The End of Roe and Anti-Abortion Violence in America

I actually started writing this after the Supreme Court draft opinion on Roe v. Wade was leaked in May. I held off posting it because it's such a sensitive topic and I know some people don't like true crime and politics mixed together. But that's just not who I am. Holding this back would be to hold back a really important part of myself. Plus, I believe that now more than ever, we need to make our voices heard. So, if you don't like politics mixed into your true crime, I suggest you stop reading here.

But before I go on, this definitely is still true crime. True crime and politics are intrinsically linked in so many ways. It's actually one of the reasons I love true crime, because of the social, legal and political issues it brings up. I've never been in it for blood and gore (but I hope you know that about me by now).

A pro-abortion rights protest outside the U.S. Supreme Court on June 24, 2022 (source: Ted Eytan via Wikimedia Commons)

I’ll say it from the outset: I’m proudly pro-choice. I believe that these deeply personal health care decisions should only be made by the pregnant person and those she trusts. As outsiders, we have no way of knowing their circumstances. There is no place for the government in decisions like these.

Perhaps her pregnancy is the result of rape or incest. Maybe her health, or her life, would be in jeopardy were she to remain pregnant. Or she is simply unable to have a child (or another child, for that matter), because she does not have the support and/or financial means. Maybe she's at a turning point in her life and about to go to college. She worked hard to get in and she's so excited. A month before she's due to leave, she and her boyfriend spend the night together and the condom breaks. Should she have to give up her place at university? Of course not. All of these are perfectly valid reasons for a woman to seek an abortion.

“Just put the baby up for adoption,” pro-life supporters might say. This is easier said than done, in that they’re ignoring the minor inconvenience of having to be pregnant for nine months and then give birth. Pregnancy is in no way a simple or easy undertaking for the human body to endure. Sure, some women have no problems at all. But complications arise all the time as a result of pregnancy. These can range from being inconvenient to life-threatening.

With the question of adoption, there are currently more than 400,000 children in foster care in the United States. Don’t these children deserve loving homes before more are introduced into the system? A system which is already vastly underfunded and not exactly known for providing the best care to vulnerable young people.

If people who are pro-life want fewer abortions to take place, then educate young people about sex and pregnancy. Ensure that people know their options when it comes to contraception, and make sure these options are easily accessible.

They should be making life better for the children that already exist; not forcing women to give birth to them and then seeing their job as done. To be truly “pro-life”, they should be advocating for these children to live a life in which they are happy, safe and secure. A life in which they have access to reliable healthcare, nutritious food and a good education.

If your only interest is in protecting fetuses in the womb, but then you support politicians who oppose them having the basic things they need to live once they are born, how is that “pro-life”?

This isn’t about babies; it isn’t now and it never has been. If it were about babies, pro-life activists and politicians would be committed to providing the things I mentioned above. It’s about controlling women. In particular, poor and marginalized women. Women of color, particularly Black women, will feel the loss of this right the most.

According to 2019 data from the CDC, Black women are nearly four times more likely to have abortions than their white counterparts, and Latina women are twice as likely. Black women in the United States are more than three times as likely to die from pregnancy-related complications as white women.

It’s no surprise that the case at the center of the overturning Roe vs. Wade, Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, came out of Mississippi, which has the highest number of Black residents in terms of percentage of its population (38%). The state also has the highest rate of people living below the poverty in the nation.

In short, America is due to see a disproportionately high number of Black women dying due to pregnancy-related complications as a result of this decision.

I came across a tweet thread shortly after the SCOTUS draft decision was leaked. It read:

“The freakout you are witnessing from the left is very instructive. When Roe was handed down 49 years ago, pro-lifers didn’t riot, didn’t call for SCOTUS to be burned down, didn’t threaten the lives of justices, didn’t try to stack the Court.
Pro-lifers (mostly Catholics at first) organized at the grassroots level. They planned an annual peaceful march on Washington. They created crisis pregnancy centers. They got involved in electing politicians.
They passed pro-life legislation. They WORKED WITHIN THE SYSTEM of our Constitutional republic to enact change at the ballot box and in the hearts and minds of their fellow Americans.”

- Rebecca Mansour on Twitter

This all sounds very civilized, doesn’t it? Well what the author of the tweet conveniently leaves out is that between all the wholesome organizing and “appealing to hearts and minds” that the pro-life crowd does, they certainly engage in their fair share of unhinged, violent behavior.

A clinic escort outside of a Planned Parenthood in Washington, DC (source: Robin Marty via Wikimedia Commons)

Pro-life activists are just about the most frightening and least compassionate group I have come across. Their activities involve standing outside abortion clinics and screaming at doctors and patients that they’re going to “burn in hell” and that they are murderers. Many abortion clinics in the United States require escorts to walk patients into clinics, shielding them from rabid protestors. They show up at protests with signs featuring gruesome images of dismembered body parts that are supposedly “aborted babies”.

Just an aside: In the United States in 2015, more than 400,000 abortions were performed and fewer than 1.3% of these happened after 21 weeks. 91% of abortions took place at 13 weeks or before. At 13 weeks, a fetus is the size of a peach and weighs 25g. So whatever pro-life activists are showing on their signs is not an accurate representation of the vast majority of abortions.

Not to mention that abortions which take place late in a pregnancy are largely due to either an issue with the health of the fetus meaning it can't survive outside the womb, or something going badly wrong in the pregnancy and the mother’s life is in danger.

What really irks me is the talking point from the right that there's all these women getting abortions late in their pregnancies because they “just don't want a baby anymore.”

This is not a thing - having a termination late in the pregnancy is not only extremely rare, it's absolutely devastating and will, in many cases, be the hardest thing a woman (and her partner, if she has one), will ever have to go through. By this point, they likely will have a nursery set up, they'll have clothes for the baby, they might have a name. To suggest that these people would just change their minds is extremely hurtful.

Of course, anti-abortion activists have every right to protest. They do not, however, have the right to murder, assault, kidnap, threaten or harass people who work at or have connections to abortion clinics. Nor do they have the right to bomb or set fire to said clinics. All of which, you won’t be surprised to know, have happened in the United States many times over.

Here are just a few examples of anti-abortion related violence which have occurred in the United States.

John Britton was an abortion provider in Pensacola, Florida who was murdered by an anti-abortion extremist, Paul Jennings Hill, on July 29, 1994.

In March of the previous year, David Gunn was also murdered in Pensacola by another anti-abortion extremist, Michael Frederick Griffin. Gunn was the first doctor murdered in America for providing abortions. His murder resulted in the passage of the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, which made it illegal to block access to clinics.

The murder of Gunn is widely seen as the event that sparked the movement of committing violence against abortion providers in the United States. At his trial for Gunn's murder, Griffin’s defence argued that he had been “brainwashed” by John Allen Burt, an anti-abortion, Christian extremist and convicted child molester.

However, in a 2010 interview with the press, Griffin did not mention being brainwashed by Burt. He said: “we’re all commanded to protect the innocent children. I just accepted that responsibility, I guess.”

Griffin was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison. He applied for parole in 2017, and was given a tentative release date of March 4, 2043. He is entitled to apply for a review of this release date in 2024.

After the murder of David Gunn, John Britton, who was living and working as a family doctor in Fernandina Beach, Florida, began flying to Pensacola on a weekly basis to provide abortion care at the Pensacola Ladies’ Center.

Britton was no stranger to death threats from anti-abortion activists. In order to protect himself, he wore a bulletproof vest, which he made himself, into work. He also carried a gun and was escorted to the clinic by volunteer bodyguards.

Britton was not a pro-choice activist. In fact, he had mixed feelings about the procedure, which lead to the New York Times labeling him an “uncertain martyr” after his murder.

Paul Jennings Hill was a right-wing religious extremist who served as a minister with Presbyterian Church in America and the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, beginning in 1984. He was excommunicated from the church in 1993 when he began preaching about committing violence against abortion providers on national television. He also claimed to have connections with the Army of God, an American Christian terrorist organization, which views killing abortion providers as “justifiable homicide”.

That morning in late July, Hill approached John Britton outside the Pensacola Ladies Center and shot him in the head with a twelve-gauge shotgun, killing him. He also shot and killed James Herman Barrett Jr, Britton's bodyguard who was escorting him to the clinic. Britton's wife, June, was injured in the attack, but survived.

Hill was charged with two counts of first degree murder and one count of attempted first degree murder. He was found guilty on December 6, 1994 and sentenced to death. On September 3, 2003, he was executed by lethal injection.

Dr. George Tiller was an abortion provider in Wichita, Kansas. On May 31, 2009, he was shot and killed by an anti-abortion extremist during a Sunday service at his church. The doctor had been subject to relentless harassment and threats long before his murder. In fact, in 1993, he was shot in both arms by another anti-abortion activist. Despite this, he still came into work the following day.

George had a big, loving family, and while he was viewed as a controversial figure in conservative Kansas, he was greatly respected. He was seen as a patient, caring doctor who was unfailingly dedicated to protecting women and upholding reproductive rights. He was seen in many ways as a hero of the pro-choice movement.

His killer, Scott Roeder, was an anti-abortion extremist who subscribed to the views of the Army of God. Roeder was found guilty of first degree murder and two counts of aggravated assault and sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole for 50 years. His sentence was later reduced to allow for parole after 25 years. In a phone call with the press from prison, Roeder said he felt no remorse for the murder.

I'm sure that anti-choice activists are thrilled that this goal they've been working towards for so long has been achieved.

But I cannot stress enough that this decision will not end abortion; it's going to end safe abortion.

Women with the means will be fine. It's the poorest and most vulnerable women and girls, who live in the reddest states in the country, that will suffer.

It's a terrifying prospect. And if this Supreme Court is willing to rip away precedent that so many Americans have come to rely on, what might they set their sights on next?

A nationwide ban on abortion, no doubt.

Justice Clarence Thomas, the Supreme Court’s resident king of spite, wrote in his concurring opinion that: “we should reconsider all of this Court’s substantive due process precedents.”

This includes contraception, if the court decides that it wants to ban anything that stops the fertilization of an egg, in order to “promote a culture of life” (or some nonsense like that). Griswold vs Connecticut established the right to contraception in 1965.

It also includes Lawrence vs. Texas (2003), the right to engage in same sex relations (behind closed doors, in your own bedroom).

And of course, Obergefell vs Hodges, the 2015 ruling that guaranteed Americans the right to same-sex marriage.

If this isn’t government overreach from the “party of small government”, then I don’t know what is.

They’ve told us exactly who they are and what they want. When people tell you who they are, believe them.