Johanna Schoen
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9781469621180
- eISBN:
- 9781469623344
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469621180.003.0006
- Subject:
- History, Social History
The escalation of anti-abortion violence and killing of abortion providers and clinic staff in the early 1990s raised tensions within the abortion provider community. Frustrated with what they ...
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The escalation of anti-abortion violence and killing of abortion providers and clinic staff in the early 1990s raised tensions within the abortion provider community. Frustrated with what they perceived as inadequate support, NAF members began to leave the organization and established the November Gang and the National Coalition of Abortion Providers. Much smaller than NAF and made up of mostly independent clinics, both the November Gang and NCAP encouraged more open conversations about the difficult questions in abortion care such as the role of violence and fetal death. Members of the November Gang also introduced head and heart counselling to offer women greater support as they dealt with the increasing stigmatization of abortion. The development of intact D&E and debate of the so-called partial birth abortion ban further increased tensions in the abortion provider community as abortion providers and their supporters disagreed over whether and how to defend intact D&E procedures. When the US Supreme Court decision upheld the ban of intact D&E in its decision Gonzales v. Carhart, anti-abortion activists had, for the first time, successfully banned an abortion procedure. Despite these developments, patients continued to affirm their right to choose abortion.Less
The escalation of anti-abortion violence and killing of abortion providers and clinic staff in the early 1990s raised tensions within the abortion provider community. Frustrated with what they perceived as inadequate support, NAF members began to leave the organization and established the November Gang and the National Coalition of Abortion Providers. Much smaller than NAF and made up of mostly independent clinics, both the November Gang and NCAP encouraged more open conversations about the difficult questions in abortion care such as the role of violence and fetal death. Members of the November Gang also introduced head and heart counselling to offer women greater support as they dealt with the increasing stigmatization of abortion. The development of intact D&E and debate of the so-called partial birth abortion ban further increased tensions in the abortion provider community as abortion providers and their supporters disagreed over whether and how to defend intact D&E procedures. When the US Supreme Court decision upheld the ban of intact D&E in its decision Gonzales v. Carhart, anti-abortion activists had, for the first time, successfully banned an abortion procedure. Despite these developments, patients continued to affirm their right to choose abortion.
Karissa Haugeberg
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- September 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780252040962
- eISBN:
- 9780252099717
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5406/illinois/9780252040962.003.0006
- Subject:
- Sociology, Social Movements and Social Change
The chapter traces the career of Shelley Shannon, whose work in the far right wing of the prolife movement reached its apex when she shot Dr. George Tiller in 1993, outside his Wichita clinic. Like ...
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The chapter traces the career of Shelley Shannon, whose work in the far right wing of the prolife movement reached its apex when she shot Dr. George Tiller in 1993, outside his Wichita clinic. Like many women who joined grassroots antiabortion groups, Shannon was energized by the immediacy of direct action protest. But Shannon’s particular circumstances, including her troubled childhood, her proximity to white supremacists activists near Grants Pass, Oregon, and her membership in conservative evangelical Christian Church framed her choice of tactics. While the Reagan and Bush administrations had refused to authorize the FBI to investigate whether anti-abortion extremists were part of an organized effort to terrorize abortion providers, President Clinton authorized Attorney General Janet Reno to protect the nation’s abortion clinics. But Shannon’s plan to shoot Dr. Tiller, designed with the assistance of the cryptic prolife extremist group Army of God, had been carefully planned before Clinton took office.Less
The chapter traces the career of Shelley Shannon, whose work in the far right wing of the prolife movement reached its apex when she shot Dr. George Tiller in 1993, outside his Wichita clinic. Like many women who joined grassroots antiabortion groups, Shannon was energized by the immediacy of direct action protest. But Shannon’s particular circumstances, including her troubled childhood, her proximity to white supremacists activists near Grants Pass, Oregon, and her membership in conservative evangelical Christian Church framed her choice of tactics. While the Reagan and Bush administrations had refused to authorize the FBI to investigate whether anti-abortion extremists were part of an organized effort to terrorize abortion providers, President Clinton authorized Attorney General Janet Reno to protect the nation’s abortion clinics. But Shannon’s plan to shoot Dr. Tiller, designed with the assistance of the cryptic prolife extremist group Army of God, had been carefully planned before Clinton took office.
