The Minnesota Shooting Wasn’t Random—It Was a Predictable Resurgence of Violence

Abortion providers and pro-abortion lawmakers have long been under threat. It’s time we act like it .

July 9, 2025
by Tiffany L. Green and Jamie Morgan

Minnesota experienced an act of devastating political violence last month: Former Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark Hortman, were killed in their home. State Sen. John Hoffman and his wife Yvette are recovering from life-saving surgeries after shielding their adult daughter from the gunman.

While we do not yet understand the full extent of the gunman’s motives, it is undeniable that protesting abortion and intimidating people who support access to it was one of them. Authorities report the suspect carried a list of over 70 targets, including elected officials who support abortion rights, abortion providers and pro-choice advocates.

Continued: https://msmagazine.com/2025/07/09/minnesota-shooting-hortman-anti-abortion-violence-doctors-providers/

This Student-Led Initiative Sends Letters of Support to Abortion Patients and Providers

6/18/2025
by Ava Slocum, Ms. Magazine

We’re in the midst of an incredible surge in antiabortion extremism and clinic violence, with this weekend’s tragic shooting of pro-abortion Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband providing a grim example of the threats facing abortion advocates. Meanwhile, in the wake of state-level attacks on abortion rights, it’s hard to ignore the mental health implications for abortion patients and providers alike.

… Most news coverage of abortion rights in the United States focuses on the legal battles, and this coverage is extremely important. But the initiative Write and Rights—started last year by college student Iha Rastogi—is working to boost the mental health of abortion patients and providers in the midst of these attacks on their rights by organizing her fellow students to write and send supportive letters to clinics.

Continued: https://msmagazine.com/2025/06/18/students-send-letters-support-abortion-patients-providers/

18.06.2025

Commentary

FACE Act

Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act

Deadly shootings in Minnesota have shaken abortion providers

The suspected shooter had a list of targets that included abortion providers, including Planned Parenthood affiliates and employees.

By Shefali Luthra, Grace Panetta
June 18, 2025

Abortion providers have long grappled with threats of political violence, but Saturday’s shootings targeting Minnesota lawmakers have put them on high alert, and many say they feel newly vulnerable.

Suspected shooter Vance Boelter had a list of targets that included other elected officials and abortion providers, including Planned Parenthood affiliates and employees, multiple outlets reported. Boelter had also previously spoken out against abortion, per multiple statements surfaced by news outlets.

Continued: https://19thnews.org/2025/06/minnesota-shootings-abortion-clinics/

Kamala Harris puts abortion front and center with visit to Minnesota clinic

Vice-president toured Planned Parenthood facility signaling issue will be key in election

Carter Sherman
Thu 14 Mar 2024

Kamala Harris visited a Planned Parenthood abortion clinic on Thursday, becoming what is believed to be the first vice-president ever to do so.

Harris stopped by a clinic in Minnesota, a state where abortion remains legal following the overturning of Roe v Wade, as part of her nationwide tour to highlight the impact of Roe’s downfall. Harris also toured the clinic, which remained open to patients as the nation’s first female vice-president made her historic visit.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/mar/14/kamala-harris-visits-abortion-clinic-minnesota

14.03.2024

News

Dr Sarah Traxler

Kamala Harris

Planned Parenthood cliinc

USA – Capturing the ‘spectacularly unspectacular’ reality of abortions and reproductive health facilities

Carmen Winant’s new installation at the Minneapolis Institute of Art conveys how unremarkable spaces and procedures that have become intensely politicised are

Helen Stoilas
11 August 2023

Just days before voters in nearby Ohio rebuffed a Republican attempt to curtail amendments to the state’s constitution, ahead of an important referendum on abortion, an installation opened at the Minneapolis Institute of Art that aims to destigmatise the medical procedure. The last safe abortion (until 31 December 2023), by the artist Carmen Winant, employs images drawn from clinics, universities and historical archives in Minnesota, Iowa, Nebraska and Ohio, along with photographs Winant took in present-day reproductive health spaces, to show the routine but essential work that is done there.

Continued: https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2023/08/11/carmen-winant-minneapolis-institute-art-abortion-photo-installation

11.08.2023

News

Carmen Winant

Casey Riley

Minneapolis Institute of Art

The Last Safe Abortion

Inside A US Abortion Clinic Director’s Post-Roe Odyssey

By Inès BEL AIBA
June 19, 2023

As a first-year college student from the Minneapolis suburbs, Tammi Kromenaker was proudly anti-abortion, at one point slapping a "God is pro-life" bumper sticker on her dormitory room wall.

Currently serving as the head of an abortion clinic, she laughs about it all now. But in many ways, her relationship with abortion continues to be a winding odyssey -- more literally these days, after the fall of Roe v. Wade last year forced her to up and move the clinic.

Continued: https://www.barrons.com/news/inside-a-us-abortion-clinic-director-s-post-roe-odyssey-aa5b6511

OB-GYN shortage expected to get worse as medical students fear prosecution in states with abortion restrictions

19.06.2023

In post-Roe America, these Minnesotans are getting people to their abortion appointments

They're part of a movement to support those navigating the new abortion landscape. In some states, case managers' jobs are targeted.

By Briana Bierschbach Star Tribune
APRIL 14, 2023

Emily Mohrbacher spent all morning working through the queue, but by early afternoon, the list of people needing her assistance had climbed back up to 43.

Laptop open, earbuds in, Mohrbacher snacked on a fig newton in her Minneapolis kitchen and got back to work. She used an encrypted app to send a few questions to a woman in another state who had an abortion scheduled the next day but no way of getting to her appointment. As she waited for a response, Mohrbacher checked in with another client from Nebraska who needed to get to St. Paul for her procedure.

Continued: https://www.startribune.com/minnesota-abortion-access-navigators-help-patients-travel-to-appointments/600266744/

Abortion access under renewed threat in Oklahoma and Missouri

By Veronica Stracqualursi, CNN
Sun April 10, 2022

(CNN)While abortion rights advocates could secure several victories in US states in the coming days, they're sounding the alarm about an Oklahoma bill that would ban nearly all abortions that's likely to be signed into law. Here are some of this week's moves in state legislatures and by state leaders you may have missed.

Oklahoma sends near-total ban on abortion to governor
Oklahoma legislators passed a bill on Tuesday that would make performing an abortion illegal in the state, except to save the life of the pregnant woman in a medical emergency.

Continued: https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/09/politics/state-abortion-legislation-round-up-oklahoma-missouri/index.html

USA – These 5 States Are the Next Battlegrounds in the Abortion Wars

These 5 States Are the Next Battlegrounds in the Abortion Wars
Abortion rights groups are pouring tens of millions into these states to flip their legislatures in 2020.

by Carter Sherman
Oct 22 2019

When Americans think about the future of abortion, they often think of the Supreme Court decision to legalize abortion nationwide in Roe v. Wade. But over the last decade, the real battle over abortion hasn’t been in Washington, D.C. — it’s played out in statehouses across the country, where legislators have passed restriction after restriction on the procedure.

Now, abortion rights activists believe they have a unique chance to wrest back those state legislatures from abortion opponents. And though Election Day 2020 is still more than a year away, they’re already preparing.

Continued: https://www.vice.com/en_ca/article/43kpy3/these-5-states-are-the-next-battlegrounds-in-the-abortion-wars

USA – Woman who shot Wichita abortion doctor, bombed clinics in 1990s released from prison

Woman who shot Wichita abortion doctor, bombed clinics in 1990s released from prison

By Judy L. Thomas
May 22, 2018

The Oregon woman who shot and wounded a Wichita abortion doctor 25 years ago and firebombed several clinics in three states has been released from federal prison, causing concern among clinic operators who worry her release could spark a new wave of attacks.

Rachelle "Shelley" Shannon, whose actions triggered a federal investigation into the possible existence of a nationwide conspiracy of anti-abortion terrorists intent on shutting down abortion clinics, left the Waseca Federal Correctional Facility in Minnesota on Monday and was being transported by bus to Portland, where she will be staying in a halfway house, according to her friends.

Continued: http://www.kansascity.com/news/local/crime/article211653329.html