Abortion Providers Have Faced Hundreds of Death Threats Since Roe’s Fall

Since Roe v. Wade was overturned in June 2022, abortion bans have spread widely across the South and Midwest. Abortion is totally or near-totally banned in 16 states, and these bans have forced the closure of 42 clinics in the U.S., according to The Guttmacher Institute.

For the clinics that have remained open, it hasn’t been a smooth ride, either. In 2023 alone, more than 170,000 abortion seekers were forced to travel out of state to access care. That is a dramatic influx in patients for abortion clinics in states where abortion remains legal. But it’s not just an increase in patients that clinics are forced to deal with in post-Roe America — they must also contend with the ongoing, and in some places, increasing acts of anti-abortion violence.

The National Abortion Federation (NAF) recently released statistics on abortion clinic disruption and violence for 2023 and 2024, and their findings are harrowing. In the two years since the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization Supreme Court ruling, there were more than 750 cases of obstruction of a clinic, nearly 300 death threats or threats of harm, and more than 600 cases of trespassing. That’s a case of obstruction for most days since Roe was overturned. And that’s just the incidents accounted for in NAF’s report — the number of incidents of harassment and violence targeting abortion providers is likely higher due to unreported incidents.

The findings on violence against abortion clinics reveals a steady increase that should alarm anyone who supports abortion access. The number of incidents of assault and battery increased by 137 percent from 2021-2022, obstructions increased by 134 percent, and picketing increased by nearly 72 percent. From 2010 to 2019, NAF documented 15 cases of arson against abortion clinics. From 2020 to 2024, there have been 14 arson attacks — nearly the same number in less than half the time.

Now, with the same president back in office who appointed the three Supreme Court justices who promptly voted to overturn Roe v. Wade and an administration decidedly acrimonious to abortion rights, that level of protection — even if mostly superficial — is now gone.

But violence against abortion providers is sadly nothing new. It has remained consistent since Roe v. Wade was initially decided, and the end of Roe has only exacerbated it. Since Roe was decided in 1973, disruption and violence against abortion clinics has been a constant tool of abortion opponents to disrupt access to abortion care and terrorize both providers and patients.

Since 1973, 11 abortion providers and clinic staff have been murdered, and 26 others have survived attempted murder. There have been 42 bombings, 206 arson attacks, more than 600 cases of assault and battery against abortion clinic staff, and four kidnappings. Abortion providers routinely fear violence because of this very long-standing track record.

But it’s not just acts of violence that make abortion providers uneasy. Picketing, obstruction and even trespassing have been used by abortion opponents to make accessing an abortion as difficult as possible. The anti-abortion group Operation Rescue brought thousands of aggressive protesters to the front door of clinics to wreak havoc — they would chain themselves to clinic doors, lay down in traffic, and go to other elaborate lengths to keep abortion clinics from opening their doors. Once anti-abortion activists started murdering abortion providers in 1993, the federal government was finally forced to intervene.

The result was the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act. Signed into law by President Bill Clinton in 1994, the FACE Act made it a felony to obstruct the entrance of a reproductive health facility, and violators face up to 10 years in prison. (However, this did not halt attacks on abortion providers: In 2009, Kansas-based abortion provider George Tiller was murdered while attending church, and in 2015, an anti-abortion extremist opened fire at a Planned Parenthood in Colorado, killing three people.) The FACE Act is still law, but it also requires a sympathetic Justice Department to enforce it, and that is unlikely now. In his first week in office this term, Donald Trump pardoned and released anti-abortion activists who blockaded a Washington, D.C. clinic, including Lauren Handy, who were convicted under the FACE Act during the Biden administration. Calling it “a great honor” to free them, Trump and his administration have made clear that, even if the FACE Act still technically exists, his administration has absolutely no intention of using it to protect clinics.

That’s what makes NAF’s report even more daunting — aggression and violence against abortion clinics haven’t stopped, and now, they’re likely to be given even greater leeway by a hostile administration. “The FACE Act is there to act as protection for clinics and for folks who access abortion care, to protect their safety and ability to access those clinics freely,” Amy Friedrich-Karnik, federal policy director at the Guttmacher Institute, recently told Truthout. “I think it’s a signal to the anti-abortion movement that they are allowed to harass people outside of clinics as patients try to enter and clinic staff try to go to work. We’ll have to see how that plays out, but I think it’s a very, very scary message to send and say they aren’t going to be enforcing this traditionally bipartisan law.”

Abortion providers are already swamped by an increase in patients from banned states, and the mass closure of clinics across the South and the Midwest makes it easier for anti-abortion protesters to target them.

In my book, Bodies on the Line: At the Front Lines of the Fight to Protect Abortion in America, I detail the costs of persistent anti-abortion protesting at clinics (more than 1 million reported cases since 1973, according to NAF), and the clinic escorts and defenders who volunteered to protect abortion providers and patients when the local, state and federal government wouldn’t. Everyday volunteers showed up, creating a safety net that otherwise wouldn’t have existed, to help patients enter abortion clinics past the throngs of screaming and aggressive anti-abortion protesters throughout the 1980s and early 1990s.

Now, with a Justice Department admittedly hostile to the FACE Act and the same president who appointed the very justices who overturned Roe v. Wade backing impunity for people who have committed violence against abortion providers, abortion providers won’t have much in the way of legal support. The makeshift safety net that abortion advocates have created — abortion funds, practical support organizations and clinic escorts — will be forced to try to bridge that growing gap between the law and accessibility, all while putting themselves at risk of aggression and violence. One thing is clear — the safety of abortion providers won’t be helped by the federal government. Once again, abortion advocates are going to have to do it for themselves.