The message of a Texas arson

ON JULY 26, between 10 and 11 p.m., a Planned Parenthood clinic in McKinney, Texas, was attacked with a Molotov cocktail.

The firebombing did not severely harm the clinic, which was able to open for business the next day. According to Holly Morgan, director of media relations and communications for Planned Parenthood in Dallas, "It didn't penetrate the health center office, and none of the staff or patients were there...[I]t scorched the outside of the door, and I believe there was a little scorching to the retail locations on either side of it."

No suspect has been named, and the McKinney fire and police departments are still investigating.

While the attack received little media coverage, it isn't an anomaly. A similar attack in Madera, Calif., in September 2010 shut down a clinic for two days, and another clinic in Raleigh, N.C., was vandalized earlier this month with the spray-painted message, "You shall not murder." According to the National Abortion Federation, in 2010, abortion clinics in the U.S. and Canada were witness to 96 incidences of violence, including murder, death, threats, vandalism, arson and bombings.

Clinic violence is nothing new. Starting in the 1980s and increasing in intensity in the '90s, violence against abortion clinics and providers has claimed the lives of at least eight people in the U.S.--including four doctors, two clinic employees, a security guard and a clinic escort.

The most recent murder was committed in late June 2009, when Dr. George Tiller--one of the few doctors to continue to provide late-term abortions--was shot while attending a service at his church in Wichita, Kan. Dr. Tiller had survived years of ongoing harassment from anti-choice forces, including being shot in his clinic in 1993 by an Operation Rescue member, Shelley Shannon. Shannon was later charged with attempted murder.

Scott Roeder, the man who shot and killed Dr. Tiller in 2009, was a far-right activist who had a home in both the militia and anti-choice movements. He was a member of the anti-government Montana Freemen group and the "Sovereign Citizen" movement. In the mid-1990s, Roeder became a follower of the Christian terrorist anti-abortion group Army of God. Before murdering him, Roeder referred to Dr. Tiller as the "Mengele" of our day--a reference to Nazi doctor Josef Mengele.

While Operation Rescue later denounced Roeder's shooting of Tiller and stated that Roeder was not a contributor or member of the group, the cell phone number for Operation Rescue's Senior Policy Adviser Cheryl Sullenger--herself convicted in 1988 for plotting to blow up the Alavarado Medical Center abortion clinic with a gasoline bomb--was found on Roeder's dashboard.

SOME ANTI-choice activists are feeling emboldened by the current increased in anti-abortion rhetoric and legislation coming from politicians at the state and federal level. Combined with the recent movement to de-fund Planned Parenthood on a national scale, such a climate sends the message that it is morally acceptable to shut down clinics--even using violent means--and contributes to a culture of violence toward abortion providers.

In South Dakota, for example, the legislature recently floated the idea of making the crime of killing an abortion provider "justifiable homicide." While the proposed bill was ultimately never voted on by the legislature, it was a wink and a nod to violent anti-choice activists, and sends the message that the state apparatus is tolerant of violent attacks against clinics and providers.

The blame extends to the Democrats, who cannot be counted on to defend abortion rights, especially when some important figures--for example, former Rep. Bart Stupak--have led the anti-choice efforts in Congress and on the state level.

Historically, the Democrats have played a role in undermining abortion rights. For example, the Hyde Amendment, which bars the use of certain federal funds to pay for abortions, was passed by the 94th Congress, in which Democrats had nearly complete control. The Democrats had a two-to-one majority in the House of Representatives and 62 percent of the Senate, yet this attack on women's right to choose was still put on the chopping block.

Barack Obama has also shown that he is no friend of the abortion rights movement. As soon as Obama got the Democratic nomination, he spoke in favor of restricting the misnamed procedure known as "partial-birth" abortion, even in cases where a woman's health is in jeopardy.

Obama also stated that he supports the Hyde Amendment, and last year, during the debate on the health care bill, in response to the proposed Stupak-Pitts amendment that would have prohibited the use of federal funds "to pay for any abortion or to cover any part of the costs of any health plan that includes coverage of abortion" except in cases of rape, incest or danger to the life of the mother, Obama signed an executive order instituting his own ban on such funding. Obama's order declared that the existing Hyde Amendment, which specifically states that no federal funding may be used for abortion services, would apply to any new agency, health center, insurance coverage or health care services created by the pending legislation.

In this environment, the debate around abortion rights has been pushed further to the right. This is why we need a revitalized movement that is not beholden to electoral politics and is unapologetic about abortion rights. If our leaders, activists and organizations are apologetic about abortion rights, who will be there to oppose anti-choice bigots. The right will continue to be allowed to frame the debate.

The Molotov cocktail thrown in McKinney, Texas, wasn't just meant for the clinic, but as a message for every abortion doctor, clinic worker and pro-choice activist. The atmosphere of violence and terror this creates is meant to scare away people who support abortion rights.

The long history of bloody violence against abortion clinics and providers will only come to the end by stopping the anti-choice side and declaring that women alone should have the right to control their bodies--not through "compromise" with the anti-abortion right. How can we stand up to the violence if we are ceding any part of the debate?