Abortion clinics are secured like fortresses. Advocates fear Roe ruling could spur new attacks.

BOULDER, Colo. – Steel doors. Armed bodyguards. Safe rooms and panic buttons. Custom bulletproof vests.

Many abortion clinics where people exercise their constitutional rights to reproductive freedom are mini-fortresses, and now abortion clinics nationally are reassessing and strengthening security measures following warnings from law enforcement they may be targeted by anti-abortion activists freshly motivated by the pending Supreme Court decision that may overturn Roe v. Wade.

"The extremists are feeling emboldened, and the more emboldened they feel, the more aggressive they become," said Kathy Spillar, executive director of the Feminist Majority Foundation.

Statistics collected by the National Abortion Federation show recent rises in clinic trespassing and obstruction, death threats, and mail and internet harassment. Workers on Thursday surrounded the Supreme Court building with security fencing.  

Federal officials have warned clinics and local law enforcement of the potential for violence at clinics and at protests, Yahoo News reported Wednesday. Homeland Security officials confirmed the accuracy of the report to Paste BN but declined to comment further.

Anti-abortion activists say they are concerned their pregnancy resource centers are also under threat, pointing to the attack Sunday of the Wisconsin Family Action center, where police said someone threw a Molotov cocktail through the window.

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Abortion-rights activists are particularly worried about the impact on low-income and minority patients, who are most likely to seek abortion services, and thus be exposed to potential violence at clinics.

Kelsea McLain, 37, a volunteer who escorts women into abortion clinics in North Carolina, said there's been a recent "gleeful'" shift in the mood of anti-abortion protesters outside. McLain said she and other volunteers are accustomed to being pushed or having their feet stepped on. She's worried protesters will get more violent.

While the volunteers regularly get training in de-escalation and active-shooter response, an incident about a year ago shocked them all: Despite a state law banning people at protests from carrying firearms, a protester accidentally shot himself in the leg in front of patients, children and volunteers, McLain said.

"It was just this disturbing reality to know that any one them could be armed at any time," McClain said. 

Abortion-rights advocates say they saw the recent increase in violence begin as several states passed "trigger laws" making abortion illegal immediately if the Supreme Court overturned Roe. The Supreme Court is expected to release a final decision in about two months, and the ruling could change between now and then.  

How many abortions are actually performed? Rates have declined for decades.

The National Abortion Federation and its members are reviewing safety plans, conducting trainings, and advising on the installation of panic buttons and updated security systems, said chief program officer Melissa Fowler.

"We're trying to help them get ready," she said. "They know what they're doing changes people lives every day, and they're willing to take this risk because they know what they're doing is so important."

Some anti-abortion activists have justified their attacks as necessary to protect unborn children, arguing that the murder of one doctor can prevent hundreds of abortions.

Carol Tobias, president of the anti-abortion group National Right to Life Committee, said she and other anti-abortion leaders have repeatedly condemned violence directed at clinic workers and patients. She said those who attack clinics and workers represent a tiny fraction of the anti-abortion movement.

But Tobias said she worries abortion-rights protesters are the ones who may become violent in the coming days. 

"I think they're trying to flip this around – it's the supporters of abortion who are planning protests," Tobias said. "I think the violence you're going to see is going is from our opponents."

Anti-abortion groups have worked steadily for decades to elect lawmakers and appoint judges sympathetic to their efforts to overturn Roe, she said, and abortion-rights protesters are upset that strategy is paying off.

Anti-abortion groups may win a 50-year fight to end Roe. They aren't stopping there.

"We see what's happening in the abortion facilities as violence. And we don't want any violence," she said. "Violence isn't going to solve anything, and it just makes the entire country angrier."

Abortion providers targeted

Abortion-related violence, from bombings to arson and assault, rose sharply following the Roe v. Wade decision in 1973, and in 1993, Dr. David Gunn was fatally shot outside the abortion clinic he worked at in Pensacola, Florida. Experts say Gunn's death was the first known murder of an abortion provider in the United States.

A decade earlier, three medical sites providing abortion services in Pensacola were bombed by two men calling themselves the "Gideon Project," a reference to the Old Testament figure Gideon, who killed followers who  sacrificed their first-born children.

The most recent clinic-related murders were in 2015 in Colorado Springs, south of Denver, when a man attacked a Planned Parenthood after watching videos purporting to show the sale of baby body parts from a different clinic. The shooter, who confessed in public to killing three people and injuring nine others, said he wanted to stop the clinic from performing abortions because he was a "warrior for the babies." 

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Family members of the Colorado Springs victims later sued Planned Parenthood on the grounds that it lacked adequate security, but a Colorado court held that no one could have reasonably expected such an attack.

While murders connected to clinics have become less common, other types of violence has been rising, according to the National Abortion Federation, which reported that death or other threats rose from two in 2010 to 200 in 2020. Hate mail, harassing phone calls and internet-based harassment rose from 448 reports in 2010 to more than 28,000 in 2020. Clinic obstruction rose from 79 incidents in 2012, the first year it was tracked, to 2,712, the federation reported. Statistics for 2021 are still being compiled.

The 1994 federal Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act made it illegal for protesters to physically obstruct entrances, or use force or the threat of force, or conduct sit-ins, in a way that interfered with clinic workers or people seeking abortions or other reproductive health care services.

For longtime abortion provider Dr. Warren Hern, violence has always been a factor. Hern, 83, runs a well-known clinic in Boulder, and protesters sometimes march around outside. He's also seen rocks thrown through the front windows.

He argued that while there are a small number of people who truly believe abortion is morally wrong, conservatives have hijacked the anti-abortion movement to whip up anger and voter support.

A poll conducted last week by Washington Post and ABC News found a majority of Americans – 54% – want the Supreme Court to uphold Roe v. Wade, while 28% support overturning it. When broken down by party, it showed 75% of Democrats, 53% of independents and 36% of Republicans want the ruling to remain in place. 

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Hern acknowledged the toll the violence and threats take on clinic workers and doctors like him: “Concentrate on the patients and watch your back. But you can’t wear a tank. You have to assume you’re a target if you're going do this work.”

Kate Kelly, a human-rights attorney and organizer for the Seattle-based national nonprofit Shout Your Abortion, said the constant fear of violence comes atop the time workers have to spend practicing safety drills, code words and other security measures.

Kelly, the host of the abortion rights podcast Ordinary Equality, said she carefully removes location data from family photos she posts online to prevent anti-abortion activists from targeting her home, where she's had to install additional security measures.

"Everyone connected to it is at risk," Kelly said. "It's an intentional, deliberate act to keep us away from the work. But at the end of the day, many of us don't have a choice. We are the only ones who will protect us and our fundamental rights."

Contributing: Claire Thornton, Paste BN