Inside 50-year fight to reverse Roe v. Wade that’s seen deadly shootings erupt at abortion clinics
THE battle to reverse Roe v. Wade has triggered numerous pro-life fanatics to open fire at abortion clinics in the 48 years since the US Supreme Court’s landmark decision.
Tensions are escalating once more after SCOTUS refused to block a Texas law which bans most abortions and heralds the most restrictive abortion measure in the United States.
In a separate case this fall, the court will decide whether Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision which ruled that the Constitution a woman’s right to have the procedure, should be overruled.
Meanwhile, the new Texas law prohibits abortions after six weeks but 90 percent of abortions in the state are reportedly carried out at this point, meaning the law implements an almost complete ban on the procedure.
The Roe v. Wade conflict and political divide has often become deadly over the past 50 years, resulting in the murder of 11 people to date by pro-life fanatics.
More recently, the former staffer of a murdered abortion doctor wrote a The Daily Beast article claiming there was a faction of anti-choice extremists at the January 6 insurrection.
“For those of us dedicated to the pro-choice cause, the threat of violence—both at work and home—is always looming,” wrote Julie Burkhart, the founder Trust Women PAC, who worked with slain Dr George Tiller.
“It is constantly hanging over our heads, while spreading like wildfire throughout social media… Acts of intimidation like these left unchecked, have frequently led to devastating violence in our country.”
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In 2015, fanatic Robert L. Dear Jr. opened fire at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs, killing three and wounding nine, because he was “upset with them performing abortions.”
Deranged Dear later said he was “happy” with his deadly rampage after killing Ke’Arre Stewart, Garrett Swasey and Jennifer Markovsky with Soviet-style SKS semi-automatic rifles.
Dear bizarrely claimed clinics were “selling of baby parts” and dubbed himself a “warrior for the babies” in one courtroom outburst.
He reportedly idolized the Paul J Hill who murdered abortion doctor Dr John Bayard Britton and his clinic volunteer, James H. Barrett, in Florida in 1994.
TARGETED TWICE
In 2009, Dr Tiller, the medical director of Women’s Health Care Services in Kansas (one of three US clinics that provided late-term abortions) was shot in a church foyer by Scott Roeder.
When he was sentenced to life behind bars, Roeder claimed God’s judgement would “sweep over this land like a prairie wind” after admitting to the killing during the trial.
The shooting came years after Tiller had survived anti-choice activist Shelley Shannon’s attack in 1993. Shannon believed “justifiable force” was needed to stop abortions.
The first abortion doctor to be shot dead was Dr. David Gunn, who was slain during a protest outside his clinic in Pensacola, Florida, on March 11, 1993 when Michael F. Griffin opened fire.
Griffin shot Gunn three times in the back before telling cops “I’ve just shot Dr. Gunn.” He was sentenced to life in prison after being convicted of murder in March 1994.
ANOTHER DOCTOR SLAIN
There have been instances of similar violence in Pensacola when two doctors’ offices and a clinic were bombed by fanatics on Christmas Day 1984.
After Gunn’s murder, there was more bloodshed in Pensacola the following year in ’94 when former pastor Hill murdered Dr Bayard and Barrett, as well as wounding the doctor’s wife, on July 29, 1994.
Gunn – who was convicted and placed on Death Row – had praised Griffin’s killing of Dr Gunn and cited it as his inspiration.
Before his 2003 execution by lethal injection, Gunn told reporters: “I believe in the short and long term, more and more people will act on the principles for which I stand,” he told reporters nine years after the shooting.
“I’m willing and I feel very honored that they are most likely going to kill me for what I did.”
RECEPTIONISTS SLAUGHTERED
Receptionists, Shannon Lowney, 25, who worked at a Planned Parenthood clinic and Leanne Nichols, 38, who worked at the Preterm clinic in Boston, Massachusetts, were shot dead in December 1994.
The crazed gunman John Salvi injured five other people at both Brookline clinics, which were located two miles apart on the same street after protests there escalated.
He was arrested in Virginia just minutes after he opened fire at a Norfolk abortion clinic. Salvi’s lawyer claimed he was schizophrenic.
He was convicted and received a life sentence in March 1996 before his apparent suicide that November.
SERIAL SHOOTER
After lurking in the woods near Dr Barnett Slepian’s home in October 1998, James Kopp fatally shot the abortion provider through the window of his home in Buffalo, New York.
Slepian, an obstetrician, greeted his four sons after returning from synagogue with his wife Lynn when Kopp opened fire, striking him in the chest as he stood in his own kitchen.
Serial shooter Kopp – who was suspected of shooting several abortion providers in Canada at their homes – then fled to Mexico, Ireland and France before being extradited back to the USA.
He was sentenced to 25 years and then life in 2007 on a separate federal charge, reported The New York Times.
VIOLENT BOMBER
Eric Rudolph planted a nail bomb in Birmingham, Alabama, in January 1998 that exploded and killed an off-duty police officer Robert Sanderson.
The violent blast left nurse Emily Lyons maimed and half-blind.
Rudolph had previously bombed the 1996 Atlanta Olympics to punish and mortify the US for legalizing abortion. The blast killed Alice Hawthorne and wounded 100 others.
He admitted to planting both bombs as part of a 2005 plea deal, as well as explosions at two other clinics and an Atlanta gay bar.
The zealot described his attacks on abortion clinics as a “moral duty.”
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