Attorneys at the Women’s Law Project have authored an amicus curiae (friend of the court) brief in a case of anti-abortion extremism, Planned Parenthood Federation of America v. Troy Newman.
The brief was filed in the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in support of the Plaintiff-Appellee, Planned Parenthood. The Feminist Majority Foundation, Physicians for Reproductive Health, and Abortion Care Network signed on as amici in support of the appellees.
In 2015, co-defendant Center for Medical Progress (CMP), an anti-abortion extremist group, released a slew of inflammatory, heavily edited, misleading videos of Planned Parenthood doctors and staff. CMP infiltrated Planned Parenthood clinics and confidential national meetings with hidden video equipment and illegally recorded these doctors and staff without their consent. CMP members infiltrated these clinics and meetings using fake names and falsely presented themselves as staff of BioMax, a fake tissue procurement organization CMP created.
The release of these videos directly coincided with an alarming increase in threats, harassment, and violence against abortion providers—especially the providers targeted by the CMP videos.
In November 2015, a few months after the release of the CMP videos, anti-abortion extremist Robert Dear opened fire and murdered three people at a clinic affiliated with Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains, which had been targeted by the CMP videos. When police arrested Dear, he made a reference to the CMP videos.
“No health care provider should have to face harassment and death threats,” said WLP Senior Staff Attorney Sue Frietsche. “Anti-abortion extremists have made a cottage industry of terrorizing doctors and must be held accountable for their actions.”
In 2019, Planned Parenthood sued CMP in a federal district court in California for various claims relating to CMP’s infiltration of private Planned Parenthood spaces. Planned Parenthood sought damages to compensate them for having to implement effective security measures to protect their providers. The jury found in their favor, and U.S. District Judge William Orrick entered judgment for Planned Parenthood on all claims. CMP appealed.
The brief, which you can read here, discusses the extensive history of anti-abortion extremism and its detrimental effects on the lives of abortion providers in the United States. The brief highlights how CMP’s infiltration and illegally recorded videos conform with this extensive history of violence, rendering CMP’s actions powerfully threatening and justifying Planned Parenthood’s implementation of reasonable security measures to protect its providers.
[CMP’s] goal is to expose the identities of abortion providers in order to invite anti-abortion extremists to target them, with the knowledge that someone will undoubtedly accept the invitation.
Anti-abortion extremism is on the rise.
According to the most recent statistics from National Abortion Federation (NAF), the leading source of data about anti-abortion violence, between 1977 and 2019, there have been 11 murders, 26 attempted murders, 42 bombings, 189 arsons, 100 attempted bombings or arsons, 449 clinic invasions, 100 butyric acid attacks, 314 assaults or batteries, 4 acts of kidnapping, and 311 burglaries attributable to anti-abortion extremism. There have also been 1,930 incidents of vandalism, 6,390 incidents of trespassing, 663 anthrax or bioterrorism threats, 662 bomb threats, 756 death threats or threats of harm, 620 acts of stalking, over 21,646 incidents of hate mail or harassing phone calls, and over 128,582 incidents of hate email or internet harassment aimed at abortion providers.
Stay tuned for updates on when oral argument will be held in this case.
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