Anti-Abortion Terrorism

Mia Wong walks us through the bloody and violent history of anti-abortion terror

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
It happened here. The thing that happened here was anti
abortion terrorism at high and Christopher Wong. I'm posting this.
We're doing this really speedy with me, Sharne, Robert Garrison,
and Sophie. Hi. Yeah, Hi, don't feel too speedy. I
mean this is an important Yeah, we're we're we're going

(00:29):
through the interest. We can get to the we can
get to the content faster. Get to the meat. Yeah,
let's get to the fucking meat. Let's get to the
sandwich portion of the I don't know what I'm doing.
We're talking about terrorism, Sophie, your favorite thing. Christ saved
the day. So okay, well, we've we've talked about sort

(00:51):
of abortion as a as a legal issue, but running
parallel to the sort of legal electoral pain against abortion
was a wave, a systemic campaign of terror that ranged
Trevor from you know, sort of individual personal humiliation and
terrorization of individual women seeking abortion to like nail bombs
and blowing abortion providers heads off with shotguns. Um. Yeah,

(01:15):
so it's it's extremely bad, obviously, but I think there's
a tendency among people who look at antibution violence is
sort of like isolated from its historical context, which is that, Okay,
the American right has always rolled by terror from like
literally its earliest extermination campaigns against addition as people who
like whose land they stole to, you know, the sort
of horrific psychological abuse and violence inflicted against slaves on

(01:38):
their own plantation. Who there's an entire history of like
denying abortion people to slaves for numerous reasons. So you know,
there's no reason really to expect that anti abortion militants
like wouldn't be violent. And I think it's worth noting
that that the tactics of of the sort of militant

(01:59):
wing of the anti orsition movements, which are things like
our arson bombings and assassination are these these are the
key tactics of the of the segregationist movement when they're
finding against integration and you know, low and behold, like
as as abortion becomes the political glue for the right,
after they sort of okay, well they sort of losified

(02:19):
over integration, they lose the ability to legally say like
that you can't do integration, but a lot of the
sort of factors segregation like still exists. But yeah, like
as I do that, like you still see you know,
you see a new generation of sort of right wing
militants like taking the tactics of the old right wing
militants and using them to kill people, which is to add, yeah,

(02:45):
for the for the record, yes, that is our official position.
We're taking up bold stands here radicals. So I think
we should start with someone who was not killing people,
because I think it's it's useful to see the sort
of like the arc of of how this movement goes.

(03:08):
So John O'Keefe was a Catholic anti war protester. He
his thing was okay, so he's anti abortion, right, but
he wants to fuse like the anti nuclear anti war
movements with the anti abortion movements sort of in the
wake of Roe v. Wade. And this doesn't work because
the anti war and the answer nuclear movements are like
driven by leftist and feminists and they're like no, like

(03:31):
funk off, like we're not gonna like we want people
to have abortions, so you know, but but he he,
he still is like dead set that there should be
this sort of like direct actually against abortion clinics. And
he managed to convince this convince this like quicker peace
activist named Charles Fager to like teach the anti abortion
movement the sort of like techniques of like the civil

(03:51):
rights movements and do like no violence ofilius obedience, and
so people like like in the in the early seventies,
like as az Row like is happening, people start changing
themselves to abortion clinics, and you know, like, I think
this is if if you've been around the left long enough,
like these are tactics, I think you'd recognize. But these
these are very very different campaigns. Then you're sort of

(04:12):
like chanting yourself to a tree like the And the
biggest difference is like the the extent to which the
focus is just purely on terrorizing people. So I'm going
to read a quote of like what these protests actually
look like, um from the book Living in the Crosshairs,
The Untold Stories of Anti Abortion Terrorism. The protesters stand
at the entrance to the clinics parking lot and badger

(04:34):
the patients. When they come in, they get screamed at.
The protesters write down their license plates, they send them cards,
They make phone calls to their homes. Protesters also swarm
clinics and harass the people who work there. Those window blinds.
Christina Who's works at a clinic, explained while pointing at
the huge windows that surround the conference table in one
of her clients. You pull them down, you can look

(04:56):
through them and you could find the protesters at the
windows looking in. And Krista, who's the person who's talking
about this, like she describes like the like these protesters
would walk up to her and like say her kids names,
you know, in order to get like the doctor into
this clinic who is doing the abortions, like they have
to smuggle him in like that, he can't park in

(05:17):
the parking lot because the abortion protesters will get to him,
so they have to they have to like smuggle him
in in in Christa's car. And like even then people
follow them constantly, Like the doctors and nurses have to
like change the roots to work every day. They have
these like decoys they have to use. Um. Like yeah,
and for the record, I've gotten reports from folks who

(05:38):
work for abortion access organizations saying they are now in
multiple states using drones to follow people as they leave
the Jesus their their license playing numbers. Yeah that God,
that makes sense. But it's yeah, like these people like Krista,
the person I was talking about, like she she had
to transfer her kids to a private school that like

(06:00):
knew what her job was so that her kids wouldn't
get harassed. And like, well, we'll come back to this
sort of quote unquote non violent stuff later, but like
even in it's sort of like non violent phase, this
is a terror campaign, like the the the goal of
this is to terrorize everyone involved, like stalking them, by
intimidating them, by harassing them, to get them to not
do abortions anymore, making patients or people that want abortions

(06:23):
too afraid to get them, and people that provide them
too afraid to provide them. Yeah. Yeah, And but you
know this doesn't really work in the seventies, and but
by the time you shoot the eighties, it starts to
get really violent. Um in nice and eight two or
is this guy named Donnie Ben don Benny Anderson. It

(06:43):
is two nephews, Matt and Wayne Moore carry out the
first anti abortion, the first action of this this right
wig anti abortion. Also they're like really anti gay, Like
they they have a thing later on where they like
they have this giant celebration for like the Saudias beheading
too gay dudes or three gay dudes like they're they're horrible. Yeah,
this this network is called the Army of God. And

(07:06):
oh these guys there, that sounds familiar, Yeah, they're they're
this very actually in some ways like they're they were
very sort of quintessentially modern terrorist organization and that like
they don't they don't have like a command structure. It's
not even so much essentialized cells. It's just like people
just sort of can freely affiliate to it. And like
he used his name to carry out attacks. And the
first one of these is it's it's this guy, Johnny

(07:29):
Benny Anderson. He kidnaps Dr Hector Zavalos and his wife
Jean and originally, like the their their plan is to
kill them, um don Benny Anderson like he but what
he writes about it is that he has been talking
to God and he has been talking to art Change,
to the archangel Michael, and they have commanded him to
go and kill this person. And eventually, like negotiators fortunately

(07:54):
are able to talk them down, and like the doctor
makes this like it tells them like yeah, no, no no,
I'm not gonna do abortions anymore. That they let them go.
But yeah, I think like it is important to note
that like among people who are like this hardcore and
this isn't you know, I said, like, there are people

(08:15):
a lot of people who more moderate than this, Like
the the whole sort of talking to God thing like
that is not uncommon. No, that is like very good. No,
these are all people who in their churches will like
say a bunch of gibberish words and tell everyone each
other that they're speaking in like the secret language of
God that God has like speak into their brains, speaking

(08:37):
in tongues. Yes, yeah, so like and yeah, like and
I think I think like there's some tendency to like,
like I've seen I've seen people trying to write this
office people who are mentally illms like no, no, no, no,
no no. These are desearching me. They don't believe in
a different world than you do, and they're willing to
use violence to make their world real. Yeah, and the

(08:59):
letter that they right, I like, why while they're holding
these people captives, says quote, those who truly love God
would kill the baby killers. And it turned out later
that they've been funding their activities by robbing abortion clinics.
And actually that's not that's the thing that doesn't that
I don't think I've ever seen any of the like,
like I don't think this doesn't get included in like

(09:20):
the list of terrorist things people do against abortion clinics.
But they get robbed a lot, Like there's like a
lot of these builitants are just robbing abortion clinics so
to fund their stuff. Um. And and this is again
like the thing you have to keep in mind when
you're trying to and it like, if you literally believe
the things that these people literally believe, this is the
only moral thing to do. Yeah, if there if there

(09:43):
were just trying like get in their heads, if there
were an organization literally murdering babies every single day, this
would be the right thing to do. That's like you
have to actually like they're not crazy. They fundamentally exist
in a world that is is different from from the
one you live in as the world in a fucking

(10:05):
Marvel comic. Like it's it's it's just another reality that
they exist within. Yeah, and like you get sort of
like you get like like I don't know, you're called
like people who are trying to play the centrist ango
who were like, oh, like people on the left don't
understand that. It's like it's not about autonomy for them.
They literally believe they're killing babies. And it's like that
doesn't like a no, but like yeah, like yeah, the

(10:25):
fact that they literally believe that abortion is killing children.
The only thing that does is make them more fanatical
and more militants. And it's like, yeah, like I used
to sort of believe, like I used to believe that,
like oh, like people don't understand they really think they're
killing babies thing. And then I went to college and
I like read it started reading about the history of genocides,
and I started reading about like what how how common
it is for people who commit genocides to literally believe

(10:45):
that if they don't do this genocide, that the people
the genocide and you you are going to kill them. And
it was like, oh, oh no, no, that that actually
that just makes you more likely to do violence, Like
it's and and this this goes exactly how to expect
in fact that the and this is one of the
other things that they're very effective about, which is each

(11:05):
attack like radicalizes more people to start doing attacks. So
remember remember John O'Keefe, the guy who was doing the
non violent stuff, Like he starts questioning whether non violence
is like the right tactic and he never like bombs anything,
but he likes stops condemning violence in public. And this
this goes really really really badly really quickly. Um, the

(11:30):
Army of God publishes this like it's initially a very
clandestine thing, but they publish his manual about how to
attack abortion clinics, but has stuff from like like pouring
concrete overheating pipes, how to make bombs. Um, they have
this thing that the antibortion people do a lot, which
is pouring bucolic acid, which smells like it is the

(11:52):
thing that makes vomits smell bad. Like you you can
you can smell like two parts per ten million like
of this thing like in a room, and they'll they'll
take like a syringe and they'll inject it into a
facility and like like one drop of this stuff is
enough that like you can smell it like months later
there's no way to like easily clean it. And eventually
like they're pouring gallons of this stuff like into abortion clinics,

(12:16):
into the ventilation system. Yeah. Yeah, it's there are more
than a hundred of these attacks today too, Like it's
they've they've done this a lot. Yeah, by four, this
whole thing goes into overdrive. Um, I'm going to read
a quote from from the book Armed for Life, The
Army of God and anti abortion terror. In the United States,
the National Abortion Federation identifies thirty incidents of arson or

(12:38):
bombing in night four, exceeding the previous seven years combined.
The series of bombing is included, but was not limited, to,
the offices of the National Abortion Fund and the Americans
Civil Liberties Union in Washington, d c. As well as
abortion clinics in Virginia, Maryland, and Delaware. The signature of
the Army of God was also found in a subsequent
clinic bombing in Saratosa, Florida. Um. One of the other

(13:00):
things that they do that is that is great is
so they have have a declaration of war that the
Army of God sends. They also like, like specifically send
a death threat to Harry Blackman, who was the black
Man was who was the guy who wrote the Supreme
Court justice who wrote Roe v. Wade, which is like,
you know, this is a fun thing if you've been

(13:21):
like the whole discourse cycle. But oh, we shouldn't protest
that these houses Like yeah, man, a terrorist group like
threatened to kill the justice who wrote this thing, like
and and that guy, um, the guy who wrote that
eventually carried out like this enormous bombing campaign where he
started strapping like twenty pound like liquor pro pain tanks

(13:42):
to dumpowder bombs and blowing up clinics with them. And
this stuff spreads are spreads like wildfire. People start using
the Army of God's bomb recipes to attack clinics in
other ways, like yeah, we talked, We've talked about so
of the other campaign stuff that they use. Um and
and this this starts to like a lot of the
people who wind up in the full on terrorism stuff

(14:04):
where like people who used to be like non violent protesters,
So Shelley Shelley Shannon, who who had previously been like
a non violent protester like goes violent and ninety two
and starts doing these like fautric acid attacks and then
she graduates to arson. She attacks seven clinics, offices and
health centers. And these aren't like when I say attacks,
like this isn't like they threw a ball off at it.

(14:24):
Like she is making napalm and like detonating napalm bombs
like inside of these clinics, it is do they even
care if people are inside? Or so? It's weird. Initially
they're they're targeting empty buildings, but they're like they're like
working themselves up to it, and like they they start

(14:47):
to be they they you could read this in their writing,
like they they they're working themselves up to a point
where they're like, wow, okay, if there was a person
in this building, we don't really care, and yeah, yeah,
and but nice ninety two the Army of God like
specifically in it in its manual, like as justification for
killing people, m and lo and behold. One year later
after this is one of the other strategies to use

(15:08):
what what what was their justification they're killing It's like, well,
they're killing babies, and they have to have a bunch
of Bible verses that they sit and they're like, now
we can kill people because they're killing babies. It's great.
It's that's that's truly like in writing to horrify. Yeah,

(15:30):
and like like literally the next year there's all these
they start doing this thing where they put wanted posters
with like an abortion doctor's name in them, like like
literally like stuff out of like a like a Battled
West movie and they'll have like their name and like
where they live, and like that fact that they're a
doctor and say they kill babies, and uh so you

(15:50):
know in in in in three, these posters go up
for this doctor named Dr David Gunn and he's one
day walking back to his car when he gets shot
three times in the back by Michael Griffin and he
he dies, and he he is the first that David
Gunn is the first bushed provider to be killed, and

(16:12):
he is not going to be the last. Yeah, so
this immediately and you know, the moment someone does it,
like it opens the floodgates and suddenly everyone is doing it.
And so you know, this makes people like Shelley Shannon
and who we talked about like setting off napalm bombs,
who until this point has only like bombed anti buildings.
Like she starts like considering killing people and a few

(16:33):
months later she shoots Dr George Tiller. And if you're
thinking to yourself, hold on weight, I thought Dr George
Tiller was killed in two thousand and nine and not,
you are right, Shelley's assassination attempts like she shot him
like in both arms but he survived to be murdered
a a decade and a half later. Um. Meanwhile, there's

(16:56):
this guy named Paul Hill who's just like a like
a bustion clinic like protester, right, he urges in like
the national media scene because he's he's like the he's
like the guy who will go on TV and defend
Michael Griffin killing killing a doctor, and they just let
him do this. He does the whole fucking talk show circuits.
They just let him do this to defend on Life TV.
He's on all of the mainstream networks to defend killing

(17:18):
abortion doctors. And he does it again with Shelley Shannon's
attempt to kill George Schiller. And a year later, uh,
Paul Hill walked up to Dr Joe Britton Britain and
blew his head off with the shotgun wounds. His wife
turns around and then killed an abortion uh like at
clinic escort named James Barrett. Like they had this guy
on TV fucking every night saying that he like calling

(17:42):
the saying that killing abortion doctors is justified, and then
he fucking kills he blew an abortion doctor's head off
with a shotgun. The next year, well, and uh yet
I don't think I'm what's exciting is that I'm sure
that when there are more attack x uh by pro
choice oriented people. Uh, at no point will anyone get

(18:05):
brought on TV network to say anything. But but asked
that tops get more money to crack down on them. Yeah,
it's like just the medias in which she was awful.
We're gonna talk about this more in a bit because
it gets even worse. Um so that that same year,
in ninety four, there's a gunman named John Scali the
Third who walks into a building and murders Shannon Loney,

(18:30):
who is a social worker in anti abortion like she's
she's an anti abortion and an anti child, a brief
advocate who's working at Plant Parenthood, and he just walks
and shoots her. She shoots at a bunch of the
doctors and the patients and luckily they all survived. But
then he goes to another clinic and he kills social
worker Leanne Nichols, who was like working at the front
desk there, and he's eventually arrested. He gets away with
both of these ones, but then he goes and tries

(18:52):
to shoot up a third clinic and that one finally
like he gets arrested for. But like and the other
thing is like that the third clank that he shoots
it like that's a clank that already had already been
bombed as the claimk that they've been protest that for years.
And he's you know, he goes there and he shoots
at these these people and he kills two more people,
and yeah, and it's you know, and they just like

(19:14):
keep doing this. And one of the sort of incredibly
grotesque things is that like, Okay, so the Army of
God has this. They have a website, right, and their
website has these these things they call like the Prisoners
of Christ, who are like people who are like it's
like prisoners of conscience but like Christ, who they like
celebrate and the like raise funds for. And one of
the ways they do this is they have this thing
called the White Rose Banquet, which is like one of

(19:36):
the most offensive names I've ever seen for an organization.
That's it's named after the White Rose Society, which is
just like Christian anti Nazi like nonviolent resistance group who's
like leaders were all killed by Hitler for opposing Hitler.
And they they are things like well, okay, so the
abortion is the is the new Holocaust, and so you
know they have this banquet that's like in support of

(19:58):
these terrorists and they at the first one. Then they
released this thing called the Nuremberg File Project, which was
this like it was this archive of like abortion providers.
It has like their names, has their addresses as photos,
it has their phone numbers. Um. They target like they
and it's not just like doctors, right, they target clinic staff,
the target security guards, stark at anyone who's who's around there,

(20:18):
and that they have like these like lists of different
categories of people. So first, if you're still alive, your
name will be in like bolded black. If you've been wounded,
your name will be grade like grade out. And then
if you die, there's like if you get killed or
you die, there's a strike through through it. So this
is this is a killed list they've assembled and this
is just like going around the internet. There's enormous numbers

(20:40):
of people who like providers who are who are put
on this and they also like the White Rose siety,
like at this bankot they start putting out wanted posters
with like a thousand dollar rewards for closing a clinic
and for like convincing a doctor to stop giving abortions,
and because these people are just like like I can't
have is enough like literal monsters. In the auction off

(21:03):
the gun that Shelly Shannon used to kill George Chiller,
that's like a fundraising thing. Yeah, and uh, there's a
number of things you think about that. One of that
is one of them is the fact that the local
police department absolutely had to be um involved in that
because normally murder weapons don't go back to anyone that

(21:23):
they're destroyed, um, which means the police were like, yeah,
we absolutely want you guys to be able to auction
this gun on cool stuff. The fear tactics they would
be like, of course they would work if your whole
if your name is on this list and you have
a family and you're you know what I mean, like
it's it's I will say that there is an interesting

(21:45):
thing with this, were like a lot of a lot
of people who like get targeted by this stuff, like
it just pisces them off and they can even more
committed to it, which is like incredibly rad But also
like Jesus Christ, they just they have these abortion provider
kill lists, and people on this list get killed. It's encouraged,
like the people are encouraging to kill them. And like
they do this in the open, like there are like

(22:07):
literally like Christian radio stations will like they will be
they'll they'll do this thing where like they'll they'll they'll
start listing like like like by name and the addresses
of like where the abortion providers dear them are and
then start talking about the biblical verses to justify killing them.
And then they will literally say on the radio, go
kill this person. And they could just do this. No
one stopped them ever. They just got away with this

(22:28):
for decades and decades. So what one of one of
the other. I think this bombing is famous, but I
don't think the reason why it happened is famous. Um
so there's a guy Eric Rudolph. Oh yeah, it was

(22:51):
was wondering when they we're gonna talk about Yeah, yeah,
so that's right now. So so Eric Rudolph is most
famous for nailed bombing Atlanta Olympics. He did. Yeah, he
put entering hundreds of peace yeah yeah, he enters people,
he kills killing killed one. Yeah, it was more special
forces guy right, yeah yeah yeah yeah, And He says

(23:12):
that his commander in ar assault regiment taught him how
to make bombs like out of out of like scrap stuff.
So he like yeah, so okay, so and he does
his next six. He doesn't get caught, right this this
this guy, this guy detonated a nail bomb at the
fucking Olympics. And then at then a year later. Oh,

(23:35):
don't worry, we're gonna We're gonna a year later, this
twice next year. The next year, he sets off a
bunch of bombs, and he sets off a bomb at
an abortion clinic. And this is like, this is this
is a double tap bomb. There is a there is
a bomb in a trash can behind that that's that's
designed to kill the first responders. Um, this is seven
people and the seven and it kills the police officer

(23:56):
actually does it? Oh I didn't, but yeah, it kills
the police officer. Yeah. And then like the next one,
he bombs in Atlanta nightclub and win six people. I'm
sorry specifically, yeah, he bombed, he bombs, I bought, he
bombs a gay bar. Um and there were that one
he also like in the adjacent parking lot, because again
he was trying to kill the first responders, that the

(24:17):
police find a bomb and diffuse it before it can
go off. And again they still don't get this guy
the not until two thousand three. The next year, he
bombs another rebution clinic with a nail bomb. In this
kind of just got time, he kills a security guard
named Robert Sanderson, and like permanently injures a nurse name
Emi Leons, who was like Emily Leon's who was he

(24:37):
was left like half blind and like permanently made by
the fact that again he set off a fucking nail
bomb and he was not caught. He was not he
was not caught for a while. Yeah, And I want
to stop here and talk about like how the bombing
stuff is carried in the media, right, Um, as best
I could, talent, I went to look for this. No
anarchist has killed someone with the bomb in the US

(24:59):
for hundred years, Like Coral Marx was closer to seeing
the moon landing than a baby born today is of
seeing an anarchist kill someoneos with the bomb. And yet
anarchism everywhere is so constantly associated with bombings. Meanwhile, the
anti abortion freaks fucking they bombed the nine Olympics with

(25:20):
a nail bomb, and he on when he was in
his trial, he released to benifesto talking about how deadly
force is justified against people who operate abortion clinics. He talks,
he talks about a whole whole bunch of like whole
bunch of anti gay stuff, whole bunch of anti abortion stuff,
like and he's like he's given them like like on
his trial just used to like read his manifesto. It's

(25:43):
pretty it's pretty wild. Where are the pro life activists
when it comes to taking life? That's interesting, Well, but
that's that's the thing though. They're all they're all in
favor of of like, yeah, there are doing that. It's
self defense or its defensive, these these these babics. I'm
not the defense of those who can't defend themselves. What

(26:07):
they'll talk about it is entirely within them, the moral
universe within they operate. It's it is entirely consistent. It's
one of those things. Whenever like liberals will be like,
why don't they do this or why don't do they that?
That's not pro life, and it's like, well, because the
word doesn't mean the same thing to you. Well, and
and the guy's doing this terror because like you will,
occasionally you'll get some I mean, some of the pro

(26:27):
life people oppose this because they think it's bad optics, right,
But apparently it's not bad optics because again, like, who
are the people who get fucking remembered as bombers? Like
and I want to I want to read a quote
from from the FBI. This is this is This is
from from the book Armed for Life. In in nineteen
eighty four, the year with the highest abortion clinic bombings
to date, FBI Director William Webster went on television and

(26:49):
informed the public, quote, bombing a bank or a post
office is terrorism. Bombing an abortion clinic is not an
active terrorism because the objective is social. Is social and
anti abortion violence, and I don't believe it currently meets
our definition of terrorism. Reagan's called Reagan called the It's worse, okay,
Reagan called called the bombings. The abortion clinic bomb is

(27:12):
quote anarchist activities. Like they're fucking they're blowing up abortion
clinics and we're still getting fucking blamed for it. Like
Jesus Christ, I don't know a lot about anything. So
this is a lot of this is used to me,
which is wild that I'm hearing about a lot of
this for the first time. How have I not known

(27:33):
about this? They bombed the Olympics and know what talks
about it? Actually, like I was just losing my mind
the whold like it's it's bad, and it's it's still happening.
It's not. It's just like three people were killed and
nine people were injured an attack on the Planned Parenthood
clinic in Colorado back. Um, there's been over at least

(27:58):
at least at least eleven murder is tied to of
anti abortion uh like like action. I guess twenty six
attempted murders, at least forty two bombings, two hundred arsons,
and then thousands and thousands of more like assaults and
random random incidents. We should also point out here when
we're talking about the murder counts and murder count is

(28:19):
lower vented actually is because the murder count doesn't count
to people who like the Americans, like specifically the Americans
who went to Canada to shoot abortion doctors and the
Americans who went to Australia to shoot abortion doctors, both
of which happened, and threats against abortion providers have increased
exponentially just since just since, like they have more than quadrupled,

(28:40):
like this is it's constant. It's been escalating at such
a at such a rate that every year's data is
insufficient for talking about the current period. Like it's it's
you can't you can't even talk about it because all
of the data is so inaccurate. Now that's how fast
this stuff is accelerating. And and like there's there's a
few other things that like, like you mentioned when we

(29:00):
talked about the statistics. So one of the reason is
the reason the death toll is like quote unquote only
eleven is because bomb making is really hard and a
lot of these bombs don't go off. So for example,
in Canada, a worker right a clinic discovered a bomb
with two pounds of nails in it that quote how
to destruct a capability of a hundred feet um and
you know, and also like I should put this out
like okay, so like they they there's a lot of

(29:22):
abotion doctors who are killed like outside of their clinics.
But also there's a guy named James Copp who who
shot he shot like four doctors and he shot them
like in their homes like with with with an s
KS like in their homes through their windows and he
he killed Dr Barrett Slippy in in in the nineties
and like and you know and like it. They like

(29:44):
they keep doing stuff like this, Like in two thousand
and one. I don't know if I wonder how many
people actually remember this. Uh, there was this huge anthrax scare.
What was an ancestor like that people were like they
were later they were anthact attacks. People were like mailing
people letters with anthrax in it, and so right, this
is happening. Um, A guy named Clay Wagner since eight
hundred letters signed by the RB of God with fake

(30:05):
anthrax to plan players heard clinics in seventeen states and
these antis packets like it's not just like flower, right,
these antis packets have BT in it, which is there's
a pesticide that is so similar to anthrax of the
package just texted tested positive. And so all of these people,
these eight eight hundred clinics who opened these letters like
thought they were going to die because they opened they
opened a letter there was white potter in it. It
said it was anthrax and then it tested positive for anthrax.

(30:27):
And like to this day, a bunch of abortion clinics
like have like like that when when they're they're like
when they opened their mail, they have they have like
a special room that is like sealed off so that
if they open the mail, they open a chemical weapon,
only the person reading the mail will die. Well. Great,
that's the side of a good system. Yeah. They also

(30:49):
a lot of planned parenthoods have something kind of similar
set up with the receptionist where basically the way it's
set up is that if there's a mass shooter, the
receptionists can like seal off everyone but them. Yeah, it's
like a thing that you know you're getting into if
you're in a plant, if you if you're in that gig,
it's like someone might come in and I might have
to die to try and stop them from getting to

(31:11):
everyone else. It's it's bad. I mean, just just from
there was a hundred increase in reports of assaults and
batteries uh inside and outside clinics. UM, there was double
the amount of death threats from and things have not

(31:31):
gotten better since twenty So we're just waiting for all
that new data to come in because oh boy, Yeah,
and I think there's another thing when we need to
keep in mind with this data is that there's so
much stuff doesn't get reported. All of those numbers are low,
every single one of them is normally low. And there
was a bunch of other stuff that is people do
that just never gets talked about. Um, well, okay, so

(31:52):
I think before we get into that, I do want
to talk about the most famous uh abortion provide you
who got murdered, which is Dr George Tiller, who is
like a genuinely incredibly heroic figure who he was keep
doing it after the first time you were shot, Like
you would be a hero if you did it up
until you got shot, going after like he got shot.

(32:15):
He's a his clinic got bombed. There was an entire eye. Yeah,
he's clinic up on what was the other one? Yeah,
he he was. He was one of the he was
I think he was actually I don't know if it
was that anthrax threat or like a different anthrax threat,
but like people, people like he kept getting anthrax threats. Um.
There was this thing called Operation Rescue, which is I

(32:36):
guess that there's still version of us around. But they're
these like they do these like giant like non violent
severe disito obedience campaigns were like thousands of people will
will will will show up to a place and they'll
like change themselves the buildings and they'll like prevent anyone
from getting in, and they'll like terrorize everyone around there.
And his office is one of the is one of
the ones that was targeted, which is like in there
like that they had this big campaign called Operation Rescue.

(32:57):
It was targeting like him specifically. And there is one
fun story in this which is they tried this in Minneapolis,
Nett three, but they got their asss cap by a
bunch of anarchists and had to all run away, which
was extremely funny. But yeah, like I'm the The other
thing that that's important with with Tiller specifically is the
extent to which the right wing media is like like

(33:19):
culpable in this um like Tiller. Like Bill o'reiley specifically
is constantly yelling about Tiller. He calls Tiller the baby killer.
He accuses him of running a quote operating a death mill,
executing baby is about to be born, and destroying fetuses
for just about any reason right up until birthdate. Uh.

(33:42):
He On one of his rants, he he literally says
like right before well not like pretty close to when
Tiller ists assassinated. Uh quote, if I could get my
hands on tiller, well, you know, can't be vigilantes, can't
do that. It's just a figure of speech. But despicable.
Oh my god, it doesn't get worse? Does it get worse? No? Wow,
So he's just like this is just like the ship

(34:02):
that that he's that that he's being subjected to by
the media. And then oh lo and behold he gets murdered.
You know what doesn't I don't know, I have nothing
to say. It doesn't do uh coordinated you know what
would be dope? Here here's what I'll say. You know,
it would be dope if when somebody came to shoot

(34:22):
George Tyler that person had gotten shot repeatedly. That would
have been cool. M that would have been neat. But anyway,
here's ads and we're back with more horrifying stuff. Um. Yeah,

(34:48):
so there's a lot of focus I think, you know,
there's been a lot of media coverage recently about this,
just because, like you knows, as a reaction to the
incredibly bad faith Like, oh, look at the sanctity of
people protesting at the Supreme Court. It's like they blew
people's heads off. The shotguns but you know, and like
that's good, and I'm really glad there's there's more media

(35:09):
reporting about this, But I want to talk about you know,
there's there's an incredible focus here on the shootings and bombings,
and like there's good reason for that, But I want
to talk about some other ship that the force birth
fanatics do because it's horrifying. It doesn't get talked enough
about enough. Um So, one of the people who gets
interviewed in Living in the cross Hairs, which is a
great book by the way, it's it's about I mean, okay,

(35:30):
I don't agree with all of its policy recommendations, but
it's a book like interviewing like abortion providers about their experiences.
One of the people they interview is this guy named
Rodney Smith, who's an abortion doctor. Um and I'm just
gonna read the stuff that they do to this guy
because it's okay, So protesters show up to his son's wedding. Um,

(35:51):
they burn his house and his farm down, They burns
to death, They kill their dog, their cats, and all
of their possessions. Wow. Yeah from the books help kill Babies.
Can you tell me that the cats? Yeah, we will
imagine im script did this Yeah, everyone would lose their minds.

(36:12):
I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna read a quote about
this from this book. Someone mailed a letter postmarked the
morning of the fire justifying killing the animals on Rodney's
farm because Rodney quote murdered little children. However, the letter
was untraceable. Wow. They do this ship all the fucking time,
and it never gets reported. Because the reason never gets
reported is because when when when, when this this the

(36:35):
city comes to investigate, They fucking destroyed the entire scene
of the crime. They showed the entire scene of the
crime so thoroughly that when the fire marshal showed up
the day after, they tried to arrest um. They tried
to arrest Rodney Smith Smith for evidence tampering because I
thought that he had done it right. Yeah, that makes sense. Wow,
And let's less lest you think this is the end

(36:58):
of the ship, that that that this guy goes through, right,
Like they when they find out he's like going to
like a conference, or like they find out he's staying
in hotel, that they do these campaigns where like they'll
they'll do these mass collins to the hotel saying hey,
there's this person here and if you don't kick them out,
like we're going to protest all your branches. He gets
kicked out of hotels. Um, he gets attacked by an
anti abortion protester in the chambers of the Supreme Court,

(37:22):
like that Supreme Court, the big one. How did they
even get in the two the chambers of the Supreme Court.
He was just one of it was one of the
people who was showing up at this thing, and that
the guy like throws him out of his chair, grabs him,
throws him out of his chair, picks up the chair
and starts beating the share out of him with his
own chair. In this is in the chambers of the
Supreme courts. They beat an abortion doctor with his own chair.

(37:46):
And you know, socially, Roddy had had security with him, right,
because you know it it's yeah, when when you're abortion
doctor and and people are this targeted at you, Yeah,
you have securities. You don't get attacked like this. But
the court wouldn't let him like bring his private security
in and their rationalization was, uh, he had been assured
that quote nothing ever happens in the Supreme Court. To

(38:08):
think about this, right, you cannot find a news article
about this. Right, a guy got beat up by these
people in the Supreme Court. If literally anyone who was
not a fucking forced birth anti abortion fanatic did this,
there would have been a new cycle that would have
lasted until the fucking end of time. There have been
a movie and three shows made about it. Yeah, and

(38:30):
there's just nothing well like that is wild, Like that
is really showing like these things don't get These things
aren't big problems, right because they aren't challenging to any
kind of power structure. So they're allowed to happen because
they're just reinforcing things. They're not actually challenging things. Um.
But still it's very brazen. When you're killing like seventeen

(38:53):
horses and going into the Supreme Court to beat someone
with a chair, you would think that someone would say something,
Um and I've never heard of this before either this
I know, this is like the thing, the thing I
want to emphasize about this. This is the things they

(39:14):
did to one guy, right, one doctor. This is happening
like this is right, Like this stuff, this kind of
stuff is happening to people every fucking day across the country,
and there is nothing there is jack shit. You might
maybe see a report in local papers, like maybe it

(39:35):
is a it is a it is a just an
incredible campaign of terror. But this guy is like he
is staggeringly based. Uh. Here this is quote from that book. Again,
Rodney is used to this type of verbal abuse and
sometimes reacting kinds. When a priest called him a murderer, Uh,
Rodney responded by calling the priest a child molester. When
the protesters told Rodney they were praying for him, he responded, no,

(39:57):
you're praying upon us. There's a difference. So she rules
and she likes she he'd been a doctor who like
did other stuff and when they worshiped people. I think
I think it was after they burned his house down.
She was like, no, fuck you, I'm only going to
do abortions now. She's exaggeratedly basic, like yeah, which which
I guess also like this is this is a thing
that like so like obviously, like I don't think any

(40:19):
leftist has ever fucking lit people's horses on fire, not
that I know of them, generally left generally they would
have more of an instinct to free the horses. Yeah,
Like you have to you have to be like genuinely
monstrous to to light horses on fire, like they screamed
like horses scream like when you like them on fire.
I mean, and and and cats and dogs animal like

(40:40):
an animal abust and animal murder. But it's it's like
pretty pretty despicable. And there's uh just justifying it by
saying it's because they were on the property of someone
who helps gives abortions is some wild some wild thinking. Well,
none of those what's are in the Bible. Actually there

(41:00):
is there is a lot of animal murdering in the Bible.
Never mind yeah, okay, well but but but but I mean,
I I will say that there is a thing that
can happen where if if you like, sometimes targeted protests
on a person just like makes them bin for it,
like dig into their beliefs. And that's on top and
and and I think like here, I think like there's

(41:21):
a lot of people who are just stunning Lee Brave
who go through this ship and just still keep doing
it because like this is something that they believe in.
And you know, and those aren't even like that extreme
examples of like the kind of stuff that happens. Again
again we've talked about like again nail bombs, right, like

(41:41):
people were getting their heads blown off with shotguns. There's
there's a systemic campaign of terror that has felt incredibly
acutely by the people who need these services, who need
to get abortions, who need to get reproductive healthcare, and
is felt by the providers of that healthcare, and nobody
else in society sees about it or talks about it,
and they have you know, Okay, so the I'm I'm
gonna read another quote from Living in the Crosshairs about

(42:02):
the tactics that these groups use because they have they
have so many things. These tactics include bombings, arson and
threat scares, and mass blockades. Extremists have also thrown beautric
acid into clinics, glued clinic locks, shut locked themselves to
clinic property using items such as bicycle locks or chains,
drilled holes into clinic groups so that clinics flood, invaded,
invaded clinics, vandalized clinics, made threatening phone calls, try to

(42:25):
persuade patients to go to fake clinics, which we've talked
about that in our our episode on Cristis pregnancy centers,
but those that is also like part of the systemic
campaign of terror, is deceiving and humiliating people into not
getting abortions. Uh, they put spikes on driveways. They they
they'll they'll still stand one of them. This is the
very common things. They'll stand on stand outside of abortion

(42:47):
clinics talking about how they're gonna make bombs and like
the comic clothes that they're mixing, and uh, yeah, they
they'll they'll lay down on sidewalks in front of buildings.
They will they will jump on people's cars. Uh, they
will camp out in front of clinics for like multiple
day stretches. The they send decoy patients like into the
clinics and disrupt it. It's just so much. Yeah, and
like like the brazenness with like again like that if

(43:10):
there are things on there, like okay, and like okay,
So like I don't want to like make this point
too much because like, yeah, you can get away with
a lot of stuff, right, even if the state is
hunting for you. There's a lot of stuff that you
could do that you can get away with. But like
the level of stuff they've been able to get away with,
like the fact that they've been able to literally on
the air say that you should murder a specific abortion

(43:32):
doctor mentioned them by name, and the fact that I
know people who have had the FBI show up to
their doors because of jokes they made on Twitter. It
is it is fucking appalling. Yeah, yeah, because I mean
they're not they don't. The law doesn't exist a lot,
a lot doesn't matter. It's all about who's actually challenging

(43:53):
the systems of power. Yeah, and then the police are
like again this this is one of those They literally
do cross burnings, like fucking like, they literally do clan
style fucking cross burning. So I I can once again
go back to the old rage against the machine classics.
Some of those who work forces are the same cooper
and crosses. Because it is literally the same people, the
cops will cooperate with them. Like. Um. There's the other

(44:16):
thing that do a lot is they'll just like shoot
bullets through the windows of clinics constantly, and they never no, no,
no one, no one cares. That is very common. Yeah,
And like fire bombs happened to do this day that
one of the incidents they talked about in that book was, um,
so they like this, this is stuff that happened at

(44:37):
like one clinic, they set the clinic's fence on fire
in the middle of the night they plug the downspouts
on like the roof after like a giant snowstorm, so
that like when when the snow melted, the water like
poured into this whole, they drilled it flooded the entire clinic.
Um they had another one where they they drilled holes
in the ceiling of the clinic and ran a garden
hose through it and flooded the entire building. And yeah,

(45:00):
again like none of this stuff ever makes the news,
Like like well you and you you can compare, you
compare the reaction to this to like how they reacted
the Animal Liberation Front, right, yea, that that caused there
was like there were like that, there were there were
like like law enforcement like techniques. There are law enforcement
organizations that exist today specifically to stop people like like

(45:21):
that existed a specifically because of this campaign to stop
the Animal Liberation friend for freeing animals like these people.
And you know, and I should say this's like also
like there's this whole push to like, oh, we need
to call these people terrorists, Like yeah, like Bill Clinton
called these people terrorists, and like what happened nothing Like
they they they got one law that was like fine,
that was like that was that was about trying to
keep people from protesting graphs side of clinic. But I

(45:42):
got strked own about the scream court, because again, we
live in in a size society that is constantly moving
towards theocratic fascism. If you torture construction sites or sedans
or people wanting to destroy sections the forest, then you're
then you're a terrorist. Um if the mail pops and
to and kill a whole bunch of horses, you're just

(46:05):
You're just some some dudes, I guess. Yeah. And one
of the things incredibly frustrating about the story is there
will be people who are being stalked right where that
they're being harassed like that, they're they're being intimidated. These
people keep showing up, they'll call the FBI, and the
FBI will go in, we don't care. And then the
next day I'll get shot by the same person. This
happens multiple times with multiple and like like that. We

(46:27):
talked about this with the person who killed Tiller Um.
A lot of the people who do use anti abortion
murders like we're just irregular anti abortion prisoners and protesters,
and like everything happens a lot is like people will
go to jail for an abortion bombing, they'll come out
and they'll do it again. And it's like, you know,
one of the one of the really scary things about
this as well, I know this is this has been
stated before. This isn't by any means a new a

(46:48):
new a new thought or framing. But with all of
the laws getting enacted around the whole like bounty hunter
side of things, for like how there's going to be
you know, citizens being amputized to track down both abortion
providers people who thought out abortion. Um, it's giving all
of this strain of thought, like this whole, all of

(47:10):
the striving ideology, it's deputizing it, and it's giving it
actual legal backing. So it's no longer just ignored by
law enforcement. It is now being encouraged by local governments. Um.
All of these all of these same motivations are now
like you can get rewarded for doing this um, And

(47:30):
oh boy, will people seize on that opportunity. Yeah. And
I think that there's a thing we can talk about
with with fascism here where it's like, okay, so like
what what is fascism? And if if you're looking at
like one of the one of the things that like
if you if you're using like a strict classical definition
of fascism is the integration of of of like parties
sort of like party paramilitary forces into the state. And

(47:50):
this is what we're looking at, is we're looking at
these people who have been sucking a bombing abortion clinics
for fifty years, like starting to do this stuff. And
I think, like, I'm gonna read another passage about the
kinds of stuff they do to individual people because like
I think, you know, I mean, I keep going back
to just like here's the high level terror that they're doing,

(48:12):
but like, yeah, like the individual people. Um. After being
verbally targeted at our clinic for years, protesters started harassing
Tammy Madison through various written communications. First, the protesters distributed
flyers throughout Tammy's neighborhood, including one at Tammy's door. The
flyer listed Tammy's address, the make and model of Tammy's car,
and listed a telephone number reporter to be Tammy's number. Then,

(48:33):
the protester disappeared at her home with science is playing
her name that said she kills babies and hires the
baby killers. When they were outside Tammy's house. They handed
out flyers about her to anyone walking by. They do
things like they'll they'll use like licenses for example, cause
again you have to get licenses right to to to
provide abortions, to be a doctor, and so I'll use
a licenses to find personal information about people. These the

(48:56):
people out there are like I mean their right wingers, right,
So they're they're really racist. They like they they love
screaming jew doctor at people because yeah, like they racial slurs.
They constantly out people like the nail bob guy also
attacked a gay bars. Yeah, there's a lot of crossover
in terms of who they want to attack. Yeah, and

(49:19):
like they do constant death thrust. There's also a thing
I want to talk a bit about, which is like
these malicious legal lawsuits. So one of one of the
ways that people go after like clinics is that they're
constantly these clinics are like constantly under legal for people
are constantly suing them. People people are suing them just
to find out personal information about them because the court
will give court will give you information. Uh, they get
They have like these fake like fake case inspectors who

(49:41):
will come in order to infiltrate the things like they have.
There's legal enormous legal pressure from the state itself, which
is often trying to destroy these clinics. They're they're like
they'll they'll pass laws specifically to make us with the
clinics can't operate in various ways. Um like people who
are just like district attorneys will will do investigations into
them over and over again. They a so they go
after like the kids of providers constantly. I read a

(50:04):
story from this book that again, like no one ever
talks about, like they they kidnapped this this provider's child
like her like twelve year old child like at a
clinic and like try to indoctrinate them and then eventually
gave them back after a few hours. But like again,
like they they kidnapped a child of one of the

(50:28):
people who works at these things, and there no one
even talks about it, Like it's never there's never anything.
I just I don't know, like I just like the
more you go into this is like the more stuff
that you see that like like they target people's parents still,
like show up at like the nursing homes of like

(50:49):
the parents of like of these doctors, like they'll they'll
target their neighbors. They go after the donors to clinics
a lot, like they'll they'll they'll send them pictures of
like bullets and knives. Um. One of the things they
do often is that those burned down completely the wrong clinic.
So there's been a lot of cases where they just
they attacked the clinic next to it because they're not

(51:11):
the stuff. They've gone. Yeah, I want to I want
to end on this guy named John Brockenhoff, who he
bombs three abortion clinics over two decades, Like he's one
of the guys who they sent to prison, and then
he came out and they bounded another abortion clinic. Um,
And I want I want to read this quote from him.
My orders to Vietnam didn't suddenly material materialized unexpectedly. I
volunteered to go because I saw the South Vietnamese people

(51:33):
were being threatened by a Communist takeover, and I figured
if they were willing to fight for freedom, they deserved
to be free and deserved help too. He goes on
to point out, in January of seventy three, I had
just returned from voluntary participation in a bombing campaign in
support of the liberty of people eight thousand miles away.
So I hope you will believe I will. I would
not have turned my back on my own people, American babies,

(51:57):
my own people, American babies. If you had asked for
my health up in bombing an abortion and abortionary in
this country, even in seventy three, and especially since it
was not mere liberty but very but their very lives
at stake, I would have gone with you. So this
guy is literally saying he's still fighting the Vietnam War,
but he's doing it to bom abortion clinics, and he
went to Vietnam because he wanted to kill comunists. And

(52:19):
this guy was at the Capitol at January six. But
that that sounds about right. So yeah, like it's like
one of yeah, we're we're like the moment we are
at now is this sort of detritus of like every
crime the US has ever committed is just rolling back,
and you know, we're we're we're we're seeing all of

(52:41):
these people who fought in Vietnam and came back home
and like killed a bunch of people who did abortions
and did a bunch of bombings, and now they you know,
and they tried. They just tried to do a coup.
They're probably going to get away with like in actually
like a legal coup pretty soon because they've now seen
his control of the court system, and it's like, well
they've done. Really they do a really effective combination of

(53:06):
violent direct action and legal challenges. Uh. There their actions
able to be so successful. Uh one because like the
tactics they choose it cause material damage and material change.
But also obviously like they're not getting like investigated in
the same way anyone else would, right because like they
they are they are capable of doing this effective action

(53:29):
because they don't face any any similar level of oppression
to any other group that would that would be doing
doing this, especially if they're on the left. Um. So,
like it's it's it's it's always useful to look at
the tactics of your enemy and how they and how
they do certain things, but you can always have to realize,
like this is the same thing with January six, if

(53:49):
it was a whole bunch of people in black block storming,
that the response from the cops would have been very
different initially and continue on throughout the whole day and
the subsequent investigations. Um. So yeah, always good to look
into tactics, but the response from the government is always
going to differ depending on who's doing the actual challenging. Yeah,

(54:11):
and I think, as I said, you thinks about this one,
like there are things you can learn from how the
right operates. You can't carbon copy their tactics and try
to do them from the left because it just won't
work because the start to structural conditions for the left
are just different. But the second thing is also that,
like it is simultaneously true that the level of oppression
against leftist is higher than it is against right wingers.
And also that's true, and it's also true that you

(54:33):
can do stuff and like people have and yeah, I
mean none of the change revenge people have gotten caught yet,
so like you know, we will we will see. Yeah,
I mean maybe by time this episode comes out. And
I mean, like, well, we'll we'll see, Like in general, right,
especially when movements are decentralized. Um, but yeah, I mean, wow,
they shoug get they should get to get away with

(54:54):
a whole bunch of stuff. You can be doing like
pretty public of vomiting incidents for almost a decade and
not get caught. Um, if you just can bomb the
Olympics and not get caught for like seven years. It's wild.
And I'm also just assuming the vast majority of these
guys are white, and so they're not. So it's also

(55:17):
that and also the fact that this didn't happen like
a long time ago. It's still happening, and that's crazy
that we still don't hear about it, like yeah, like
we we talked about we talked about on this show
like a few weeks ago, like the people people lit
another abortion clinic on fire, like that happens still and
will continue to happen, and people continue to not care

(55:41):
about it because it doesn't write anyone whos in power
ins what the media doesn't care, and it's been happening
long enough that there's this sense of like normalization around it.
It's not seen as radical, it's seen as oh, obviously
some people think that's justified. It's not. It's not surprising, um,
and that normalization allows way more people to both feel
keep well of doing something and it when it happens,

(56:03):
there's not as big of a fuss. I do think
it's also true though, like I think there are a
lot of people, like I think most people don't know
that this happened, Like I think, I think there's an
extent to which the level of violence has been totally invisibilized.
And you know, because I mean, they ever think about
this again. Is the reason that they're working like this

(56:25):
is because this this is a completely minoritarian position, right, Like,
they don't actually have that many numerical supporters. It's just
that they're able to sort of, I mean, you know,
they they have enough people to wage systemic a pain
of terror, and because of that, they're able to inflict
their sort of are able to inflict their their fascism
months of the rest of the population. Ah, that was

(56:52):
a good ending. Sigh. Yeah. Yeah. It could happen here
as a production of cool Zone Media. Well more podcasts
from cool Zone Media. Visit our website cool zone media
dot com, or check us out on the I Heart
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(57:13):
You can find sources for It could Happen here, updated
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for listening.