This Is Terrorism

[Content Note: Anti-choice terrorism; war on agency; misogyny; Holocaust appropriation.]

The Pink House, the last standing abortion clinic in the entirety of Mississippi, was attacked two nights ago:

This morning our staff showed up to the clinic and found that our clinic had been vandalized. The security monitor we look at first thing in the mornings was blank. One can't really imagine the fear that goes through your body when you see that something you always rely on to assure you that you are safe, isn't working. It's a sinking feeling. So we went in groups of two to check the outside of the building and found our security cameras destroyed. Someone had come by in the early hours of the morning and knocked them off our building. In the back of the clinic we found our State Mandated generator dismantled and seriously damaged.

A review of our DVR showed that in the early hours of the morning, a masked intruder came onto our property and proceeded to methodically destroy our cameras. Other damage found indicates they were trying to destroy the power lines coming into the building, no doubt hoping to stop all patient care for the near future.

We've called the police and the FBI like we always do. We are still answering the phones like we always have and always will, no matter what attacks we may face.

Coincidentally, we are currently enduring an extended period of targeted protest by the California based group Survivors of the Abortion Holocaust. Operation Save America has also come to Mississippi to harass our staff and our patients. Unfortunately by now we are all "used" to the yelling and shaming these groups frequently bring with them. And even though we are now stripped of part of what makes us feel secure, we will find ways to adapt. Maybe it will be adding barbed wire to the roof...slowly morphing into a fortress, both intimidating yet reassuring. Of course the goal of the anti-abortion terrorists is to transform a legal, safe, and common medical procedure into a fearful, and traumatic experience for everyone involved.

But we will always do whatever it takes to make sure our doors open every single Monday morning.

If you are able and want to donate to the Pink House, you can do so here.

This will be called "vandalism," and it is, but it is also terrorism. That is the word we should be using; that law enforcement should be using; that politicians should be using.

This flagrant, shameless, decades-long campaign of intimidation, harassment, and threats and acts of violence against healthcare providers who offer abortion services to pregnant people (or are even presumed to offer abortion services), and the spaces in which they offer them, in defense of an inherently violent ideology, is a comprehensive terrorist movement which, from just 1977 to 2011, included multiple assassinations, multiple attempted assassinations, and over 200 arsons and bombings.

This is terrorism.

It is, in fact, the most brazen, unapologetic terrorist campaign in the US, its coordination and orchestration done right out in the open, where no one in the media or politics will call it what it is.

This garbage is less likely to be called terrorism than it is to be called "defense of life," without a trace of irony.

I refuse to call it anything but what it is: This is terrorism.