Death Threats to Abortion Providers Soar After Bogus Planned Parenthood Videos
It should come as no surprise that the deceptively edited “sting” videos attacking Planned Parenthood have provoked the more extreme elements of the religious right into murderous rage: Death Threats on Abortion Providers Spike in Wake of Planned Parenthood Videos.
In July, shortly after an anti-abortion group aired an undercover video of a top Planned Parenthood doctor discussing the donation of fetal tissue after abortions, an individual using the name “Joseywhales” posted an ominous warning on Fox Nation.
“I’ll pay ten large to whomever kills Dr. Deborah Nucatola,” the person wrote, referring to the senior director of Planned Parenthood who was filmed in the video. “Anyone. Go for it.”
The same person went on to threaten Cate Dyer, the CEO of StemExpress, a biomedicine company that procures fetal tissue for medical research.
“The CEO of StemExpress should be hung by the neck using piano wire and propped up on the lawn in front of the building with a note attached,” Joseywhales wrote, according to a legal complaint filed by the National Abortion Federation in a California district court.
The person then posted Dyer’s home address and offered “ten grand to whomever beats me” to her house, warning that Dyer “must die to save the innocents.”
According to abortion rights advocates, Joseywhales’ post is just one example of an alarming spike in death threats and violent acts against abortion providers, clinics and companies that work with them since the undercover videos of Planned Parenthood were released. Two Planned Parenthood clinics have reported arsons, anti-abortion protesters are showing up in large numbers at doctors’ homes, and commenters on conservative websites and online forums are calling for the bombings of abortion clinics across the country, according to Vicki Saporta, president of the National Abortion Federation. Saporta is so alarmed by the escalation of threats against providers that she asked the U.S. Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigations to intervene.
“In my 20 years at NAF, I have never seen such a volume, intensity and escalation of hate speech, threats and criminal activity, and we would like to prevent a serious violent act from occurring,” she told The Huffington Post in an interview. “We have enlisted law enforcement’s help.”
