UK – State and federal MPs describe death threats and vile abuse in wake of Joanna Howe’s anti-abortion campaign

Representatives around the country say third parties sent abusive messages after they were targeted for their stance on abortion

Tory Shepherd
Wed 21 May 2025

State and federal MPs around the country say they and their staff have received death threats from third parties amid controversy generated by the self-described “assertiveness” of the anti-abortion activist Joanna Howe.

Howe, an expert in migration law at the University of Adelaide, has campaigned for anti-abortion laws in various state parliaments, and this month organised a rally – attended by the former prime minister Tony Abbott – against NSW reforms to improve access to services. She said on social media people “need to be hysterical” about the bill, which represented what she called “an extreme, radical takeover of our country”.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/may/21/state-and-federal-mps-describe-death-threats-and-vile-abuse-in-wake-of-joanna-howes-anti-abortion-campaign-ntwnfb

The Legacy of Dr. Warren Hern: Abortion Provider, Women’s Health Advocate and Target of Hate

1/17/2025
by Carole Joffe, Ms. Magazine

After more than 50 years of providing abortions, Dr. Warren Hern of Boulder, Colo., will retire on Jan. 22, 2025. For years, he has been one of the most high-profile abortion doctors in the United States—one of only a handful of providers to perform abortions in the late second trimester and third trimester of pregnancy.

…In a letter to Ms. executive editor Kathy Spillar reflecting on his five-plus decades in medicine, Hern described his role and his clinic as “providing the safest, most compassionate and highest quality outpatient abortion services available anywhere.”

Continued: https://msmagazine.com/2025/01/17/warren-hern-late-abortion-care/

Abortion Activists Are Targets of Violent, Gendered Threats After Overturn of Roe

The threats almost always come from men.

BY ZELLY MARTIN, DR. MARTIN RIEDL, EDITH HOLLANDER, AND DR. INGA TRAUTHIG
JULY 10, 2023

If your job necessitated that you cope with constant death threats against you and your three-year-old, would you do it? What if you weren’t getting paid? Cathy* is an abortion rights activist whose answer is a resounding, yes. But Cathy wasn’t always an activist. Four years ago, she was a pregnant woman living in Ohio and thought she was having a miscarriage. “I went to the emergency room because I was having a lot of fluid leaking. And when you're pregnant, that's obviously a cause for concern, and I was having horrible pain, and I thought, Oh, my God! I'm miscarrying.”

She came into the ER sobbing, and the staff immediately took her into a small room without her partner. “What did you do to cause this miscarriage?” they asked. “I'm sobbing, and leaking, and I'm like, ‘Nothing, nothing! Can you help me? I think I’m losing my pregnancy,’” Cathy recalled saying.

Continued: https://www.teenvogue.com/story/abortion-activists-violent-threats-roe

10.07.2023

Commentary

anti-choice cruelty

anti-choice death threats

anti-choice fanaticism

anti-choice hatred

anti-choice misogyny

anti-choice threats

criminalization of pregnancy

Melissa Fowler

National Abortion Federation

Propaganda Research Lab

United States

Anti-choice

Human Rights

Anti-abortion violence on the rise a year after Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade

KERA | By Caroline Love
June 26, 2023

Abortion was a right people thought was secure — the Supreme Court protected it more than half a century ago. But the same court snatched that right away last year.

The reaction across the country was visceral. People took to the streets during hot summer nights in cities across North Texas. They chanted “hands off my body,” channeling their anger into protests.

Continued: https://www.keranews.org/news/2023-06-26/anti-abortion-violence-on-the-rise

Poland: Escalating Threats to Women Activists

Human Rights Watch
March 31, 2021

(Berlin) – Bomb and death threats targeting at least seven groups in Poland for supporting women’s rights and the right to abortion are disturbing reminders of escalating risks to women’s human rights defenders in the country, Human Rights Watch, CIVICUS, and International Planned Parenthood Federation-European Network (IPPF-EN) said today.

The authorities should urgently investigate, protect the women targeted and hold those responsible for the threats accountable. Polish officials should also counter abusive misinformation campaigns targeting activists.

Continued: https://www.hrw.org/news/2021/03/31/poland-escalating-threats-women-activists

31.03.2021

All-Poland Women's Strike

Andrzej Duda

anti-choice death threats

anti-choice extremism

anti-choice hatred

anti-choice misogyny

anti-choice terrorism

anti-choice threats

anti-choice violence

Bartlomiej Wroblewski

Federation for Women and Family Planning

Feminoteka

FundacjaFOR

Grupa Stonewall

Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights

Hillary Margolis

Human Rights Watch

International Planned Parenthood Federation

International Planned Parenthood Federation European Network

International Women's Day

Law and Justice party

Marta Lempart

Ogólnopolski Strajk Kobiet

Poland Constitutional Tribunal

Przemysław Czarnek

Women’s Rights Centre (Centrum Praw Kobiet)

Women’s Strike

Women’s Strike Consultative Council

USA – 10 years after abortion doctor George Tiller’s murder, advocates fear violent rhetoric

10 years after abortion doctor George Tiller's murder, advocates fear violent rhetoric

Alia E. Dastagir, USA TODAY
Published May 31, 2019

Ten years ago today, George Tiller, a Kansas abortion doctor, was attending Sunday service at his Wichita church when he was fatally shot by an anti-abortion extremist.

"However profound our differences as Americans over difficult issues such as abortion, they cannot be resolved by heinous acts of violence," President Barack Obama said in a statement after his death.

Continued: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/05/31/george-tillers-murder-abortion-rights-advocates-worry-10-years-later/1300017001/

Professor forced into hiding by death threats over Brazil abortion hearing

Professor forced into hiding by death threats over Brazil abortion hearing
Campaigner involved in case that could lead to legal abortion in first 12 weeks of pregnancy enters protection programme

Dom Phillips in Rio de Janeiro
Thu 2 Aug 2018

Days before a Brazilian supreme court hearing on a move that could eventually decriminalise abortion in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy, a leading feminist campaigner is in hiding after receiving death threats.

Debora Diniz, a professor of anthropology at the University of Brasília, who helped bring the legal action with bioethics institute Anis, is sequestered in an unknown location but will still appear at the two-day hearing, which starts on Friday.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2018/aug/02/professor-forced-into-hiding-by-death-threats-over-brazil-abortion-hearing