A Former Planned Parenthood Employee Tweeted This List of "Acts of Terrorism" She Survived
The shooting Friday at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs, Colorado, was horrifying, but according to a former Planned Parenthood worker, it wasn't shocking. Instead, the former employee said, the attack that left three people dead was a continuation of decades of extremist tactics directed at the health care organization's facilities, staff, volunteers and patients.
Author Bryn Greenwood, who tweeted that she worked at a Kansas Planned Parenthood facility for three years, said on Twitter that, in her experience, regular acts of violence, intimidation, arson and vandalism were common.
According to Greenwood, her clinic was targeted with small explosive devices, threats, stink bombs and gunfire. in one attack, an arsonist poured gasoline under the doors and set it on fire. All this at a clinic that, according to Greenwood, did not even provide abortion services.
I worked at a #PlannedParenthood clinic in Kansas for 3 years. My coworkers & I were subjected to the following acts of terrorism:
Gasoline was poured under our back door & ignited 4 times. Twice while the clinic was occupied, causing patients to be evacuated.
Butyric acid (used as a stink bomb) was poured under our doors & into ventilation system so many times I lost count. Clinic evacuated.
(Butyric acid is not a joke. ScienceLab lists the compound as "very hazardous" on skin contact, capable of causing burns, and notes inhalation may result in "severe irritation of respiratory tract, characterized by coughing, choking or shortness of breath.")
2 cherry bombs were left on our doorstep after hours, causing damage & clinic closure. Imagine what it's like going to work after that.
We received hundreds of phone calls, threatening to torch our clinic & to kill the "murdering whores" who worked there.
3 times someone drove by at night & shot out our windows. Picketers stood on the sidewalk & harassed employees as we swept up broken glass.
Our clinic didn't perform abortions. We did well woman exams, pregnancy tests, dispensed birth control, & treated STIs.
Our clinic offered free & low cost services in a low income neighborhood, but every day the "pro-life" movement tried to frighten us.
The goal was to make us afraid to come to work, to make us quit, to make us close the clinic. That's terrorism. That's how terrorism works.
Anyone who approves of harassing clinics is giving support to terrorism. #StandWithPP
Greenwood also said she volunteered at the clinic run by George Tiller, who was murdered in 2009. His killer later told the Associated Press that he committed the murder "because of the fact preborn children's lives were in imminent danger."
Tiller and his clinic were not intimidated by a prior 1993 assassination attempt in which the doctor was shot through both arms.
At the same time, I volunteered at Dr. George Tiller's abortion clinic. In 1993 he was shot by a "pro-lifer." He came to work the next day.
Dr. Tiller kept coming to work after he was shot, because he was a caring man who knew how important his work was.
In 2009, Dr. Tiller was murdered in his own church, again by a "pro-lifer." The goal was to scare other doctors who perform abortions.
Abortions are still provided in Dr. Tiller's old clinic, because that's how you respond to terrorism. We can't let them win.
The terrorism continues at clinics all across America. https://twitter.com/clinicescort/status/670337787040800769 ...
In an interview with Mic, Greenwood confirmed her dates of employment and position at Planned Parenthood.
She said that the first arson attempt at the clinic "occurred when I was sitting in my office, about twenty feet down the hallway. The alarm went off, we evacuated patients and called 911. I like to think I was calm, but it was the first time I ever felt truly threatened."
Greenwood added that in her role at the clinic, "I heard some harsh things. Sometimes at community fair events, people walked by my table and said things like, 'jezebel' or 'baby killer.' I had many more people politely tell me they thought sex education in schools was wrong. I even had teachers tell me that."
Greenwood's tweets are part of a wider conversation happening on social media to remind people that Friday's attack, while jarring, is just the latest in a long history of threats on Planned Parenthood clinics and employees. In the aftermath of the Colorado attack, feminist activist Michelle Kinsey Bruns, who uses the Twitter handle ClinicEscort, rapidly churned out 100 tweets detailing Planned Parenthood's history with violence, dating back to 1976.
My next 100 tweets will be the citations they needed-from 4 decades of antichoice violence, near-misses, threats & incitements. #is100enough
According to Mother Jones, violence against abortion providers plummeted in the late 1990s after a federal law was passed and a task force under the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice was created to prevent it. But since a group called the Center for Medical Progress released a series of heavily edited videos purporting to show Planned Parenthood staffers discussing the illegal sale of fetal organs (subsequent investigations have found no proof the allegations are true) in July of this year, harassment and intimidation are back on the upswing.
National Abortion Federation court filings obtained by Mother Jones show "incidents of harassment against Planned Parenthood facilities increased ninefold [between June and July], and those numbers continued to rise through August." Those incidents have included arson attempts and vandalism, including one incident in which an intruder entered a Planned Parenthood clinic in Claremont, New Hampshire, and destroyed equipment inside.
Nov. 30, 2015, 4:08 p.m.: This article has been updated to include comments from Bryn Greenwood.
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