Murders

In the United States, violence directed towards abortion providers has killed at least eleven people, including four doctors, two clinic employees, a security guard, a police officer, two people (unclear of their connection), and a clinic escort. Seven murders occurred in the 1990s.

March 10, 1993: Gynaecologist David Gunn of Pensacola, Florida was fatally shot during a protest. He had been the subject of wanted-style posters distributed by Operation Rescue in the summer of 1992. Michael F. Griffin was found guilty of Gunn's murder and was sentenced to life in prison.

July 29, 1994: John Britton, a physician, and James Barrett, a clinic escort, were both shot to death outside another facility, the Ladies Center, in Pensacola. Paul Jennings Hill was charged with the killings. Hill received a death sentence and was executed on September 3, 2003. The clinic in Pensacola had been bombed before in 1984 and was also bombed subsequently in 2012.

December 30, 1994: Two receptionists, Shannon Lowney and Lee Ann Nichols, were killed in two clinic attacks in Brookline, Massachusetts. John Salvi was arrested and confessed to the killings. He died in prison and guards found his body under his bed with a plastic garbage bag tied around his head. Salvi had also confessed to a non-lethal attack in Norfolk, Virginia days before the Brookline killings.

January 29, 1998: Robert Sanderson, an off-duty police officer who worked as a security guard at an abortion clinic in Birmingham, Alabama, was killed when his workplace was bombed. Eric Rudolph admitted responsibility; he was also charged with three Atlanta bombings: the 1997 bombing of an abortion center, the 1996 Centennial Olympic Park bombing, and another of a lesbian nightclub. He was found guilty of the crimes and received two life sentences as a result.

October 23, 1998: Barnett Slepian was shot to death with a high-powered rifle at his home in Amherst, New York. His was the last in a series of similar shootings against providers in Canada and northern New York state which were all likely committed by James Kopp. Kopp was convicted of Slepian's murder after being apprehended in France in 2001.

May 31, 2009: George Tiller was shot and killed by Scott Roeder as Tiller served as an usher at a church in Wichita, Kansas. This was not Tiller's first time being a victim to anti-abortion violence. Tiller was shot once before in 1993 by Shelley Shannon, who was sentenced 10 years in prison for the shooting.

November 27, 2015: A shooting at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs, Colorado, left three dead and several injured, and a suspect Robert L. Dear was apprehended. The suspect had previously acted against other clinics, and referred to himself as a "warrior for the babies" at his hearing. Neighbors and former neighbors described the suspect as "reclusive", and police from several states where the suspect resided described a history of run-ins dating from at least 1997. As of December 2015, the trial of the suspect was open; but, on May 11, 2016, the court declared the suspect incompetent to stand trial after a mental evaluation was completed.

Attempted murder, assault, and kidnapping

According to statistics gathered by the National Abortion Federation (NAF), an organization of abortion providers, since 1977 in the United States and Canada, there have been 17 attempted murders, 383 death threats, 153 incidents of assault or battery, 13 wounded, 100 butyric acid stink bomb attacks, 373 physical invasions, 41 bombings, 655 anthrax threats, and 3 kidnappings committed against abortion providers. Between 1977 and 1990, 77 death threats were made, with 250 made between 1991 and 1999. Attempted murders in the U.S. included: in 1985 45% of clinics reported bomb threats, decreasing to 15% in 2000. One fifth of clinics in 2000 experienced some form of extreme activity.

August 1982: Three men identifying as the Army of God kidnapped Hector Zevallos (a doctor and clinic owner) and his wife, Rosalee Jean, holding them for eight days.

June 15, 1984: A month after he destroyed suction equipment at a Birmingham clinic, Edward Markley, a Benedictine priest who was the Birmingham diocesan "Coordinator for Pro-Life Activities". (and perhaps an accomplice), entered the Women's Community Health Center in Huntsville, Alabama, assaulting at least three clinic workers. Kathryn Wood, one of the workers, received back injuries and a broken neck vertebrae while preventing Markley from splashing red paint on the clinic's equipment. Markley was convicted of first-degree criminal mischief, one count of third-degree assault, and one count of harassment in the Huntsville attack.

August 19, 1993: George Tiller was shot outside of an abortion facility in Wichita, Kansas. Shelley Shannon was convicted of the crime and received an 11-year prison sentence (20 years were later added for arson and acid attacks on clinics).

July 29, 1994: June Barrett was shot in the same attack which claimed the lives of James Barrett, her husband, and John Britton.

December 30, 1994: Five individuals were wounded in the shootings which killed Shannon Lowney and Lee Ann Nichols.

December 18, 1996: Calvin Jackson, a medical doctor of New Orleans, Louisiana was stabbed 15 times, losing 4 pints of blood. Donald Cooper was charged with second degree attempted murder and was sentenced to 20 years. "Donald Cooper's Day of Violence", by Kara Lowentheil, Choice! Magazine, December 21, 2004.

October 28, 1997: David Gandell, a medical doctor of Rochester, New York sustained serious injuries after being targeted by a sniper firing through a window in his home.

January 29, 1998: Emily Lyons, a nurse, was severely injured, and lost an eye, in the bombing which also killed off-duty police officer Robert Sanderson.

Arson, bombing, and property crime

According to NAF, since 1977 in the United States and Canada, property crimes committed against abortion providers have included 41 bombings, 173 arsons, 91 attempted bombings or arsons, 619 bomb threats, 1630 incidents of trespassing, 1264 incidents of vandalism, and 100 attacks with butyric acid. The New York Times also cites over one hundred clinic bombings and incidents of arson, over three hundred invasions, and over four hundred incidents of vandalism between 1978 and 1993. The first clinic arson occurred in Oregon in March 1976 and and the first bombing occurred in February 1978 in Ohio. Incidents have included:

May 26, 1983: Joseph Grace set the Hillcrest clinic in Norfolk, Virginia ablaze. He was arrested while sleeping in his van a few blocks from the clinic when a patrol officer noticed the smell of kerosene.

May 12, 1984: Two men entered a Birmingham, Alabama clinic on Mother's Day weekend shortly after a lone woman opened the doors at 7:25 A.M. Forcing their way into the clinic, one of the men threatened the woman if she tried to prevent the attack while the other, wielding a sledgehammer, did between $7,500 and $8,500 of damage to suction equipment. The man who damaged the equipment was later identified as Edward Markley. Markley is a Benedictine priest who was the Birmingham diocesan "Coordinator for Pro-Life Activities". Markley was convicted of first-degree criminal mischief and second-degree burglary. His accomplice has never been identified. The following month (near Father's Day), Markley entered a women's health center in Huntsville, Alabama (see above).

December 25, 1984: An abortion clinic and two physicians' offices in Pensacola, Florida, were bombed in the early morning of Christmas Day by a quartet of young people (Matt Goldsby, Jimmy Simmons, Kathy Simmons, Kaye Wiggins) who later called the bombings "a gift to Jesus on his birthday." The clinic, the Ladies Center, would later be the site of the murder of John Britton and James Barrett in 1994 and a firebombing in 2012.

March 26, 1986: Six anti-abortion activists, including John Burt and Joan Andrews, were arrested after invading an abortion clinic in Pensacola, Florida, causing property damage and injuring two women (a clinic manager and a member of the local NOW chapter). Burt was convicted of attempted burglary of an occupied building, assault, battery, and resisting arrest without violence, and was sentenced to 141 days already served in jail and four years of probation; his 18-year-old daughter, Sarah Burt, who also took part in the invasion, was sentenced to 15 days in jail (with credit for two days already served) and three years of probation. Andrews refused to pledge not to carry out such actions in the future and was convicted of burglary, criminal mischief and resisting arrest without violence. She was sentenced to five years in prison, which she spent largely in self-imposed isolation, refusing a mattress and all medical care.

July 27, 1987: Eight members of the Bible Missionary Fellowship, a fundamentalist church in Santee, California, attempted to bomb the Alvarado Medical Center abortion clinic. Church member Cheryl Sullenger procured gunpowder, bomb materials, and a disguise for co-conspirator Eric Everett Svelmoe, who planted a gasoline bomb. It was placed at the premises but failed to detonate as the fuse was blown out by wind.

July 3, 1989: A fire was started at the Feminist Health Center clinic in Concord, New Hampshire, on the day U.S. Supreme Court upheld a Missouri law banning funding of public facilities as related to abortion. The clinic was set afire again in 2000.

March 29, 1993: Blue Mountain Clinic in Missoula, Montana; at around 1 a.m., an arsonist snuck onto the premises and firebombed the clinic. The perpetrator, a Washington man, was ultimately caught, convicted and imprisoned. The facility was a near-total loss, but all of the patients' records, though damaged, survived the fire in metal file cabinets.

January 1997: Eric Rudolph admitted, as part of a plea deal for the Centennial Olympic Park bombing at the 1996 Olympic Games to placing a pair of bombs that exploded at the Northside Family Planning Services clinic in the Atlanta suburb of Sandy Springs.

May 21, 1998: Three people were injured when acid was poured at the entrances of five abortion clinics in Miami, Florida.

March 13, 1999: A bomb caused minor damage at an Asheville, North Carolina clinic.

October 1999: Martin Uphoff set fire to a Planned Parenthood clinic in Sioux Falls, South Dakota causing minimal damage. He was later sentenced to 60 months in prison.

May 28, 2000: An arson at a clinic in Concord, New Hampshire, resulted in several thousand dollars' worth of damage. The case remains unsolved. This was the second arson at the clinic.

September 30, 2000: John Earl, a Catholic priest, drove his car into the Northern Illinois Health Clinic in Rockford, Illinois after learning that the FDA had approved the drug RU-486. He pulled out an axe before being forced to the ground by the owner of the building, who fired two warning shots from a shotgun.

June 11, 2001: An unsolved bombing at a clinic in Tacoma, Washington, destroyed a wall, resulting in $6,000 in damages.

January 9, 2005: Eastside Women's Clinic in Olympia, Washington sustained $500,000 damage in an arson.

July 4, 2005: A clinic in West Palm Beach, Florida, was the target of an probable arson.

December 12, 2005: Patricia Hughes and Jeremy Dunahoe threw a Molotov cocktail at a clinic in Shreveport, Louisiana. The device missed the building and no damage was caused. In August 2006, Hughes was sentenced to six years in prison, and Dunahoe to one year. Hughes claimed the bomb was a "memorial lamp" for an abortion she had had there.

September 11, 2006: David McMenemy of Rochester Hills, Michigan, crashed his car into the Edgerton Women's Care Center in Davenport, Iowa. He then doused the lobby in gasoline and started a fire. McMenemy committed these acts in the belief that the center was performing abortions; however, Edgerton is not an abortion clinic. Time magazine listed the incident in a "Top 10 Inept Terrorist Plots" list.

April 25, 2007: A package left at a women's health clinic in Austin, Texas, contained an explosive device capable of inflicting serious injury or death. A bomb squad detonated the device after evacuating the building. Paul Ross Evans (who had a criminal record for armed robbery and theft) was found guilty of the crime.

May 9, 2007: An unidentified person deliberately set fire to a Planned Parenthood clinic in Virginia Beach, Virginia.

December 6, 2007: Chad Altman and Sergio Baca were arrested for the arson of Curtis Boyd's clinic in Albuquerque. Baca's girlfriend had scheduled an appointment for an abortion at the clinic.

January 22, 2009: Matthew L. Derosia, 32, who was reported to have had a history of mental illness, rammed an SUV into the front entrance of a Planned Parenthood clinic in Saint Paul, Minnesota, causing between $2,500 and $5,000 in damage. Derosia, who told police that Jesus told him to "stop the murderers," was ruled competent to stand trial. He pleaded guilty in March 2009 to one count of criminal damage to property.

August 29, 2009: Two days after a nearby anti-abortion protest, an unknown arsonist threw a molotov cocktail at a Planned Parenthood in Lincoln, Nebraska. The bomb fell short of the building, leaving no property damage or casualties.

January 1, 2012: Bobby Joe Rogers, 41, firebombed the American Family Planning Clinic in Pensacola, Florida, with a Molotov cocktail; the fire gutted the building. Rogers told investigators that he was motivated to commit the crime by his opposition to abortion, and that what more directly prompted the act was seeing a patient enter the clinic during one of the frequent anti-abortion protests there. The clinic had previously been bombed at Christmas in 1984 and was the site of the murder of John Britton and James Barrett in 1994.

April 1, 2012: A bomb exploded on the windowsill of a Planned Parenthood clinic in Grand Chute, Wisconsin, resulting in a fire that caused minimal damage.

April 11, 2013: Benjamin David Curell, 27, caused extensive damage to a Planned Parenthood clinic in Bloomington, Indiana, vandalizing it with an axe. Curell was convicted in state court of felony burglary, and pleaded guilty in federal court to one count of violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act. In the federal case, he was sentenced to three years of probation and ordered to pay restitution.

September 4, 2015: A Planned Parenthood clinic in Pullman, Washington was intentionally set on fire. No injuries were reported due to the time of day, but the FBI was involved because of a history of domestic terrorism against the clinic. The crime was never solved. The clinic reopened six months later.

October 22, 2015: A Planned Parenthood clinic in Claremont, New Hampshire was vandalized by a juvenile intruder. Damaged in the attack were computers, furniture, plumbing fixtures, office equipment, medical equipment, phone lines, windows, and walls. The flooding that resulted from the vandalism also damaged an adjacent business.

February 24–25, 2016: Travis Reynolds, 21, vandalized a Baltimore-area women's health care clinic with anti-abortion graffiti. After being arrested, Reynolds "admitted to police that he defaced the clinic's doors, walls and windows because he thought that it would deter women from using the clinic." Reynolds pleaded guilty in federal court to one count of violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act in October 2016.

March 7, 2016: Rachel Ann Jackson, 71, vandalized a Planned Parenthood clinic in Columbus, Ohio, with the message "SATAN DEN OF BABY KILLERS..." She pleaded guilty to felony counts of breaking and entering and vandalism and a misdemeanor count of aggravated trespass. Jackson was sentenced to probation, with the judge citing her struggle with serious mental illness as a mitigating factor.

February 10, 2019: Wesley Brian Kaster, 43, threw a Molotov cocktail at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Columbia, Missouri. Kaster admitted to setting the fire because Planned Parenthood provided abortions, although Planned Parenthood stated that the clinic was not providing abortions at the time due to a state law. Kaster was sentenced to five years in prison.

January 3, 2020: A high school student, Samuel Gulick, spray-painted "Deus Vult" on a clinic in Newark, Delaware before throwing a Molotov Cocktail at the front window. Gulick was sentenced to 26 months in prison by a federal judge.

October 10, 2020: A man threw multiple Molotovs at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Fort Myers, Florida.

January 23, 2021: An unknown individual fired a shotgun at a Tennessee Planned Parenthood clinic; no one was injured. News outlets noted that the attack took place on the anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision and at a time when Tennessee's governor, Bill Lee, was involved in a heated online debate regarding abortion and health care.

December 31, 2021: On New Year's Eve, a fire destroyed a Planned Parenthood in Knoxville, Tennessee. The building was closed at the time for renovations. The Knoxville Fire Department and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives ruled the fire arson. The clinic had previously been shot at in January of the same year.