Right-Wing Terrorism: Arson, Bombs, and Break-Ins at Women's Clinics Seek to Instill Fear

[xchrom]

http://www.alternet.org/story/155669/right-wing_terrorism%3A_arson%2C_bombs%2C_and_break-ins_at_women%27s_clinics_seek_to_instill_fear/

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"There's a history of terroristic violence by anti-abortion extremists, up to and including murders of doctors and clinic workers," Rachel Maddow said on Friday night, reporting on suspicious burglaries and fires at two women's health clinics in Georgia.

It looks like that violent history's new chapters are being written in tandem with the continual legislative incursion on reproductive rights.

Friday, the day of Maddow's broadcast, was the very same day the healthcare providers at Women With a Vision, a provider in New Orleans that serves the most marginalized members of the population, woke up to find their offices charred and blackened, their equipment, files and resources devoured by flames.

A statement on the clinic's Web site reads, in part:

'We lost everything. We do not have an office to operate out of right now. Most of our office equipment and all of our educational resources were destroyed. Because of the targeted nature, we can only assume that this was intentional.
Women With a Vision wasn't an abortion provider. But the very nature of their work did affirm the humanity and sexual agency of women, specifically poor women of color, the formerly incarcerated, HIV positive, and transgendered.'

So the fact that they were targeted by arson comes as no surprise. As the national onslaught of reproductive rights restrictions known as the "war on women" incurs beyond just abortion toward all nontraditional sexuality and sexual agency--targeting birth control and cuts to preventive care, pushing back on domestic violence protections for immigrants and queer people-- so will the violence which goes hand and hand with these policies threaten more than just abortion providers, throwing a shadow of fear on anyone who aids women's health.

[rppper]

1. i have seen this violence first hand.....

Myself, along with 3 other people, was at an ATM machine getting money out for new years eve, December 31st, 1994. the ATM was located next to a planned parenthood center in Norfolk,VA. John Salvi, who a day earlier had murdered 2 people in a Massachusetts clinic, drove up to the center and opened fire on the building, which also located less than 2 blocks from military housing, a large apartment complex and several strip malls in a densely populated area of norfolk. i hit the ground and crawled behind a tree with one of the other persons that was there withdrawing cash and hid until Salvi ran out of ammo and fled the scene...he was caught an hour or so later....i have never forgotten this...how could I?...they don't care who they hurt...the people salvi murdered were receptionists....their "respect" for life is a sad sad joke......

[xchrom]

2. Sorry. That really is horrifying. Nt

[Odin2005]

3. RWers are TERRORISTS.