We Remember: Abortion Clinic Violence is Nothing New (but there is NO war on women!!)
We Remember: Abortion Clinic Violence is Nothing New
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Sojourner editors’ note: On Friday, December 30, 1994, John Salvi walked into two Brookline, Massachusetts, reproductive health clinics—Preterm and Planned Parenthood—and shot and killed receptionists Shannon Lowney and Leanne Nichols. These murders followed those of Drs. David Gunn and John Britton and clinic defender James Barrett in Florida. Sheila Parks reminds us that we cannot forget that the battle over women’s right to reproductive freedom has become lethal.
I knew it was not if, but when Friday, December 30, 1994, would happen here in Boston. Others had already died in the fight to maintain women’s right to reproductive freedom. After years of defending women’s health clinics with my body, I had come to know intimately most of the anti-abortionists demonstrating in Boston and Brookline. They always came with such venom, egged on, spurred and blessed by the hierarchy of the Catholic Church and by fundamentalist Protestant leaders—the religious right-wing—and the political right-wing. They called women “vermin.”
Come back with me to June 1, 1991. I remember. I will never forget. I am standing in front of Reproductive Health Associates (Repro). This is the Brookline clinic that John Salvi missed on his December 30 rampage. I think he dared not go there because an armed security guard stands at the door. Brookline has felt the onslaught of the Operation Rescue (aka Operation Terrorist) and other anti-abortion groups for years.
As I approach the clinic on this bright June morning, the anti-abortion protestors tell me they love me. I tell them they don’t know the difference between love and abuse. They tell me they pray for me. I tell them I don’t want their prayers. I who passionately believe in prayer. “No,” I say to them. “No” to the arrogant, self-righteous, almost all white, mostly male protestors who stand with their bibles and crosses, actually reading and quoting scripture. John Salvi is not the only scripture-quoting zealot in the anti-abortion movement.
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http://msmagazine.com/blog/2015/12/17/we-remember-abortion-clinic-violence-is-nothing-new/