Six Months After Roe v. Wade Demise, Abortion Opponents are Shaken and Angry

Attacks on abortion clinics are nothing new in the U.S., but a surge of incidents targeting abortion opponents in the name of a shadowy group called "Jane's Revenge" and others has left anti-abortion groups shaken—and angry with law enforcement agencies.

The increase in such violence began after the leak in May of the U.S. Supreme Court's decision of its intent to overturn the Roe v. Wade ruling that since 1973 had granted a nationwide right to abortion.

Among the targets have been churches, medical clinics and crisis pregnancy centers—which try to encourage pregnant women to keep unborn children.

The anti-abortion lobby and its allies in Congress are furious that no perpetrators of attacks on crisis pregnancy centers have been arrested even as the Justice Department has announced a slew of prosecutions against those accused of attacking abortion clinics.

"It is naïve to think the best law enforcement agency in the world doesn't know who is perpetrating these attacks," CompassCare Pregnancy Services President James Harden told Newsweek.

Harden's clinic in Buffalo, New York, was firebombed on June 7, resulting in $530,000 in damage and two injured firefighters in one of the most serious attacks by a group apparently acting in the name of defending abortion rights.

Graffiti left on the building stated, "Jane was here."

The Department of Justice did not respond to a request from Newsweek for comment on that or other attacks.

The FBI, which has offered a $25,000 award over the attack on Harden's clinic, said it was investigating violence at abortion clinics as well as at crisis pregnancy centers and "faith-based organizations."

It said incidents were being investigated as potential acts of domestic violent extremism, violent crimes or violations of the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act.

One high profile arrest was that of Nicholas John Roske, a Californian accused by the FBI of plotting to murder Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh after the 26-year-old became upset by the leaked Roe v. Wade ruling.

Roske, arrested outside Kavanaugh's Chevy Chase, Maryland, home with a gun and a knife on June 8, has pleaded not guilty.

Between the leaking of the Roe v. Wade decision and the start of November, there had been 122 attacks or threats of varying types on abortion opponents, including churches, according to the Washington, D.C.-based Family Research Council, which describes itself as a pro-marriage and pro-life organization.

Fire Bombings and Vandalism

It recorded five fire bombings of crisis pregnancy centers and 47 incidents in which they had been vandalized. It also included property damage to three Republican members of Congress, two of whom oppose abortion and a third—Senator Susan Collins of Maine—who favors abortion rights but nonetheless received abortion rights messages and threats; four assaults on anti-abortion demonstrators and three assaults on police monitoring rallies for abortion rights.

One protester was accused of attacking police with a flaming torch.

The group listed four religious services disrupted by abortion rights protesters as well as one session of the Michigan State House.

It also identified a trail of thefts and vandalism at churches, including Catholic, Latter-day Saints and Unitarian among others. It linked these to supporters of abortion rights because of slogans such as "pro-choice is pro-life," and "if abortions aren't safe, then neither are you" spray-painted on their walls and doors.

"I suspect that the prevalence of this kind of violence pales in comparison to violence committed by anti-abortion activists against clinics and providers," Jessie Hill, a law professor at Case Western Reserve University, told Newsweek.

Newsweek was unable to obtain complete figures for the number of attacks on abortion clinics since the draft Roe v. Wade ruling leaked, although an abortion clinic in Casper, Wyoming, was burned down on May 25, a Franciscan friar tried blocking a Planned Parenthood clinic on Long Island on July 7 and a Planned Parenthood clinic in Kalamazoo, Michigan, was set on fire on July 31.

The National Abortion Federation said earlier this year that physical assaults against abortion clinic personnel rose 128 percent in 2021 from 2020.

Other forms of attack included burglaries, vandalism, suspicious packages, blockages, trespassing, death and bomb threats, it said, adding up to 1,465 incidents. It has not released 2022 figures.

Multiple polls showed that a majority of Americans disapproved of the ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade on June 24, though support for abortion decreases further into the pregnancy.

An Associated Press/NORC poll found that 61 percent supported abortion in the first trimester; 34 percent in the second and 19 percent in the third.

Jane's Revenge

The militant abortion rights group Jane's Revenge emerged in May after the Supreme Court leak and claimed responsibility for an attack in the early hours of May 8 on the offices of the Madison-based Wisconsin Family Action, which were vandalized and then set on fire.

Nobody was hurt in the attack on the group, which opposes abortion.

"This was only a warning," read a communique from Jane's Revenge. "We demand the disbanding of all anti-choice establishments, fake clinics, and violent anti-choice groups within the next thirty days. This is not a mere 'difference of opinion' as some have framed it. We are literally fighting for our lives."

Newsweek was unable to find any way to reach Jane's Revenge for comment.

"Jane's Revenge has no known hierarchal structure. Its messaging supports autonomous networks and the group's driving leadership has not publicly revealed itself," according to the non-profit, non-partisan Counter Extremism Project.

More recent incidents include a threat received on December 3 by a Catholic campus ministry center at the University of Nebraska in a note signed 'Jane's Revenge.' A group called Students for Life had been scheduled to meet there that day.

"If our right to abortion in Bellevue is taken away due to the attempt to pass an abortion ban and it gets passed we will shoot up your Newman center with our new AR14 rifles. Sincerely, Jane's Revenge," said the crudely written note, which was posted on the door of the center.

Authorities in Nebraska were investigating that threat and another letter, according to Fox News.

Students for Life president Kristan Hawkins took the threat seriously and accused the U.S. attorney general of not doing enough to stop violence against opponents of abortion.

"We are headed towards tragedy if Merrick Garland continues to refuse to act to protect peaceful pro-lifers from pro-abortion terrorist groups," she tweeted.

Abortion opponents allege that when abortion clinics are attacked, the perpetrators are usually arrested quickly. They say that is not the case when clinics advising women against abortions are attacked.

Noting the surge in attacks on crisis pregnancy centers after the leak of the Roe v. Wade ruling, U.S. Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.) and Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.) in September proposed the Protect Pregnancy Centers Care Act 2022, (HR 8926), with 28 sponsors, to require President Joe Biden's administration to publicly disclose how it is handling "domestic violent extremism" against the nearly 3,000 pregnancy centers.

The Biden Administration has not responded to the bill, which was referred to the House Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security on Nov. 1.

No Arrests Over Crisis Clinic Attacks

Harden said after the attack on his clinic, no arrests had been made, despite the surveillance footage he had given to local police, footage of which the police and FBI have now refused to give him a copy so he can prepare a civil lawsuit.

The FBI released a clip of the video in November and announced the reward, but Harden complains that key details such as the license plate of the vehicle were not shown.

"They've got cell phone numbers, clear pictures of body imaging, license plate numbers—how is it they are not finding these people?" Harden said.

"There has been a flurry of attacks on pro-life organizations and a refusal by the Department of Justice and the FBI to maintain equal justice under the law," he added.

Other attackers have also eluded arrest. Those include the masked group that stormed a Baptist church that housed a crisis pregnancy center in Portland, Oregon three days after the Supreme Court's ruling on Roe v. Wade. Police had warned the church earlier there would be an attack.

Anti-abortion lawyer Thomas Brejcha said police made no arrests after dozens of abortion rights protesters besieged his home in Evanston, Illinois, in July, spraying indelible green paint on his home, setting off a smoke bomb and aiming fireworks.

He told a radio talk show he had even been warned in advance that the protest would happen.

However, police did arrest 74-year-old Richard Alan Harvey on September 20 for shooting Joan Jacobsen, an 84-year-old woman in the shoulder as she canvassed door-to-door in south-central Michigan against an upcoming abortion-rights ballot measure.

The bullet, which passed through her body, narrowly missed her spine, she told a judge a month later. Harvey is to stand trial on two felony charges.

"I didn't shoot her on purpose," he told the 911 dispatcher. "She was a right-wing nut. I'm sorry I shot her."

Anti-abortion campaigners allege that even as those behind attacks on them have increased, the focus of the Department of Justice has stayed on prosecuting those protesting abortions.

The DoJ website gives details of indictments or charges against 26 people in 2022, with one pleading guilty, all for attacks on abortion clinics or Planned Parenthood facilities. The majority of the cases dated from incidents in 2020 or 2021.

They included obstruction of clinics as well as attacks with metal ball bearings, a pellet gun and in one case a concrete block thrown through a clinic's window.

Arrests of Abortion Opponents

On September 23, the FBI raided the rural Pennsylvania home of Catholic speaker and author Mark Houck, who was accused of assaulting a 72-year-old clinic escort at the Elizabeth Black Health Center, a Planned Parenthood clinic in Philadelphia.

He was then charged with violation of the FACE Act, under which it is a federal crime to use force with the intent to injure, intimidate and interfere with anyone providing abortions.

Houck faces up to 11 years in prison. Houck said the man was threatening and using vulgar language against his 12-year-old son, who was also demonstrating at the clinic.

On September 29, a Franciscan friar, Christopher "Fidelis" Moscinski, was charged with violating the FACE act after he attached five locks, some with glue poured onto them, at a gate at the entrance of a Planned Parenthood facility on Long Island on July 7.

He and other activists had earlier been sentenced to three months in jail for occupying the waiting room of an abortion clinic in White Plains, New York.

Then, on October 5, 12 activists were charged with violating the FACE act by blocking access to the Carafem Health Center Clinic in Mt. Juliet, Tennessee, on March 5, 2021. The indictment said Chester Gallagher and co-conspirators livestreamed the blockade on Facebook and "tried to intimidate and interfere" with clinic employees and at least one patient from entering the clinic.

Seven of the activists were charged with the same fines and jail time as Houck; the others were liable for up to one year in prison.

The series of arrests prompted 40 members of Congress to send an October 12 letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray alleging politicization of his agency, a target on various fronts for Republicans who accuse it of serving Democrat political interests.

The letter said arrests involving clinic blockades should be a local or state matter, not a federal offense.

"The recent rise in high-profile FBI investigations into pro-life Americans raises well-founded concerns that the FBI has amassed too much power and has become a partisan cudgel wielded by the Biden Administration at the behest of progressive activists," the letter read.

"These abuses of federal power against pro-life Americans based solely on their beliefs undermine the American people's trust in the FBI. This is particularly true since there have been no reports of FBI investigations or DOJ prosecutions in relation to the more than 72 pregnancy resource centers and 80 Catholic churches that have been attacked or vandalized since the Dobbs leak."

The FBI has not made a public statement on the letter, which was followed up a month later with a 1,000-page report from House Republicans alleging massive corruption of the agency based on whistleblower reports.

Against the backdrop of increased violence, two potential flashpoints are looming. On January 20, the annual March for Life in Washington, D.C. will take place with a theme of "Next Steps: Marching in a Post-Roe America."

Then on January 22 comes the 50th anniversary of the original Roe v. Wade decision itself.

The immediate future will be more violent and chaotic, predicts Harden, who (along with his lawyers) has decided to launch his own investigation into who bombed CompassCare.

"It is only going to heat up," he told Newsweek. "My prayer is that the violence will go away, but pro-life people aren't the sort to go away because we believe we're on a mission to protect the most vulnerable. Pro-abortion terrorists are demanding we shut down, but we're not going to do that."