“May God Bless Your Efforts”
Violence and the Pro-Life Movement
The Anti-Abortion movement in the United States has a long history of fostering fear, intimidation, and carrying out violent acts toward women seeking abortions, doctors performing them, and the clinics where abortions are provided. In this project, we study the history of anti-abortion violence to highlight the many ways abortion providers and patients are stigmatized, alienated, and emotionally and physically hurt. We show the forces that foster this violence and remove autonomy from women, including religious foundations. Finally, we suggest that in a post-Dobbs America, religiously motivated violence towards abortion recipients and providers remains a large, if not increasing, threat as abortion becomes further polarized.
We focus specifically on Pensacola Florida because of its uniquely high amount of violence incidence, including the two of the first documented cases of doctors being murdered for providing abortions. David Gunn's murder in 1993 and John Britton's murder in 1994 inspired national legislation to protect abortion providers and clinics, such as the FACE Act as well as terrorist groups like the "Army of God" to continue and multiply their abortion violence and intimidation efforts.
Importantly, the motivations for these acts of violence are religiously motivated. In the Abortion Buster's Manual, a manual used by David Gunn's killer, the author proclaims "May God Bless your efforts," granting God's blessing to anti-abortion murder. The religious aspect of anti-abortion violence is key: protestors often acost patients with bible verses and religiously loaded language—even accusing clinic patients of going to hell.
Admittedly, the violence highlighted here is not endorsed by the vast majority of the pro-life movement and the churches that support it. Still, we believe that studying the fringe efforts of violence in the anti-abortion movement highlights the intricacies in defining the limits of what life the pro-life and anti-abortion movements wish to protect. With this project, we hope to add to the history of the pro-life movement and its post-Roe v. Wade strategies. Finally, though extreme, these cases represent the culmination of anti-abortion efforts, propaganda, and efforts to criminalize and punish the women who have abortions.
Protestors outside of an abortion clinic in Nebraska shout bible verses and proclaim patients are "image bearers of God." Protestors have signs with graphic images of aborted fetuses and captions such as "Jesus Please Save All the Babies." Shelley Mann, the chief clinic escort at this clinic describes her daily battles in looking for threats to the clinic such as dealing with death threats and looking for potential bombs. In 2022, Mann describes violence towards her clinic and its patients is a normal occurrence.
“She was fed up with anti-abortion protesters, so she broadcasted them on TikTok,” YouTube video, 6:34, posted by “CNN,” April 13, 2023. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3IbYxSMzawo.
About our Team
Addie, Shelby, John, Caroline and Grace are all students in REL 406, "Religion and Reproduction" at Davidson College.
Addie is a senior Political Science major and Religious Studies minor.
Shelby is a senior Psychology major and Religious Studies minor.
John is a junior Religious Studies major and (probably) History minor.
Caroline is a junior Art History major.
Grace is a senior Religious Studies major and Digital Studies minor.