert Lewis Dear, Jr., was taken into custody and charged three days later with first-degree murder and ordered held without bond. At a December 9 court appearance, Dear repeatedly interrupted proceedings, made statements affirming his guilt (although he did not enter a formal plea), and expressed anti-abortion and anti-Planned Parenthood views, calling himself "a warrior for the babies." He appeared in court again on December 23, and asserted his desire to act as his own attorney in the criminal case against him. The judge ordered a mental competency evaluation to assess whether Dear is sufficiently competent to exercise his right to do so. Following subsequent evaluations that determined Dear to be delusional, the judge in the case ruled in May 2016 that Dear was incompetent to stand trial and ordered him indefinitely confined to a Colorado state mental hospital.
Dear has not yet been brought to trial, and that process could take years. “Competency hearings” are also in the news for accused South Carolina church shooter Dylann Roof.
From my perspective, it has become far too easy to simply write-off domestic terror in the U.S. as the work of lone “deranged” individuals, and to ignore the massive propaganda machinery spawned by the supremacist right media machine, which actively promotes an anti-reproductive rights agenda and inflames hate.
An important book on the history of domestic terror targeting reproductive heath providers was published in 2015, before the attack in Colorado Springs.
Living in the Crosshairs: The Untold Stories of Anti-Abortion Terrorism and Law, by David S. Cohen and Krysten Connon.
Abortion is a legal, common, and safe medical procedure that one in three American women will undergo. Yet ever since Roe v. Wade was decided in 1973, anti-abortion forces have tried nearly every tactic to eliminate it. Legislative and judicial developments dominate the news, but a troubling and all-too-common phenomenon-targeted vigilante action against individual abortion providers-is missing from the national discussion, only cropping up when a dramatic story like the murder of an abortion provider pushes it to the forefront. Every day, men and women who are associated with abortion care are harassed, threatened, stalked, picketed, sent hate mail, and otherwise terrorized. Those who seek help from the law are sometimes successful, but not always, either because there are insufficient protections built into the law, or because law enforcement officials fail to respond.
In Living in the Crosshairs, the voices of these providers are heard for the first time, through extensive interviews that David S. Cohen and Krysten Connon conducted across the country. Abortion providers are targeted at home, at work, or in community spaces; they can be harassed in person or online. Abortion opponents target not only the providers themselves but also may go after their families, neighbors, and others close to them. This kind of targeting happens anywhere in the country, not just in more conservative areas, and can victimize all providers, not just high-profile doctors. For some, being the victim of targeted harassment inspires significant fear and leads to changes in behavior; for others, it has become a normal part of life; and for yet others, it actively strengthens their resolve. The response of law enforcement at the federal, state, and local levels is spotty-though there are some strong laws on the books, especially at the federal level, abortion providers have had mixed experiences when it comes to legal recourse, and effectiveness varies. Drawing on ideas from the interviews, the authors propose several legal and societal reforms that could improve the lives of providers, foremost among them redefining targeted harassment as terrorism rather than protest.
Living in the Crosshairs is a rich and humane portrait of women's health professionals who persist in their work despite harassment because they believe in what they are doing. These providers' voices have not been heard in recent debates, leaving the public with a deficient understanding of exactly how abortion is limited in this country, yet their experiences illuminate the truth of the issue and offer us a path to a better policy.
After the Colorado shootings, CBS News had a review of the history of attacks:
Since 1977, there have been eight murders, 17 attempted murders, 42 bombings, 186 arsons and thousands of other incidents, including vandalism, according to the National Abortion Foundation, a trade group for abortion providers.In December 1994, two receptionists were killed at Planned Parenthood clinics in Brookline, Massachusetts, and five other people were wounded. The convicted gunman, John Salvi, was later found dead in prison of an apparent suicide. Before Friday, the most recent killing happened in 2009 in a Wichita, Kansas, church where Dr. George Tiller, who performed late-term abortions, was slain while serving as an usher. He had been shot in a previous attack years earlier.
In March, 1993, Dr. David Gunn was shot and killed in Pensacola, Fla. In 1994, Dr. John Britton and another man were killed in Pensacola, and two receptionists were killed at clinics in Brookline, Mass. Another doctor and another woman were killed in other incidents that year. Three other doctors were shot from 1995 to 1997.
In 2003, anti-abortion rights activist James Kopp reportedly admitted killing Dr. Barnett Slepian in Buffalo, although he claimed he only intended to harm Kopp, not murder him."Why do you think I used force against Dr. Slepian when he was within 10 hours of taking the lives of 25 babies? The question answers itself," Kopp said. Planned Parenthood clinics in New Hampshire, Southern California and Washington have been targeted by vandals and arsonists since a new wave of anti-abortion protests began this summer. (emphasis added)
There were reactions from both Planned Parenthood, and our Attorney General, among others, to the Colorado terror:
Vicki Cowart, president of Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains, decried the incident as a form of domestic terrorism. While the shooting was still ongoing, Republican Representative Adam Kinzinger demanded that Cowart apologize if the perpetrator was not anti-abortion.
U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch called the shooting "...not only a crime against the Colorado Springs community, but a crime against women receiving healthcare services at Planned Parenthood, law enforcement seeking to protect and serve, and other innocent people."
Those innocent people—whether going to the clinic accompanying a friend, or family member, or responding as a police officer to a 911 call—join the ever-growing list of names of the dead, wounded, and affected family members of domestic terror.
Given the full-fledged assault against Planned Parenthood and other reproductive healthcare providers, we know that these attacks will continue. The election to the office of the Vice Presidency of Mike Pence does not bode well for the nation and those of us fighting for reproductive justice.
It has however, sparked a surge of donations to Planned Parenthood in his name.
Planned Parenthood Has Already Received 46,000 Donations From ‘Mike Pence’
Planned Parenthood has received more than 200,000 donations since Donald Trump won the presidency — and at least 46,000 of those were made in the name of Indiana governor and noted uterine legislator Mike Pence.
The vice-president-elect, who has yet to prove that he understands how condoms work, is vehemently anti-abortion and has an abysmal record on women’s health. He has also waged a long-standing war against Planned Parenthood. To show their support of the organization (and piss Pence off at the same time), people have been donating to Planned Parenthood in his name since the election. Pence will get thank-you notes for each of the donations.
I stand with Planned Parenthood to support, protect and defend them against attacks and suppression. Today, I remember, and while remembering, I fight back.