Protecting Abortion Providers from Terrorism

on the line? Yes, there there is one. There are many others, but but I am me, yeah, the others do not count. Um? Is there a Garrison Davis on the line? The only one that I know of? That's right, that's right. We exterminated the others in a in a brutal set of purges. Alla stalin um. And then of course Sharene Lonnie and a shrine. I'm here too. Would you like to introduce Sophie and of I mean the

one and only Sophie. Okay, well that's us. Well, and now today I am intensely excited to introduce our guest, um, who is a cool person doing cool stuff to steal another one of our podcasters, Cat Green of the Abortion Access Front, Cat Welcome to the show. Thank you for coming on. I know this has been a hell week for you. Oh yeah, thanks for having me on. I

really appreciate it. Now, Um, you and I have a friend in common, and you guys were actually at a national conference for abortion access when the news dropped a little early. Do you want to talk to us a little bit about what happened there? Yeah? I mean, now that the conference is over, I can say that we are in one of the worst cities in the world to be in when all of this happened, Orlando, Florida,

which is basically made of paper sets right. Honestly, you could have stopped that sentence at one of the worst cities to be in. Yeah, we had actually been out to dinner at the oldest restaurant in Florida earlier that night, and it was a lovely evening. Um, even though like some angry driver tried to kill our mutual friend over parking space Florida over that part, you know, I mean

in Florida. Yeah, you know. Also, the day had started with their already being a bomb threat at a clinic in Knoxville, so I was trying to help people find information about that. Earlier in the day and then um, we went out to dinner thinking that we got to relax, and then came back to the news as it was breaking and into the lobby of our hotel, where um, the remaining providers and advocates that were there were, um,

just trying to make do. Yeah. So Cat, I, first of all, I guess we should talk about what the Abortion Access Front does and you were job there because this is something I don't think a lot of people think about it. One of the things that's become clear to me from some of the reaction of some folks this week on the more liberal side of things is there is a general unawareness of how violent and intense the threats against abortion access providers have been for like

forty years. Yeah. Well, so, Abortion Access Front was founded by Liz Winstead, my partner who was the co creator of The Daily Show, and started as a progressive advocacy and messaging hub. And so we were making funny videos

about abortion and then Trump got elected. We're like, oh wow, our job's got way more serious all of a sudden, And so we had like volunteers in the week after election, and so we started becoming matchmakers for volunteers to UM different clinics around the country, and we were doing comedy tours where we were trying to build community around the n x UM in different states, and so we would do a comedy show, have a have a provider on at the end to talk about what was at stake locally,

and then get people to sign up to help because people didn't have access to contractors in many of the places we were going, you know, like we would go out and do landscaping work when we were on tour because we were just trying to help out wherever we could. And in the course of that, the nice folks at the National Abortion Federation reached out to us and we're like, we're a little concerned about you putting providers on stage,

maybe we should talk about your security plans. So they they were out with us the first two years and UM then we're giving me information about people we needed

to watch out for. So I got way more involved in creating these security plans around our shows and our tours, and UM started doing a lot of my own research on anti abortion extremists because as we started talking to more people the clinic escorts in front of the clinics, we were getting information about not just leadership with the people on the ground where they were the most afraid of.

So then I was like, I wish I could just put all this into something where I could look something up by a ZIP code and be able to tell who I need to watch out for in a particular area. And that didn't really exist. So, um, there was just a whisper network of escorts and then the leadership research that NAP was doing. And so I started consoliding all my research into a database for all of us to be able to use and track incidents and organizations and

bad actors all over the country. I mean, that's that's extremely important, but also extremely cool. Um, it is that you brought up right at the start of your what you were saying that there was a shooting at the Knoxville Clinic. Oh, not a shooting, There was a bomb scare at the at the Knoxville Clinic UM on Monday, and there was there was an person and the Plan

Parenthood in Knoxville this past New Year's Eve. UM, and that same clinic, that same Plan Parenthood that was burned down on New Year's Eve actually had its front door shot out about a year earlier. And uh, because this this is one of the more frustrating cases. If you look this up, you can see that like the fire department has said it was an arson, UM, the a t F is investigating, the FBI is investigating. They've both get given the kind of boilerplate statements they've given those instances.

You don't see a lot from the local police. I'm curious if you have anything to say about like the degree to which the local police have been useful in responding to this. Well, I don't work with the local police at all. Um. I you know, I'm a TV person that got into uh doing extremist research. I'm an editor and that I sort information, right, So like that made sense to me, But law enforcement doesn't really take me too seriously. Um. But the people on the ground

have a lot of thoughts about who it could be. Right, there are known people in the Knoxville area who have caused all sorts of problems. There was another arson at a different community center there too, um, and several white supremacists were arrested after protesting a black Lives Matter UH event maybe two years ago. And so there's here's the thing. There's information about the Knoxville fire that went out on telegram with an order of nine angles, Nazi claiming credit

for it. And how hard can it be to find a pagan Naxi in Knoxville? You go to a golf club and be like, who's hit you in the face here? You know? So, Yeah, I feel like there are hindrances to the investigation. Um, and a lot of the a lot of the activists on the ground have good leads that are not being followed. Yeah, I guess that's probably the most direct thing that can be said about it. What so to the extent that like, there's seemingly not a lot in a lot of these states that is

going to be done preemptively by law enforcement. Um. When it comes to like actually tracing out the threats, Uh, how much do you feel like you have a chance to actually stop them from carrying out an action? And how much of it do you feel is just like we need to be documenting this for for when it happens.

You know, we're already getting early warning about events. We're already because we tracked the people who There are a number of groups that create the same kind of actions that are either invasions or blockades at various clinics and people who have been organizing around this for decades, right, so in tracking them and starting to put the pieces together, we're already getting early warning about where they're headed, about who needs to be alerted. You know, there have been

at this point three incidents. Just like I'm working with

a group of volunteers. These are all people who either escort at clinics or part of a part of advocacy orgs that you know, are not getting paid to do intel, but they they're invested in the cause, and so they just follow this stuff on the regular and we're all in touch with each other, and all of a sudden, it's like, oh, you know, this person who's been a part of twelve other blockades in the last three years has been seen going on a tour and said, the

next three stops, he's going to, let's tell all the clinics in the neighborhood what's happening and they can be a little bit better prepared. And that's you know, I mean, honestly, because the abortion movement is not super supported by law enforcement largely, um, it seemed like a necessary thing for everybody to start keeping their own records for their own safety. And that's really how all this came together. Now, it's interesting to me that you you brought up one of

kind of the leads suspects. I guess you might say for the attack on the Knoxville clinic was an O nine. A dude, I'm wondering what kind of the threats you're seeing. Obviously there's decades of attacks on abortion access providers, including a lot of fatal attacks, assassinations, acid attacks, numerous bombings and attempted bombings. How has the character of who is making the threats and who you see as threats started

to change over the recent years. I mean the only and a thing is a big yeah, that's that's weird. You know, we've been following the same Christian nationalists for years and largely they have the same playbook. They make a few changes to it. A lot of them are older. You know, it's lock in blocks or invasions. There's a few Catholics who get really aggressive and like shove their

way into stuff. But it's not um. It hasn't been big surprise is until recently, and and a lot of the time in the past, even when there was extreme violence happening amongst these people. It was still sort of tied back to Christian identity stuff, and now we're really starting to see it branching out. And honestly, I blame

I blame a few things. One, just the Internet in general, but also the pandemic kind of galvanized extremists across a lot of spheres, and um you started seeing a lot of Christian identity people that weren't necessarily militia people starting

to mingle with militia people. And then you know, militia people starting to mingle with white suprise like over white supremacists, and um so now there's this cross breeding that's happening where like I mean, the gropers are a great example of just like this weird emailed them of things that didn't exist in the same sphere before her. Now they're their own movement. Yeah. I can't tell you how much

I hate that. Like other people who who aren't weirdos who spend all of their time on Nazi Telegram know what gropers are now. Yeah, it's extremely frustrating. It's the worst thing in the world. Yeah. One of the weird things about doing this type of research for years is seeing like on YouTube, like thumbnails by like Stephen Colbert talking about like wacky like nonsense that I've known about for years and him talking about it like like it's

this big new thing. They're always like, oh wow, the little tiny corner of the internet I was just watching and staring at now is like it's something that isn't like a regular Libs political lexicon. And that's like horrible. Yeah broke in posting about the Kalie you guy, you know, yeah that was That was a are drinking night for me. That was a hard drinking night for me. And it's so hard to explain to people why it's so bad. You're like, oh, well, it's just so once back in

the twenties there was this lady named Savitri Devy. Now, yeah, it's it's it's really troubling because, um, it's making its way into traditional Christian identity stuff, you know, um evangelical stuff, quiverful stuff is now starting to cross over way more aggressively with MILITIAUS stuff and and with like over white

supremacist neo Nazi stuff. It's such a problem because and this is something in Bert oh Echo you know, noted a long time ago, but like fascism is deeply syncretic right, and we're that's what we're talking about right now, is its ability. It's like a Katamari. I refer back to that game a lot because it does just keep picking things up, and um, we don't really do that as much on like everyone from like the center left to

like weirdo anarchists and and and whatnot. Like everyone's got their own little box, right, and there's some interplay, but for the most part, people on the left really like making boxes and people on the right it's just one big ball pit where everybody's smearing their diseases and snot

around and it's not great now. And I mean, we need to figure out some sort of solidarity because like even with the abortion protests that are happening this week, we're already seeing people co opting things and turning it in really destructive directions. Um, I mean, you know, the entire cult of boba back and you know, I mean I'm actually worried about that as at this point it

feels like a get astroturb. It doesn't feel like they're fighting with actual abortion providers and saying that, you know that, like abortion funds are a problem. It's like those are the people actually walking to walk and doing anything about this. What are you doing besides showing up in bloody pants and picking fights with cops, Like yeah, it's this. You know.

One of the more uplifting stories that's come out recently is that in France, UM, the left is doing a popular front again in order to kind of rest control of the government from Macron. Will see how it works, right, This is just something that's kind of been announced, and

but this is something like that. This has happened a few times in the past in different formulations, and I do kind of it would be nice to see a broad popular front in favor of abortion access at a very blunt level, but that would involve people not just getting on board with trying to rest control from the right back electorally, but people supporting a legalism. A lot of people are going to have to do things that are not lead goal in order to maintain access to

reproductive healthcare. You know. There's the other side of it, is like hardline anarchists will have to realize that working with lives is occasionally useful UM and using them as body shields sometimes can can let you do more illegalist

type practice. So there's there's both in terms of like people who are really dogmatic on the left being like, okay, there's types, there's certain times where this type of this this intersectionalism can be really useful, and then people who are less radical having to be okay with more radical tactics happening. I mean, my biggest fear right now is the mass criminalization event that's about to happen. Right you know, no matter what, people's pregnancies are going to be criminalized

in various forms. If you have a miscarriage, it's going to be criminalized. You're going to have to be more cautious about how you use your phone and what you say in the emergency room, and you know, what you say to people in your own family. And I don't think that most people on our side are prepared to have that level of caution or divorce themselves from technology and the way that kind of needs to happen for

people to stay safe. I'm also worried that, like, as a movement, um, we're not really identifying the fact that it's all about bodily autonomy, and so that means everybody trying to access trance healthcare is as much or more so at risk and um, you know, and we have so much to learn from the sex work industry about all of this, right, Like so much of what is happening now was built on like the permissiveness of what people accepted under FOSTA and SESTA and um, you know,

that's how all of us got de prioritized and stupid algorithms in the first place. And and then all of a sudden weren't allowed to put ads out for like legitimate health care services, and keeping ourselves in boxes is really doing everybody a disservice. Everybody that's been criminalized, everybody who just trying to exist is at risk right now,

is in this together? Yeah, it's um. You know, there's that famous quote from Who's a Minister of some sort during you know, the Weimar years about first they came force, you know, YadA YadA, YadA, um, and it is like

it's always true with fascists. But that doesn't mean that people ever spot it while it's happening, right, because there's there's very few groups that mainstream America has less inherent sympathy for than sex workers, and the reality is that they were testing a lot of this out on those people because they are marginalized. And I guess one of the things I hope we'll see and that might have some positive developments is that there are a lot of sex workers out there with a lot of ops set

tips that they can give other people. Now, um, it would be dope if you know, there were folks like setting up clinics and stuff in that, because I think there's a lot of information that does need to get shared with folks who are not used to thinking about

any of the stuff they're doing is illegal. I've been seeing stuff on you know, Facebook, among kind of friends of mine who are more middle of the road and family members who are pretty much centrist politically, where they're talking about like, hey, if you need to go on a camping trip in another state, I'll take you one your camping trip. And it's like, I get it, Like it's great to express solidarity, but will you feel that way when it's actually a felony and people are getting

twenty years sentences for doing it? Right, Like, because that's where we're headed, you know. Yeah, Yeah, I mean people need to get more serious about moving their data out of the country altogether, you know, like thinking about what can be subpoena. Yeah, the folks at Hacking and Hustling are doing really amazing work to spread sort of uh sex work and sex work adjacent upset knowledge to other communities too. Like they're amazing. Um, that's great. I was

not aware of what they were doing. Um, would you mind giving like a little a brief overview of what that is? Try to reach out to them, But I've only been in a couple of sessions with them, but they're they're generally just sharing information about like tightening up your digital footprint and also being conscious about how having multiple like if you have to have a clandistine identity online, how you can keep that from leaking over into any

of your other digital identities. Right, it's it's and I mean it's a really important distinction because even if you have something like a socc account on something like Facebook, based on how you set it up and what other accounts that's connected to and who your friend in that process, it can very easily find its way back to you and the people connected to you. So how do Yeah, I mean, whenever somebody angers this podcast, we have Garrison tracked them down. It's very easy. Yeah, that is that

is that is true. I have a whole whole folder of people dropping their kids off at school. That's right, that's right, So you know, keep your eye out, Hello Fresh, don't screw with us again. Or that one reviewer that said that there was the woman on the podcast and was annoying. I know who you are. I was able to I was able to track back via your Apple account.

Just one, just somebody tried to request access to one of my folders that's connected to We had a danure six document where we had identified a bunch of people and so I just linked it to you know, Google drive things so that pressed people could get to stuff. And somebody just out of nowhere trying to access one of them the other day and requested permission. I'm just like, all I had to do was look up your name in the word abortion, Like, go on and try a

little harder. Um so, Cat, I'm wondering. Number One, For people who are like Piste and feeling helpless, there are things that folks can do to help, assuming you live in a state that there's anything at all around because like a lot of people who are hundreds of files away from any kind of clinic. But if you're not, I know, there are ways people going to help. Do you have any kind of pieces of advice for folks

interested in being of use? There are so many things, right I mean, right now, I think the biggest thing that the movement needs more than anything is abortion funds and practical support funds really need financial help because they are paying to move people around as as needed to get them care, right, So the money thing is always the obvious. But um, we're actually having an event on July sevent that is sort of an orientation day for new people coming to the movement who want to volunteer

and don't know where. So we're going to cover things like how you become a clinic escort, what it means to volunteer on like an abortion fund or practical support hotline, um, how you can get involved in lobbying groups, how you can get involved in direct action groups, and sort of pre vetting people and then getting them out to the organizations that actually have capacity to take on volunteers right now, because a lot of what's happening, like we already saw

it in Texas where people really wanted to volunteer to help in Texas after SPA came down, but they were doing things like calling the Abortion Fun Hotline to try and get to people, and it's like, no, you can't

clog up the hotline. That doesn't help anybody. So we're trying to take some of the lift off of the orgs that are already overtaxed that their people, give them some background information, give them a better idea of what the landscape is in the movement, and then make the connections to organizations that have the capacity to take them on. So it's called Operations Save Abortion um. And we're gonna do a live stream and house parties all over the country.

People are either watching the streams we're doing or having their own local people to talk about how people can get active locally in more direct ways. Yeah. And there's stuff like being an escort, which is is something I've been learning a little bit more about recently. Um. I guess one of the things I'm interested in is like, uh,

from a perspective of actually like keeping folks safe. Um, is that something that you feel has like a lot of value or is that something that yeah, um, and is that like people would want to like look at are there kind of resources for for getting involved with that? There are clinic escorting is a little tricky right now because there's a whole lot of clinics that don't know if they're going to be open in eight weeks. So

right now, well that's all shaking out. I mean, if you already have an established relationship with your local clinic, definitely check in with them. UM. Clinics in states that are going to see a surge, UM, Pennsylvania, Illinois, New York, I mean really anywhere that's still going to have abortion after the twenty six states fall, the entire West coast, Uh, New Mexico, right, Uh, Minnesota, they are all going to need escorts. UM. Which clinic escorting is walking a person

from their car to the clinic door past protesters. Um. It's generally, I would say clinics are non engagement clinics, So doing this means that you're there for the patient,

You're not there to get in a protesters face. Some clinics have enough of a protest or presence, like UM Clinics and Charlotte Clinics in Jackson, Mississippi, where they have they split it up and they have people that are there for the patients and people that are there to distract protesters and sort of pull them away from the door, you know, just get them a little bit removed so

that they can get patients past them. This is a little bit less pleasant of a question, but you know, I've done for a different cause a lot of the same research where you're like spending time in these dark corners of the Internet making notes of people and threats being made, And um, I remember the horrible feeling of like having a specific kind of thing that hadn't quite happened before that I was sure was going to happen,

and then the fucking thing happens. Um, are there particular things you are worried about in especially like once this comes through like that, that are kind of on your horizon, Like is there stuff that that people need to be kind of preparing for in terms of like an escalation in direct action against clinics. Absolutely, I mean we're already

seeing increased threats against clinics. Um. This this bomb threat the other day was a test balloon, right, But there are organizations like POW who are actively aggressively invading clinics on the regular and doing things like stealing products of conception fetle remains right and parading them out to the public and naming doctors um in an effort to get them hurt. Right, it's it's stochastic terrorism. They're not they are not going to be the ones to pull the trigger.

They are just putting it out there so that somebody else does the dirty work for them. And so many people are guilty of that right. The church at Plant Parenthood is another good example. And they've had you know,

they've had a long presence and spoken um. They moved to Knoxville, Tennessee, they've set up church plants in Birmingham, and they've they've been throughout um Oregon and and in Oregon they were hiring the crow Boys as their security, which eventually, unsurprisingly turned into a big fight when counter protesters showed up, the police showed up, tear guessed everybody. It's like how is what? How is this church to you know, like what is anybody trying to get out

of this? And and so there's a lot of people who have been putting it out there for a long time that there's all this other ring language of calling people demons because it makes them easier to kill. There's going to be clinic violence. I mean, there's going to be more clinic violence. I should say, all of this

is violent. It's violent to have people out there screaming at you and calling you a horror with a giant sign of fetus, you know parts and then but I mean they're really waiting for somebody to like more buildings on fire or shoot somebody, and it's going to happen. Yeah, Well, does anyone else have anything to get into here? On

that happy note? That happy? I think, Um, it's just it's not going to be like actual Nazi extremists that do a lot of these attacks either, I think, especially with it of being especially if if like if Rovie Wood does get fully taken away, that will justify pretty violent action. In the minds of like most regular Christians. Even when I grew up in like a pretty evangelical uh type of community, those types of attacks against planned

parenthood were almost that like. There was the there was the overall feeling that they were like celebrated, and people who would do it would be lauded it as like biblical heroes, um, for for like for like just our sending a building like that. That was very much the sense that I got when I was a kid, Like I I remember thinking thinking those thoughts like, oh, that's what like a good people do. Like that's like people who are brave will go and burn down an abortion

clinic they were openly celebrated. You know, the Army of God would have the White Rose banquet to raise money by auctioning off the personal effects of people who had bombed clinics and shot doctors. And you see a lot of that mirrored now in things like the Saints Calendar, right, and and so you see you see neo Nazis and other white supremacists promoting the Saints Calendar and then directing

people to the Army of God website. And then you see Christian nationalists finding accelerationist handbooks and having that knowledge now, right, and so they can have the knowledge and loosely collaborate without ever having to say, oh, I'm a part of you know Front or the prow Boys or whatever. Like, they won't see themselves as extremists. They'll see themselves as like regular Christians. They'll see them as regular conservatives. And what they're doing is like is like sanctioned by God,

and it's like good, righteous, holy work. Um. So I think that is definitely something to keep your eye on, because it's not all going to be like skull mask wearing people doing bomb threats. It's going to be like regular, like regular conservative Christians who are who are like been on this right words track the past the past few decades. Most of the people that we track are are not part openly part of extremist group well not openly part of like known militant extremists, right, but um, a lot

of them are hold office. You know, there is Derek Evans was in West Virginia. You've got um John Jacob in Indiana, like the whole Oklahoma contingent, Like abolish Human Abortion has really just become a lobbying group that's trying to get people in office wherever they can. There's I mean, they've gotten really strategic about getting people into smaller um legislative roles so that they have more power to push things and and so that they look more respectable. Yeah.

And it's that leads kind of to another point, which is that when you get right down to it, once the ruling comes through finally as it looks like it will, the vast majority of violence that's going to be done to abortion providers and too people seeking abortions into people supporting them is going to be done by police, like

that's the that's the eventual end game here. Yeah, And that's that's the thing I'm the most afraid of, right because it's so much easier to turn somebody in than it is to actually attack a person physically or a building even And so that's what it's going to be. It's going to be people calling in their neighbors, calling in something from the hospital, turning in their grandkids. You know, well,

is there anything right now that's making you optimistic? Cat, Not to put you on the spot, No, No, it's okay. I thought about that a lot. I mean, honestly, the people working in this are so dedicated to helping people

that that always gives me hope. And I genuinely feel like there's enough of us that have plans, you know, even if even if not ever bodies on board with the same stuff, there are enough people really doing the hard work and being pragmatic about what's happening and not just cowing under the pressure of it, that are energized by helping people that I think there will always be people helping. They might not always be visible, but they're there, and it's just going to be harder to find them.

So yeah, um, well, thank you so much. Um, do you have anything else you'd like to plug before we kind of roll out here? Any place people could and donations are volunteer if they're into that. Oh, I mean, you can always donate to Abortion Access Front where a front dot org and um, there's a volunteer form there. But also if you want to participate in our event on July sevent you can go to Operations Save Abortion dot com. Uh, and there's a registration form there to

get involved in the event. Awesome. Um, well, thank you so much, Kat Green. You are amazing and what you do is incredibly important. Um. And to everybody else, um, go find some way to help or you know, at least uh, it's easy to pee in a water balloon and sorry, okay, well let's that It could happen here as a production of cool Zone Media. Well more podcasts

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