So What?
The pro-life movement largely does not endorse anti-abortion violence. Still, the anti-abortion movement endorses and claims to act on behalf of the pro-life movement and their religious beliefs as shown through the episodes of clinic violence highlighted here.
Unfortunately, all Abortion clinics in Pensacola, Florida, Western Florida, and Southern Alabama have closed due to strict state regulations, violence, and heath controversies. The nearest clinics for patients in that area are miles away in Atlanta, Tallahassee, and Montgomery. Abortion violence has huge impacts and can directly prevent many women from receiving care.
Though extreme, these episodes of violence highlight the dangers of rhetoric that objectify and dehumanize people who provide abortions and those who receive them. Criminalizing abortion and policing women’s bodies is inherently violent by removing people’s abilities to control their bodies. Protests claiming to have peaceful demonstrations outside clinics assault clinic patients with violent images and hurtful rhetoric. Violence is not just physical, it is systemic and emotional. The systems that uphold pro-life values must re-evaluate the role they play in normalizing control over other people's bodies. Specifically, religiously motivated violence reveals a contradiction between the Christian belief in the sanctity of life and the murdering of human beings.
In a Post-Dobbs America, there is little evidence to suggest that this violent “pro-life” activism will slow down. The FBI is investigating numerous post-Dobbs clinic bombings and violations of the FACE Act. In 2021, acts of anti-abortion violence increased significantly. Stalking increased by 600%, invasions increased by 129% and bombings increased by 80% in 2021. It is unlikely that these acts of violence will stop overnight, and they may even increase as the Supreme Court has emboldened the pro-life cause.
This project aims to challenge the pro-life cause’s anti-abortion sentiments by highlighting the harmful ways that this movement impacts reproductive health and the holistic health of communities suffering from cultures of anti-abortion. Ultimately, we must ask what lives the pro-life movement protects, if not the lives of abortion providers and their patients too.
1. “What It Takes to Enter the Last Abortion Clinic in Kentucky,” YouTube video, 2:06, posted by “Now This News,” 2020. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2bR4FJFuWcE.