Planned Parenthood refuses to be intimidated by the horrific attack against its Colorado Springs clinic that killed three people and injured nine more. “We are taking care of patients just as we have done for generations,” said Vicki Cowart, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains.
But shooters and safe rooms should not be part of a day’s work for any health care provider. “We are constantly vigilant about security,” said Cowart. “But women’s health centers shouldn’t be armed fortresses.”
As the Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs is reconstructed, we also must repair a culture of hate that dangerously demonizes the organization and justifies violence. We can start by appropriately categorizing attacks on abortion clinics as domestic terrorism.
By definition, domestic terrorism involves “acts dangerous to human life that violate federal or state law” and appear intended “to intimidate or coerce a civilian population” or “influence the policy of a government,” according to the FBI.
Even before the killings in Colorado Springs, there’s been a long history of violence against Planned Parenthood that includes murders, kidnappings, assaults, bombs thrown through windows, gasoline poured under doors, noxious chemicals released in ventilation systems, vandalism, death threats, and stalking.
There’s no question that these are acts dangerous to human life, and intended to intimidate and coerce health providers, their patients and their communities.
There’s also a clear case to be made that the attacks against Planned Parenthood are a response to government policies that make abortion a legal and constitutionally protected right in America.
At the legislative level, we see an agenda to reduce access to abortion carried out through laws that create waiting periods, shut down clinics and defund Planned Parenthood — including a vote to defund Planned Parenthood by the U.S. Senate last Thursday.
We see the extremist version of this agenda in violent attacks attempting to reduce access to abortion by intimidating and coercing health care providers. Since 1977, there have been 11 murders, 26 attempted murders, and over 200 bombings and arsons against abortion providers, including the Colorado shooting, reports the National Abortion Federation.
The attacks have increased since 2010, when anti-abortion legislators began to specifically target Planned Parenthood, and states enacted a new wave of abortion restrictions. From 2010 through 2014, states also enacted 231 abortion restrictions, more than the entire previous decade, states the Guttmacher Institute.
During the same four-year time period, the percentage of abortion clinics reporting violent threats nearly doubled, reports the 2014 National Clinic Violence Survey.
The attacks escalated even further since summer, when a series of deceptively edited videos accused Planned Parenthood of “selling baby parts,” according to an FBI report.
“We’ve seen an alarming increase in hateful rhetoric and smear campaigns against abortion providers and patients over the last few months, and that environment breeds acts of violence,” said Cowart. “We don’t accept this as normal.”
That’s why two days before a police officer, an Iraq war veteran, and a stay-at-home mother were killed in Colorado Springs, a coalition of the U.S. government to classify violence against abortion clinics as domestic terrorism.
After his arrest, the Colorado Springs shooter told investigators, “no more body parts.” While it may be too early to know the shooter’s full motives, we’ve already tolerated violence toward abortion providers as a way to influence policy for far too long.
Even before the shooting, 67 percent of Americans said attacks on abortion clinics should be considered domestic terrorism, according to the Ultraviolet Domestic Terrorism Poll.
Categorizing the attacks as domestic terrorism can change the way that they’re investigated, and leverage government resources on terrorism to investigate crimes and find patterns across attacks.
It’s time to call a terrorist a terrorist, and put an end to unconscionable attacks against abortion providers and a dangerous culture of hate.
Freelancer Lisa Wirthman lives in Highlands Ranch.
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