Biden hopes abortion will keep him in the White House. But has he done enough to protect rights?

The president has made big promises and held the line against legal challenges, but activists say he could be doing more

Carter Sherman
Fri 26 Jan 2024

Joe Biden’s re-election campaign has made a big bet that outrage over abortion will keep the president in the White House come November.

Over the last several days, the Biden administration has unleashed a blitz of ads and events to spotlight the devastation wrought by the overturning of Roe v Wade. Biden met with a reproductive health task force, while his vice-president, Kamala Harris – who he has entrusted to lead this effort – embarked on a national tour to talk about abortion. They even devoted their first joint campaign stop of 2024 to the issue.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/jan/26/biden-abortion-rights-expand-protections


Post-Roe, anti-abortion groups target law protecting clinics from violence

The Face Act penalizes people for blockading and threatening abortion clinics. Anti-abortion activists want it repealed

Carter Sherman
Sat 16 Sep 2023

The inside of the abortion clinic was chaotic. Anti-abortion protesters lined the walls. A few had sat down on the clinic’s lime green chairs and draped themselves in chains. “Please inspire these parents to keep their babies!” one man shouted, before he started singing about the Virgin Mary. As some of the protesters sang and prayed loudly, the police officers crowded inside the clinic tried to urge them to move. They didn’t want to budge.

It was 22 October 2020, and one anti-abortion advocate was livestreaming a group of activists who were at the Washington DC-area clinic to, in their view, “rescue” people from having abortions. One redheaded young woman turned to the camera.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/sep/16/face-act-anti-abortion-threaten-clinics


US anti-abortion activist who kept fetal remains convicted of blockading clinic

Lauren Handy and other anti-abortion protesters invaded a Washington DC clinic in 2020 and blocked people from entering

Carter Sherman
Tue 29 Aug 2023

Lauren Handy, the anti-abortion activist who kept five fetuses in her Washington DC home, was on Tuesday found guilty of breaking federal law by blockading an abortion clinic.

The charges stem from an incident in October 2020, when Handy and nine other anti-abortion protesters invaded a Washington abortion clinic, according to an October 2022 indictment of the group. Handy used a fake name to book an appointment at the clinic, then blocked people from entering the waiting room while other defendants chained themselves together inside the clinic, prosecutors alleged. One of the clinic’s nurses sprained her ankle after she was pushed by a protester, according to the indictment.

Continued:  https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/aug/29/lauren-handy-anti-abortion-convicted-blockading-clinic


Anti-abortion killer James Kopp files court papers arguing Supreme Court decision should set him free

In a court filing, Kopp argues his federal life sentence should be dismissed.

By Jon Wells, Hamilton Spectator
Friday, June 30, 2023

James Kopp, who took the war over abortion literally, killing an obstetrician in Buffalo and allegedly shooting and wounding three doctors in Canada, is attempting to use a landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision as a get-out-of-jail card.

In court papers filed in June, Kopp argues his 2007 federal court life sentence should be dismissed, in light of the high court’s decision last summer in Dobbs vs. Jackson Women’s Health Organization that struck down the constitutional right in the U.S. to terminate pregnancies established in the 1973 Roe vs. Wade case.

Continued: https://www.thespec.com/news/hamilton-region/anti-abortion-killer-james-kopp-files-court-papers-arguing-supreme-court-decision-should-set-him/article_a822f29c-57bb-5909-a490-bb5f46609d84.html


Alito said Dobbs would lower the temperature. Instead, it fanned the flames of abortion extremism.

Federal prosecutions of abortion-related crimes are way up in the year since the court overturned Roe v. Wade.

by BETSY WOODRUFF SWAN
06/24/2023

When the Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to abortion a year ago, Justice Samuel Alito suggested that returning the issue to lawmakers might alleviate extremism on both sides of the issue.

Roe v. Wade and other rulings protecting abortion, Alito wrote, had “enflamed debate,” “deepened division,” and prevented a “national settlement of the abortion issue.”

Continued: https://www.politico.com/news/2023/06/24/abortion-extremist-violence-dobbs-00103539


U.S. Anti-Abortion Activists Are Spreading Clinic Protests Around the World

The Texas-based group 40 Days for Life has brought its aggressive tactics to more than 1,000 cities in 65 countries.

Jessica Bateman
January 9, 2023

There were four or five protesters outside Queen Elizabeth University Hospital in Glasgow, Scotland, the first time Dr. Greg Irwin saw them. He was driving to his job as a consultant radiologist when he noticed the group hoisting placards opposite the parking lot, close to the maternity unit. BEFORE I FORMED YOU IN THE WOMB I KNEW YOU, one sign read, alongside a Bible reference. “Oh, my God,” Irwin thought. “It’s one of those American protests.”

After he parked in his usual spot, an older woman holding rosary beads smiled as he approached. “We’re holding a prayer vigil,” she explained, adding that they were offering “support and advice” to women. Irwin noticed their placards were branded with the logo of 40 Days for Life. When he googled the name later that night, he expected to find a local church organization. Instead, he discovered the shiny, high-budget website of a Texas-based group, emblazoned with pictures of men in sharp suits with dazzling white teeth. A counter in the corner ticked down the numbers of babies “saved” worldwide. Scrolling, he saw a map festooned with red pins, marking group locations all over the world. Irwin stared at his screen, bewildered. How could there be a connection between a group in Texas and the woman outside his hospital in Scotland?

Continued: https://newrepublic.com/article/169587/us-anti-abortion-activists-spreading-clinic-protests-around-world


Six Months After Roe v. Wade Demise, Abortion Opponents are Shaken and Angry

No arrests after more than 122 attacks on churches, pregnancy centers

BY JULIA DUIN
12/30/22

Attacks on abortion clinics are nothing new in the U.S., but a surge of incidents targeting abortion opponents in the name of a shadowy group called "Jane's Revenge" and others has left anti-abortion groups shaken—and angry with law enforcement agencies.

The increase in such violence began after the leak in May of the U.S. Supreme Court's decision of its intent to overturn the Roe v. Wade ruling that since 1973 had granted a nationwide right to abortion.

Continued: https://www.newsweek.com/six-months-after-roe-v-wade-demise-abortion-opponents-are-shaken-angry-1769837


USA – There’s A Dishonest Right-Wing Furor Over Recent Arrests Of Anti-Abortion Activists

Prominent conservatives are claiming the Biden administration launched a "war on pro-lifers" after the Justice Department arrested several protesters for blocking access to abortion clinics.

By  Alanna Vagianos
Oct 8, 2022

It’s been a federal crime for nearly 30 years to intimidate or interfere with any person trying to obtain or provide reproductive health care services. But two recent indictments by the Department of Justice for such violations have enraged some influential conservatives, who are now stoking a false narrative about a supposed war against the religious right.

It started with prominent anti-abortion minister Mark Houck, who late last month was arrested on federal charges that he allegedly twice assaulted a 72-year-old patient escort outside of a Planned Parenthood in Philadelphia. If proven, it would be a clear violation of the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act, a 1994 law that makes it a federal crime to use force or the threat of force to injure, intimidate or interfere with any person trying to obtain or provide reproductive health care services.

Continued: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/right-wing-arrests-anti-abortion-activists_n_634082dbe4b028164534c4ee


USA – Liberal Cities Are Not Immune to Mounting Attacks on Abortion Rights

BY Emily Janakiram & Katie Finnigan, Truthout
April 16, 2022

An anti-abortion group that masquerades as progressive in an attempt to gain a following in liberal cities suddenly surged into mainstream news headlines this spring after the Washington Metro Police Department recovered five fetuses from the apartment of anti-abortion activist Lauren Handy.

Handy is a member of the group “Progressive Anti-Abortion Uprising” (PAAU), which announced its formation in September 2021. The group claims to be “pro-BIPOC” and “pro-LGBTQ,” but in practice, the group’s actions align with a violent, right-wing anti-abortion tradition.

Continued: https://truthout.org/articles/liberal-cities-are-not-immune-to-mounting-attacks-on-abortion-rights/


Abortion Is Revolutionary: A Conversation with Lauren Rankin

April 5, 2022  
By Eleanor J. Bader

“ABORTION IS ABOUT someone’s future, their dreams, their lives,” Lauren Rankin writes in Bodies on the Line: At the Front Lines to Protect Abortion in America (Counterpoint Press). “When abortion is reduced to a mere political fight, we miss this, and we miss the very real stakes when access is denied.”

Those stakes, of course, have been enormous, with access to abortion limited by legal restrictions such as parental consent and notification requirements for minors; mandates that separate counseling from the actual procedure; and by the denial of insurance coverage by Medicaid and other plans. In addition, protests outside clinic doors have been ubiquitous for nearly five decades. In fact, picketers typically accost patients — often screaming at them as they thrust photos of bloody fetal parts in their faces — in an effort to dissuade them from ending their pregnancies. What’s more, anti-abortion violence, including the murder of 11 doctors and escorts since 1993, has had a chilling impact on the number of available providers.

Continued: https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/abortion-is-revolutionary-a-conversation-with-lauren-rankin/