It’s no surprise that the most extreme abortion supporters scoff at the idea of pro-abortion violence. They can’t even bring themselves to admit that it happens, much less condemn it when it does. Yet pro-lifers do frequently face violence, harassment, and intimidation, and these instances seem to be on the rise.
At The Cut, pro-abortion writer Lauren Rankin penned an op-ed mocking what she called “the absurd lie of pro-choice violence.” In it, Rankin points out decades-old (and inexcusable) cases of pro-life violence against the abortion industry. The pro-life movement has roundly condemned these violent acts, yet Rankin — who is an abortion facility escort — doesn’t acknowledge that. Rankin pretends that abortion activists never engage in violent acts themselves and are only there to help protect women from villainous pro-lifers. No, she claims, abortion advocates are never violent; it’s just a myth fabricated by petty pro-lifers:
We escorts are there to help abortion patients; protesters are there to shame, intimidate, and harass them. When law enforcement fails to make this distinction, they embolden the latter group. This is something I’ve experienced firsthand: In the spring of 2014, I approached a young woman outside of the clinic where I volunteered. She was trying to get to her appointment, but there was a mob of irate protesters by the door.
One was screaming into his megaphone that the women inside were going to burn in hell. Another held a huge, gruesome sign with a doctored picture of a bloody fetus, while a third stared at us, a wry smirk plastered across his face. He grabbed his phone and held it up, filming our every move. She whispered in my ear, “Please don’t let them film me. Please.”
As we walked toward the door, I held my hand up to block her face from the phone’s camera lens. “Harassment! That’s harassment,” the man holding the phone screamed. “That ‘deathscort’ just harassed me!”
In Rankin’s world, pro-abortion violence and harassment never happens. “[P]ro-choice volunteers have to contend with the possibility that the FBI could err on the side of ‘both sides,’ essentially equating bomb threats and acts of arson with — what, exactly? Me holding up my hand to block someone from filming an abortion patient?” she wrote.
No, Ms. Rankin. Not quite:
READ: The media’s glaring failure to report pro-abortion violence
Rankin’s theory is — as you can see from the video above — is completely false. Here are just some of the incidents of pro-abortion violence against pro-lifers on record:
- Escorts at Bristol Regional Women’s Center have repeatedly been filmed assaulting sidewalk counselors, threatening and taunting them, screaming in their faces, spitting on them, and even licking them. When the harassment would not stop, one sidewalk counselor was forced to file an order of protection against four of the escorts. The escorts smugly pointed out numerous times that police have never been willing to intervene.
- A Virginia abortion activist was arrested for pointing a loaded gun at pro-lifers outside the same abortion facility, Bristol Regional Women’s Center. One of the abortionists at the facility was also arrested in a separate incident for pointing a loaded gun at pro-lifers, including a minor.
- An elderly pro-lifer was hospitalized after he was attacked outside of a grocery store by a pro-abortion activist, who threw him to the ground with such ferocity that his hip was broken and he had to undergo surgery.
- Two pro-lifers had their home vandalized in the middle of the night. A rock was thrown through one of their glass windows. Coat hangers and profanity were also spray-painted on the house. The attack happened after the couple was profiled by the Daily Beast, which included information that the wife was pregnant, and that three young children lived at the home.
- In two separate incidents with just days of each other, the homes of two other pro-lifers — SBA List Campaign Chair Jill Stanek and Pro-Life Action League’s John Jansen — were vandalized.
- A Molotov cocktail was thrown at an elderly pro-lifer in Montana in 2011. Luckily, the assailant missed and no one was hurt.
- Leah Winandy was handing out pamphlets outside of an abortion facility when she was threatened with a knife by a woman considering abortion, who even held the knife to Winandy’s throat. But in an incredible twist, the woman never went through with the abortion, and thanked Winandy for being there and saving her child’s life.
- James Pouillon was shot and killed by Harlan James Drake while protesting abortion in Michigan. Drake said he was offended by the pro-life material Pouillon was holding.
- Numerous pro-lifers have been nearly run over by abortion activists in states across the country, like North Carolina, Texas, Ohio, and more.
- A pro-life event at a Minnesota college had to be evacuated due to a bomb threat.
- An Australian bicyclist spit on a pro-lifer standing peacefully on the sidewalk.
- A pro-lifer was punched in the face as he prayed the rosary outside of an abortion facility.
- A male hairdresser roundhouse kicked a young woman in the face as she held a pro-life sign on the sidewalk. Countless other abortion advocates applauded him for it.
- A pro-lifer in Argentina was brutally attacked by a mob of abortion activists, who knocked her to the ground and repeatedly kicked her in the head, leaving her bloody and injured.
- A pro-abortion student in Canada pled guilty to assault after attacking a female pro-lifer as she screamed, cried, and tried to get away.
- A pro-abortion mob launched a planned, coordinated attack on a pro-life event. Attendees were assaulted, pushed, kicked, had eggs thrown at them, and more. Police did not intervene.
- Mireille Miller-Young, a professor at the University of California Santa Barbara, assaulted a teenage girl on campus. She pled guilty to charges of grand theft, battery, and vandalism for the incident.
- Two pro-lifers had their signs stolen by abortion activists; when they tried to recover them, one of the men was stabbed in the side.
- A teenager had to be hospitalized after his nose was broken by abortion activists as he handed out pro-life postcards.
- Abortion facility staffers attempted to pour manure on pro-lifers.
These are just a handful of the numerous instances of legitimate violence, harassment, and assault against pro-lifers by abortion activists. Not only does the abortion industry not condemn these attacks, they either pretend they never happened at all or celebrate them. But their willful ignorance doesn’t change the reality: pro-abortion violence exists, it is still happening, and it is absolutely inexcusable.
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