Trump’s rhetoric is helping fuel a spike in threats against abortion clinics nationwide.
By Anna North
Senior Reporter
Vox
One man was charged with threatening to “slaughter and murder” doctors and patients at an abortion clinic in Chicago. Another was arrested in connection with threats against Planned Parenthood and federal agents. A third vandalized a Planned Parenthood office in Pennsylvania, painting a Bible verse in red on a wall.
All this happened in the past month alone. It’s part of what doctors and reproductive rights groups say is a spike in harassment and threats against abortion providers. According to a report by the National Abortion Federation, for example, providers reported 21,252 incidents of online harassment in 2018, compared with 15,773 in 2017.
The rise in harassment coincides with a wave of anti-abortion laws and policies around the country. A number of states have passed near-total abortion bans in recent months, and Tennessee’s state legislature recently held hearings on a measure that would ban abortion as soon as a pregnancy can be detected. Meanwhile, Planned Parenthood on Monday exited the Title X federal funding program rather than comply with a Trump administration rule prohibiting program grantees from performing abortions.
Some doctors and abortion rights advocates see a link between harassment and anti-abortion rhetoric from politicians. For example, Angela Marchin, an OB-GYN in Denver who provides abortions, told Vox that she and her colleagues are seeing more online harassment with “language like ‘ripping babies from wombs just before their due date,’” a reference to a false claim made by President Trump and others that doctors routinely perform abortions while women are in labor.
“The ugly, hateful rhetoric we’re hearing across the country is being fueled by President Trump himself,” said Melanie Roussell Newman, senior vice president of communications and culture for Planned Parenthood Federation of America, in a statement to Vox.
For Planned Parenthood and other abortion rights advocates, threats and harassment against clinics are part of a larger landscape in which the president and state legislators are spreading misinformation about what abortion providers do, potentially putting them and their patients at risk.