They came for the clinics first.
Three days after the pardons for the January insurgents—those who had stormed the Capitol with violence in their hearts and flags as weapons—Trump’s freed anti-abortion extremists criminally convicted of attacking women’s reproductive health clinics
Twenty-three of them, their hands still metaphorically filthy with the aftermath of their deeds: the damaged clinic doors, the terror-filled eyes of patients and clinic staff, a nurse's body bearing the marks of their “righteousness.”
Crimes committed against women and clinics in Washington, DC. Tennessee. New York. Florida. Georgia. Michigan. A constellation of violence, now sanctified by presidential decree.
The next day brought worse tidings. The Justice Department—justice, how that word mocks us now—announced their retreat. No more prosecutions under the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act except in “extraordinary circumstances” – whatever that now means.
Three pending criminal cases dismissed: Tennessee, Pennsylvania, Ohio. As if the violence there had never happened.
This is not dystopian fiction. This is not a cautionary tale. This is now.
For thirty-six years, our National Clinic Access Project has stood guard against the darkness: the bombs that shattered morning silence, the flames that licked at clinic walls, the death threats whispered through phone lines, the murders that left holes in families and communities.
But this—this official sanctioning of violence, this governmental nod to chaos and terror—this is new territory, unmapped and treacherous.
History teaches us when protection falls away, violence escalates.
We need you now, John. Not tomorrow. Not next week. Now. This moment, while the clock ticks and the extremists sharpen their weapons of righteousness.
The clinics need fortification—physical, legal, human. They need security systems that sound the alarm, lawyers who can fight in courts still willing to listen, trained volunteers who can witness and document the extremists’ actions and form human chains of protection—if needed.
We must work with state attorneys general, those who still remember what justice means. In states where laws against clinic harassment lie dormant or entirely absent, we must enact new ones, strong ones, ones with teeth. Laws that convict. At the state level where Trump has no pardon power
These things require money. Real money. You've walked this road with us before, (First). You know our words aren't spun from paranoid threads.
Will you help us? Your emergency contribution is tax-deductible.
The forces of darkness move with the speed of zealots. We must move faster.
