USA – Alone in a bathroom:

The fear and uncertainty of a post-Roe medication abortion

By Caroline Kitchener
April 11, 2024

Angel tucked two white pills into each side of her mouth, bracing herself as they began to dissolve. Her deepest fears and anxieties took over.

Angel had wanted to talk to a doctor before she took the pills to end her pregnancy, worried about how they might interact with medication she took for her heart condition. But in her home state of Oklahoma, where almost all abortions are banned, that wasn’t an option.

Continued: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/interactive/2024/abortion-pill-experience-stories/

USA – The Shared Anti-Trans and Anti-Abortion Playbook

Some of the very groups that pushed for abortion bans are now coming for trans health care.

By Irin Carmon
Apr 4, 2023

A self-described whistleblower touting her progressive bona fides, claiming patients are being harmed by rapacious medical providers with no regard for informed consent or side effects. A cadre of former patients stating their regret, claiming the existing research on side effects and outcomes is doctored or misrepresented. Conservative legislators swooping in to purportedly protect these patients from themselves or from greedy doctors, lingering on whatever graphic details they can get their hands on. Centrists, and some liberals, wondering aloud if the strident defense of this health care may be political poison for Democrats, and anyway, surely there’s a middle ground to which only the truly reasonable and unemotional folks can lead us. In the meantime, people who can’t afford to get on a plane to a less hostile state are trapped unless grassroots funds come through, and even helping someone get care can put you in the crosshairs. All of this describes Abby Johnson…

Continued: https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2023/04/anti-trans-anti-abortion-activism-playbook.html

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

09.01.2023

40 Days for Life Croatia

Abby Johnson

Abortion Access Front

Alice Murray

American Life League

anti-choice harassment

anti-choice intimidation

anti-choice misogyny

anti-choice protesters

British Pregnancy Advisory Service

buffer zones

Catholic Church

Center for Reproductive Rights

Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act

MSI Reproductive Choices

USA – More activists who have had abortions are saying so out loud. Here’s why

November 2, 2021
Danielle Kurtzleben

In 1992, an estimated half a million people gathered on the National Mall for a rally for abortion rights.

The speakers made many of the same arguments that abortion-rights advocates have made for decades, arguing that government shouldn't limit people's ability to make decisions about their own bodies.

Continued: https://www.npr.org/2021/11/02/1050653918/more-activists-who-have-had-abortions-are-saying-so-out-loud-heres-why

Before the Capitol Attack, There Were the Abortion Wars

For reproductive rights defenders, the mood and some of the faces in the crowd were familiar.

By ALISSA QUART
FEB 04, 2021

Some 30 years ago a man named John Brockhoeft planned two bombings at abortion clinics and women’s health centers in Ohio and Florida. Brockhoeft was sentenced to seven years in prison (he served five) for the firebombing of one clinic; he had already served 26 months for scheming unsuccessfully to bomb another. Brockhoeft called himself a “freedom fighter” and kept a prison newsletter detailing his missions. It was an era when headlines were filled with the number of abortion providers who were either targeted or assassinated.

Three decades after his last clinic bombing, the same Brockhoeft livestreamed his arrival at the Capitol on Jan. 6. He called the moment his fight “for our beloved President Donald J. Trump.”

Continued: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2021/02/before-the-capitol-attack-there-were-the-abortion-wars.html

Anti-Abortion, Pro-Insurrection

Opponents of the right to choose played a key role in the January 6 uprising in the U.S. Capitol.

by Eleanor J. Bader
February 3, 2021

Pundits eager to dissect the origins of the January 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol rarely include the misogynist anti-abortion movement in their musings. But they should.

Not only did many prominent anti-abortion groups and individuals attend the gathering—including Operation Save America leaders Frank Campana, Ante Pavkovic, and Jason Storms; former Planned Parenthood staffer—now an outspoken antiabortionist—Abby Johnson; convicted clinic bomber John Brockhoeft; and clinic harasser turned West Virginia House of Delegates member Derrick Evans—but racism, vitriolic hatred of socialism and communism, and reverence for militarism have for decades been a part of the ideology gluing violent opponents of abortion to the broader cause.

Continued: https://progressive.org/dispatches/anti-abortion-pro-insurrection-bader-210203/

USA – The Capitol Insurrection Was Fed by the Anti-Abortion Movement

BY Tina Vásquez, Prism
February 2, 2021

Reproductive justice advocate Jordyn Close watched with the rest of the nation on Jan. 6 as Donald Trump supporters invaded the Capitol. Some were outfitted in tactical gear and had zip ties at the ready. Others brought nooses and pitchforks and Confederate flags. The insurrectionists broke windows, ransacked lawmakers’ offices, and spread feces on the Capitol walls. By the end of it all, five people died.

The escalation from rhetoric to violence at the Capitol has shocked many Americans. Close, who works with Unite for Reproductive and Gender Equity (URGE), is an abortion storyteller with We Testify, and who serves on the board of the abortion fund Women Have Options Ohio, is less surprised. Very early into the news coverage of the insurrection, Close saw a number of familiar faces. Overwhelmingly, these were white men who — when not trying to overthrow the government — spend a great deal of their time harassing people outside of abortion clinics.

Continued: https://truthout.org/articles/the-capitol-insurrection-was-fed-by-the-anti-abortion-movement/

02.02.2021

Featured

News

A Preferred Women’s Health Clinic

Abby Johnson

Abortion Access Front

abortion stigma

anti-choice hatred

anti-choice misogyny

anti-choice terrorism

anti-choice violence

anti-choice white supremacy

Faithful Soldier Training Camp

Operation Save America

Political Research Associates

Triangle Abortion Access Coalition

Unite for Reproductive and Gender Equity

URGE

We Testify

white supremacy

Women Have Options Ohio

Women's Health Center of West Virginia

United States

Anti-choice

The Capitol Rioters’ Disturbing Ties to the March for Life

Several people who stormed the Capitol are linked to the anti-abortion March for Life. Enough with their dangerous anti-abortion rhetoric, writes comic and activist Lizz Winstead.

Lizz Winstead
Published Jan. 29, 2021

On Jan. 6, insurrectionists attacked the U.S. Capitol and brought into sharp focus a threat those of us who have been monitoring right-wing extremists have understood for years. Some of the people who either attended the siege of the Capitol—or played cheerleader for it to their thousands of followers on social media—were the exact same dangerous extremists who harass and threaten patients and doctors daily at reproductive health centers, including some of the biggest stars of the “pro-life” movement.

It was alarming, then, that on Jan. 29, just three weeks after the storming of the Capitol, another D.C. gathering of Trump-loving extremists, one that annually draws tens of thousands, was seemingly moving forward as planned.

Continued: https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-capitol-rioters-disturbing-ties-to-the-march-for-life

How Anti-Abortion Terrorism Fueled The MAGA Attack On The Capitol

LAUREN RANKIN
LAST UPDATED JANUARY 15, 2021

Last week, the world watched in horror as a pro-Trump mob, urged by the President himself, attacked the U.S. Capitol in an effort to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. Thousands of angry people, rushed the Capitol building, overwhelming the law enforcement officers who were staged outside. They smashed windows and broke down doors; thousands of them flooded into the Capitol building itself. For several hours, they occupied congressional offices and triumphantly paraded through the House and Senate floors, wreaking havoc and calling for violence against and death for politicians and police officers, alike. By the end of the seditious melee, five people were dead.

One of the people there was John Brockhoeft, who posted online about his presence at the Capitol. Brockhoeft isn’t just any Trump supporter. He’s also a convicted anti-abortion terrorist.

Continued: https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/2021/01/10265551/anti-abortion-terrorism-capitol-riot-attack

Long Before the Capitol Riot, Anti-Abortion Extremists Showed Us the Dangers of Inflammatory Propaganda

It’s no coincidence several “pro-life” activists were in DC last week.

BECCA ANDREWS, Mother Jones
Jan 14, 2021

A week after the violent insurrection at the Capitol, we’re learning more and more about the people who charged the building. And recent reporting from Vice, Jezebel, and others reveal there were quite a few anti-abortion extremists at the pro-Trump rally, if not in the Capitol afterward as well. You’re probably thinking, hmm, ok, that makes sense—and it does! But the overlap of these universes cannot simply be boiled down to the fact that Trump supporters are more likely to strongly oppose abortion.

The violence we saw at the Capitol—and the inflammatory rhetoric and disinformation that led up to it—in fact mirrors what’s been plaguing the debate around abortion for several years.

Continued: https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2021/01/anti-abortion-extremists-capitol-riot-trump-propaganda-abby-johnson/