A look at antiabortion terrorism
Attack on Palm Springs clinic may not have been part of coordinated effort, but historically, there were some links between leaders of the opposition movement and harassment of providers.
I didn’t want to write about the attack on the American Reproductive Centers fertility clinic in Palm Springs until I knew more about the motives behind the bombing.
According to NPR reporting, Guy Edward Bartkus, a 25-year-old California man, was the prime suspect. He was portrayed as someone who operated independently and with motives that had little to do with antiabortion causes.
It’s useful to know a little history of the terrorism that has affected women’s reproductive health facilities for decades. Since 1977, there have been 11 murders, 42 bombings, more than 200 arsons, 531 assaults, and thousands of incidents of criminal activities directed at patients, providers, and volunteers, according to the National Abortion Federation.
If we go back 50 years, we can see the seeds from which the violence sprang. Francis Schaeffer, a theologian who helped produce a series of films that linked many things, including abortion, to the decline of Western civilization and art. His philosophy was cited by many in the antiabortion movement as justification for thwarting abortion access. The films galvanized the evangelical community around abortion. The Schaeffers traveled the country and spoke to increasingly larger audiences, whom they told must actively resist the secularization of Western culture.
Schaeffer argued that living peacefully with secular people was unacceptable and ungodly. He came to see abortion as the embodiment of his argument. He encouraged people to use any strategy, including violence, to stop abortion.
Key figures emerged that drove the movement in that direction. Joseph Scheidler, the author of Closed: 99 Ways to Stop Abortion, was one of the leading figures of the antiabortion movement. Within early militant antiabortion circles, three people stood out. John O’Keefe, who created the clinic sit-in approach, introduced the first widely used method of protesting abortion clinics. While his approach emphasized nonviolence, Rev. Michael Bray, another leading figure, argued for more confrontational approaches. He partook in and provided theological justification for the bombing of clinics. Scheidler fused both of those philosophies to create the militant wing of the anti-abortion movement.
When antiabortion terrorists did act, the activists on that side and the media portrayed them as lone wolves. In 2023, I interviewed Eleanor Bader, co-author of Targets of Hatred: Anti-Abortion Terrorism, who spoke about how antiabortion terrorism developed.
“It's complete and utter bullshit,” Bader said. “They had really tight networks. they were in constant communication with each other. And they coordinated very carefully.”
One noteworthy group was the Army of God, an underground, revolutionary network with far more support than has sometimes met the eye. Donald Spitz runs the website, which includes misrepresentations of Margaret Sanger, pictures of dead fetuses, and praise for the murderers of abortion providers.
The Army of God was linked to several major crimes, including the kidnapping of Dr. Hector Zevallos, who was an abortion provider in Illinois. In 1982, radicals kidnapped abortion provider him and his wife Rosalie in Illinois. They held them for seven days while threatening to murder them if they didn’t close the Hope Clinic for Women in Granite City. People suspected the Army of God, an extreme antiabortion group that advocated stopping abortions by any available method. Investigators found a ransom note in a home in St. Louis that condemned abortion. The letter demanded that Reagan denounce abortion. Even after the captors released Zevallos and his wife, the mystery surrounding the kidnapping remained. The kidnappers drove them near their home and let them go. The couple walked home, which surprised investigators. Police arrested Don Benny Anderson, a leader of the Army of God, for the crime.
One modern group that has drawn comparisons to Francis Schaeffer is the New Apostolic Reformation, which draws on earlier movements like Pentecostalism, evangelism, and Christian Reconstructionism. It takes a warfare approach to spiritualism that seeks to demonize most of its political opponents, whom it sees as demonic. It was founded by C. Peter Wagner, a missionary and writer who believes Christians should take dominion over society.
At its core is the seven-mountain mandate, which holds that believers seek to influence seven aspects of society: family, religion, education, media, arts and entertainment, business, and government. Abortion is a point of focus for them, and workers in its field are seen as demonic, too.
I’ve written about them several times in my newsletter after listening to seminars from leading experts and even attending one of their events in Pittsburgh.
When I spoke with Bader, she said a significant difference between militants now and then is that they have far more intersections with other political debates. Some radicals believe in Replacement Theory, which I’ve written about before.
“They are more multi-issued now,” Bader said. “One of the things about the anti-abortion movement is that they were obsessed with fetuses. They were obsessed with abortion, and they just didn't make any connections with other issues.”