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Terrorism against abortion clinics, and even Planned Parenthood clinics that do not provide abortions, didn’t start Friday afternoon. Here’s The New York Times today:
Since abortion became legal nationally, with the Supreme Court’s decision in Roe v. Wade in 1973, many abortion clinics and staff members across the country have been subjected to harassment including death and bomb threats, and hundreds of acts of violence including arson, bombings and assaults and eight murders, according to figures compiled by the Naral Pro-Choice America Foundation.
Planned Parenthood’s Colorado Springs center was one of many locations around the county that became the site of large anti-abortion protests over the summer after abortion opponents released surreptitious videos of Planned Parenthood officials discussing using fetal organs for research. On Aug. 22, the day of nationwide protests to defund Planned Parenthood, more than 300 people protested outside the clinic here, according to local news reports.
The attack at the Planned Parenthood offices in Colorado Springs left three dead, including University of Colorado police officer Garrett Swasey, 44, and nine other police officers and civilians injured by the shooter, identified as Robert Dear, aged either 57 or 59. But several hours after Dear surrendered, mainstream media and prominent politicians are not calling the act what it is: an act of terror. The pro-choice organization NARAL has a list of some of the terrorist acts and threats that have been launched against abortion clinics during the past four decades:
A campaign of violence, vandalism, and intimidation is endangering providers and patients and curtailing the availability of abortion services. Since 1993, eight clinic workers – including four doctors, two clinic employees, a clinic escort, and a security guard – have been murdered in the United States. Seventeen attempted murders have also occurred since 1991. In fact, opponents of choice have directed more than 6,800 reported acts of violence against abortion providers since 1977, including bombings, arsons, death threats, bioterrorism threats, and assaults, as well as more than 188,000 reported acts of disruption, including bomb threats, hate mail, and harassing calls.
One of the earliest attacks was made against the non-profit Boulder Valley (Colorado) Clinic that 14 others and I co-founded in 1973, still operating today as the Boulder Valley Women’s Health Center. The attacker struck at night with a Molotov Cocktail. But, the building then housing the clinic had been a residence previously and the attackers mistakenly hit the building’s garage. The Fire Department put out the blaze quickly and the clinic itself was unharmed, but the staff and we board members were shaken. Little did we know how much further these forced-birthers would take things.
More than 40 years later, these attacks continue and yet the media and prominent leaders refuse to call them what they are: terrorism meant to intimidate people from working at or being a client at these facilities. Among the encouragers of these terrorists are people who create lying videos about Planned Parenthood selling baby parts and pundits both prominent and obscure who verbally attack abortion clinics every day from their electronic podiums.
The acts of these encouragers may not be prosecutable but they are nonetheless morally criminal. These cowards need to be called out for the terrorists and terrorist enablers they are.
Tweet of the Day
Blast from the Past
Some amendments are more equal than others:
I'm not going all-in for the message of this Mayors Against Illegal Guns "Terror Gap" thing. But I'm struck by what I'll call the "Hypocrisy Gap" instead.
I don't want to take up too much of your post-holiday time with this, but here's what's bugging me: the wingnuts have happily sold you out on your First Amendment rights, your Fourth Amendment rights, your Fifth Amendment rights, your Sixth Amendment rights, and your Eighth Amendment rights, all in the name of their right to crap their pants in fear over the 1% chance of terrorism.
But the minute someone suggests that maybe some aspect of the amendment that actually has something to do with the ability to kill people could stand some reexamination, suddenly it's time to Live Free or Die again.
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