A sign with a call for violence on the streets of Capitol Hill in Washington, June 17.
photo:
John Hartley
Luke Cirillo received a call from the police in the early hours of June 10. Someone “thrown an incendiary through one of the windows, which ignited a significant fire in the back room,” says the CEO of First Image, which runs three crisis-pregnancy issues in the Portland, Ore., area. hub. The room was destroyed, and the center in Gresham is temporarily closed.
This was the second attack on the First Image facility in as many months. On May 5, wall vandals broke windows and spray-painted “F-CPC”—the crisis-pregnancy center—in Southeast Portland.
First Image, founded in 1984, is one of dozens of pro-life pregnancy centers and churches that have been ransacked or attacked since Justice Samuel Alito’s draft opinion leaked on May 2. Dobbs vs. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, a non-profit advocacy group, released report good Last week it detailed more than 40 “incidents of violence, vandalism and intimidation” since the leak.
A CompassCare pregnancy center in Buffalo, NY was set on fire on June 7. photos Posted on CompassCare
Show shattered windows and burnt interiors. CEO Jim Harden says repairing the damage will cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. Also on the scene: “Jane was here,” strewn across the side of the building in a dagger. On June 14, a release signed “Jane’s Revenge”. deployment of The media appeared to attribute several pregnancy-centre attacks to abortion.
“We are not one group but many,” said Missile, “you have seen us” in Buffalo, Gresham, Portland and 13 other cities where pregnancy centers have been attacked in recent weeks. The Federal Bureau of Investigation told the Washington Examiner on Thursday that it is investigating attack.
While the violent fringe throws firebombs, the mainstream abortion movement has waged a legal war on pregnancy centers—most famously in California, which ordered them to post information about how clients can obtain abortions. That case went to the Supreme Court, which ruled 5-4 in favor of pregnancy centers Nifla v. Calf (2018).
More legal battles are bound to come. New York Governor Kathy Hochul last week signed a bill authorizing the state health commissioner to investigate the “impact” of these centers on women’s access to “reproductive and sexual health care services.” A Connecticut pregnancy center is suing a state deceptive-advertising law that targets these centers.
All this defies characterization of the abortion-rights movement itself as “pro-choice.” No woman is forced to go to one of these clinics, where as of 2019 more than 10,000 licensed medical professionals worked or volunteered, According to Charlotte Lozier Institute for Pro-Life. In addition to providing ultrasounds and pregnancy tests, the centers help women obtain supplies and counseling.
No matter how organized Jane’s Revenge is, the threats and attacks in its name are real. “To our colleagues who doubt the authenticity of releases and works: there is a way you can have irrefutable proof that these works are genuine. Go do yours,” says the June 14 message. “Everyone Wills to paint, burn, cut, jam: now is the time.”
A handbill posted last week in Capitol Hill, Washington, promises a “night of melody” after “Scottus overturns roe v. wade,” apparently from Jen’s Revenge. “To our opponents,” declares Handbill: “if abortions aren’t safe, you aren’t either.”
Mr Cirillo says the hazards are a “concern” but “not one that bothers us at work at all.” Mr Harden, emphasizing his organization’s Christian mission, says that CompassCare’s offering of services is “not going to stop”. “We do what we do because of faith”—in which “everyone is created in the image of God. We also value the lives of those who set fire to our facility.”
Ms. is an assistant editorial page writer for Alt Journal.
Wonderland: How did America become a country always on the verge of political or personal violence? Images: AP/Zuma Press Overall: Mark Kelly
opinion | Attacks on crisis-pregnancy centers
A sign with a call for violence on the streets of Capitol Hill in Washington, June 17.
photo:
John Hartley
Luke Cirillo received a call from the police in the early hours of June 10. Someone “thrown an incendiary through one of the windows, which ignited a significant fire in the back room,” says the CEO of First Image, which runs three crisis-pregnancy issues in the Portland, Ore., area. hub. The room was destroyed, and the center in Gresham is temporarily closed.
This was the second attack on the First Image facility in as many months. On May 5, wall vandals broke windows and spray-painted “F-CPC”—the crisis-pregnancy center—in Southeast Portland.
First Image, founded in 1984, is one of dozens of pro-life pregnancy centers and churches that have been ransacked or attacked since Justice Samuel Alito’s draft opinion leaked on May 2. Dobbs vs. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, a non-profit advocacy group, released report good Last week it detailed more than 40 “incidents of violence, vandalism and intimidation” since the leak.
A CompassCare pregnancy center in Buffalo, NY was set on fire on June 7. photos Posted on CompassCare
Facebook
Show shattered windows and burnt interiors. CEO Jim Harden says repairing the damage will cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. Also on the scene: “Jane was here,” strewn across the side of the building in a dagger. On June 14, a release signed “Jane’s Revenge”. deployment of The media appeared to attribute several pregnancy-centre attacks to abortion.
“We are not one group but many,” said Missile, “you have seen us” in Buffalo, Gresham, Portland and 13 other cities where pregnancy centers have been attacked in recent weeks. The Federal Bureau of Investigation told the Washington Examiner on Thursday that it is investigating attack.
While the violent fringe throws firebombs, the mainstream abortion movement has waged a legal war on pregnancy centers—most famously in California, which ordered them to post information about how clients can obtain abortions. That case went to the Supreme Court, which ruled 5-4 in favor of pregnancy centers Nifla v. Calf (2018).
More legal battles are bound to come. New York Governor Kathy Hochul last week signed a bill authorizing the state health commissioner to investigate the “impact” of these centers on women’s access to “reproductive and sexual health care services.” A Connecticut pregnancy center is suing a state deceptive-advertising law that targets these centers.
All this defies characterization of the abortion-rights movement itself as “pro-choice.” No woman is forced to go to one of these clinics, where as of 2019 more than 10,000 licensed medical professionals worked or volunteered, According to Charlotte Lozier Institute for Pro-Life. In addition to providing ultrasounds and pregnancy tests, the centers help women obtain supplies and counseling.
No matter how organized Jane’s Revenge is, the threats and attacks in its name are real. “To our colleagues who doubt the authenticity of releases and works: there is a way you can have irrefutable proof that these works are genuine. Go do yours,” says the June 14 message. “Everyone Wills to paint, burn, cut, jam: now is the time.”
A handbill posted last week in Capitol Hill, Washington, promises a “night of melody” after “Scottus overturns roe v. wade,” apparently from Jen’s Revenge. “To our opponents,” declares Handbill: “if abortions aren’t safe, you aren’t either.”
Mr Cirillo says the hazards are a “concern” but “not one that bothers us at work at all.” Mr Harden, emphasizing his organization’s Christian mission, says that CompassCare’s offering of services is “not going to stop”. “We do what we do because of faith”—in which “everyone is created in the image of God. We also value the lives of those who set fire to our facility.”
Ms. is an assistant editorial page writer for Alt Journal.
Wonderland: How did America become a country always on the verge of political or personal violence? Images: AP/Zuma Press Overall: Mark Kelly
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Appeared in the print edition, June 21, 2022.