Pro-life groups and individuals have faced an astronomically higher number of incidents of violence than their pro-abortion counterparts since the leak of the U.S. Supreme Court’s draft decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization andsubsequentruling that the U.S. Constitution does not contain a right to abortion, according to a new report.
A report released Monday by the Crime Prevention Research Center identified 135 attacks on pro-life individuals and entities since Politico’s May 2 publication of the draft opinion in Dobbs. By contrast, the report listed just six examples of violence against pro-abortion individuals and entities. The research determined that pro-life groups and activists found themselves subject to 22 times more violence than their pro-abortion counterparts.
The report examines all incidents of violence that occurred between May 2 and Sept. 24. The list includes a lot of overlap with three separate lists of attacks on churches and pro-life pregnancy centers compiled by The Christian Post. These attacks ranged from defacing property with pro-abortion graffiti to fire-bombings that resulted in much more extensive damage.
The most recent incident of violence included on The Christian Post’s third list of attacks on pro-life organizations occurred in October at Church of the Resurrection in Lansing, Michigan, after the time period the CPRC looked at for its report.
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Additional examples of pro-abortion violence listed by the CPRC include the Sept. 20 shooting of an elderly pro-life activist in Michigan, the attack on a teenage pro-life activist in Kansas in late July, the assassination attempt against Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh in June, the assaulting of pro-life student activists at a pro-abortion rally in Indiana, and multiple attacks against police officers.
The examples of violence against pro-abortion individuals and entities include the arson of abortion clinics in Casper, Wyoming, and Kalamazoo, Michigan, the vehicular assault of an abortion clinic volunteer in Greensboro, North Carolina, and a bag filled with a dead raccoon covered in flies left at the doors of a Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, abortion clinic.
The CPRC report classified the blockade of an abortion clinic in Hempstead, New York, as an example of pro-life violence.
According to the report, “A man used a physical obstruction to interfere with a New York Planned Parenthood clinic that provides reproductive health services, including abortion. He is accused of fastening chains and locks to the clinic’s gate and pouring superglue on it to keep the clinic’s gate from opening. The man also lay on the ground and prevented vehicles from entering the clinic’s parking lot.”
The CPRC report comes as pro-life organizations and Catholic groups are expressing outrage over the Biden administration’s lackluster response to the violence against pro-life churches and pregnancy centers following the Dobbs decision.
In June, the group CatholicVote led several other pro-life organizations in calling on the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate attacks on Catholic churches that date back to May 2020, shortly after the death of George Floyd in police custody sparked riots and violence across the U.S.
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Over the summer, CatholicVote launched a $1 million ad campaign targeting President Joe Biden for what it viewed as the administration’s inadequate response to the aforementioned request.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security released a memo shortly after the leak of the Dobbs decision, warning that violent threats directed at Supreme Court justices and others involved in the abortion debate, such as politicians, members of the clergy and healthcare providers, “are likely to persist and may increase leading up to and following the issuing in the Court’s official ruling” in Dobbs.
In early 2021, before the Supreme Court even decided that it was going to hear a challenge to the law at the center of the Dobbs case, the director of National Intelligence prepared a report listing “abortion-related domestic violent extremists” as a particular threat to the homeland.
The report defined “abortion-related domestic violent extremists” as those with “ideological agendas in support of pro-life or pro-choice beliefs,” stressing that “mere advocacy of political or social positions, political activism” and “use of strong rhetoric may not constitute violent extremism, and may be constitutionally protected.”
In addition to facing allegations that it was not doing enough to prevent violence against pro-life organizations, the DOJ has faced accusations of abiding by a double standard when it comes to enforcing the law based on whether or not a person supports abortion.
After the high-profile arrest of pro-life activist Mark Houck for allegedly assaulting a clinic escort outside a Planned Parenthood in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, who was harassing his 12-year-old son, Bill Donohue of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights outlined his concerns in a letter to Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee.
“There seems to be much interest in pursuing alleged wrongdoing by pro-life activists, yet little interest in pursuing alleged wrongdoing by abortion-rights activists,” Donohue wrote. “This kind of overreaction to a minor infraction of the law is deeply troubling, and becomes even more troubling when paired with the underreaction by the Department of Justice when the pro-life side is targeted.”
