Via It's Going Down by Suzy Subways

Long-time anarchist organizer Suzy Subways discusses the struggle against Operation Rescue and the lessons it leaves us with today in a post-Roe world. Originally posted to Hard Crackers. Listen to an interview with Suzy Subways on IGD here.

In the early ’90s, anarchists and other feminists defended clinics with our bodies and taught each other how to do abortion techniques such as menstrual extraction safely. As the Christian Right bombed hundreds of clinics, killed health care providers and patients, and mobilized its base to swarm clinics and shut them down, grassroots reproductive freedom activists stood against this terror, building a powerful and exciting movement. But liberal feminist nonprofits rejected this grassroots mass movement, choosing to rely on the police and courts for protection. Since then, the Christian Right has continued to attack and harass people at clinics, mobilizing its own grassroots activists to shame people getting health care and shut down clinics one by one. Their local, bottom-up strategy took the long view and is now winning at the highest levels of government. If today’s movement for reproductive freedom is to win, it must return to the grassroots.

The militant anti-abortion group Operation Rescue was founded in 1986 to mobilize thousands of people to physically block and shut down clinics across the country. This well-funded and well-staffed organization presented an image of the Christian Right as peaceful activists guided by a deep moral outrage, although some of its leaders had signed a pledge defending the assassination of abortion providers and were active in the right-wing militia movement. Reproductive freedom activists, led by people with the capacity to get pregnant, mobilized to protect clinics with our bodies. On the ground, Operation Rescue was aggressive, and sometimes the space in front of clinics erupted into hand-to-hand combat as anti-abortion activists shoved people and tried to crawl through their legs.

Clinic Defense: Using Our Bodies to Protect Our Lifesaving Spaces

I did clinic defense a few times, when I was 18 and 19. As a student at Antioch College in 1992, I went to Columbus, Ohio with some friends on a few Saturdays. We’d wake up super early and stand in formation in front of the clinic with dozens of others to protect it. We saw these health centers as precious places. People going through trauma after sexual assault and through abusive relationships, very young people, and married women trying to keep their lives from getting unmanageable were taking control of their health despite their vulnerability in those moments. As protectors we took our role seriously and we bonded with each other as we stood against the enemy. This was the source of the passion that grew a powerful movement from below.

My dear friend Kathy became a legend at Antioch one day for her response to a vile Christian Right protester who harassed her for hours outside the clinic. Kathy was a hot butch lesbian who grew up on a farm and didn’t take shit, although she was quiet most of the time. This man kept telling her, “You should be married and having children,” until finally, she pulled out her bloody pad, put it in his hand and said, “Put this in your petri dish and grow it!”

This was the vibe at clinic defense. We were taking back our power and control of our bodies, and the energy this ignited in us as a collective body grew exponentially. There’s something about being there when your life-giving space is under attack, being able to defend it successfully, and doing it together. Using our bodies to defend our bodily autonomy.

Operation Rescue targeted my hometown of Philadelphia during the summer of 1993. With at least a hundred people on our side—maybe hundreds—we kept the clinic open. Operation Rescue had about half as many people and stood on the sidewalk across the street. I remember following a crew of badass anarchist lesbians whom I admired around the corner and a few blocks away as they chased a male leader of Operation Rescue, yelling at him and surrounding him. They got in his face, and he cowered. Our power took a visible, audible, unstoppable form: Get out of our town.

Back outside the clinic, I saw a friend on the other side of the street, with the anti-abortion activists. She had been the first to welcome me to my new school when I’d moved to Philly. I felt my face get hot and looked away. I almost felt remorse for the confrontation along with my disappointment. Should I pretend I didn’t see her?

I decided to cross the street and say hi. Sheepishly but warmly, she returned my friendly greeting. It looked like she was there with a church group. A woman standing next to her cast me some snide vibes, saying, “Shouldn’t you be over there?” My friend and I ran out of things to say and I went back, but I felt better knowing she hadn’t rejected me. Decades later, we reconnected on social media, and she is living happily as a lesbian with a wife and kids.

Thinking of that day reminds me of the value of my brilliant, late comrade Joel Olson’s favorite saying, “Peace to the villages—war to the palaces.” A little kindness goes a long way with people we can win over, but we can’t let politeness and decorum get in the way of wielding our power against those who would take our power away.

A Betrayal: Liberal Feminist Nonprofits Tell Defenders to Go Home

In 1995, I moved to New York City and joined Love and Rage Revolutionary Anarchist Federation. In the August/September issue of our national newspaper that year, Laura from Bay Area Coalition for Our Reproductive Rights (BACORR), wrote:

Fight Back Network members from BACORR, Refuse & Resist Minneapolis, and Love and Rage went to LA May 25th-28th to try to keep the clinics open and to blast OR’s efforts to define themselves in the media as non-violent-peaceful-baby-lovin’-Christians. BACORR had been in touch with WAC LA (Women’s Action Coalition) and a Southern California NOW chapter that welcomed our support and involvement.

Unfortunately, the Fund for the Feminist Majority, a national nonprofit, was in charge at the scene. As reported by Laura, the Fund had put a lot of resources into electing Bill Clinton as president and lobbying for a law that passed in 1994 to make it a federal crime to block clinic doors. The Fund had decided to let Operation Rescue and a group calling themselves Missionaries for the Pre-Born shut down the clinics in LA that day, in order to bring the FACE law into the courts as a test case. Laura continued:

Saturday, the day of the hit, hundreds of pro-choicers were at the clinics around LA. Many had followed the OR caravan from its church meeting-point earlier in the morning. The Fund’s “official leaders” made it clear from the get go that they would offer no resistance to OR if they rushed the door, and were depending on the police to move the anti’s away and level federal charges.

In a nutshell, the anti’s were permitted to sit down in front of the doors, creating the image of non-violent anti-abortion protest. They kept the clinic shut down for two hours. The Fund’s main office lied to BACORR and to Palm Springs NOW, who they knew was working with BACORR, about OR’s whereabouts—telling us they had lost the caravan and had no idea where it was. … A local reporter told us that she had interviewed pro-choice people who were standing at the door when the hit went down who were told not to stop the anti’s and to move away from the door.

Operation Rescue got their dream media opportunity, and police beat and injured Laura and a friend after Fund staff told police they had nothing to do with the official pro-choice response. The Fund didn’t alert legal support that Laura and her friend had been arrested, and they implied to the media that the two had deserved it. Operation Rescue and Missionaries for the Pre-Born were arrested gently at their sit-in, creating a widely broadcast spectacle of peacefully praying dissent, but they were never even charged under the FACE law.

How the Christian Right Won

While the Fund and other liberal feminist nonprofits ordered clinic defenders to stop protecting clinics and simply hold a “Keep Abortion Legal” sign on the sidelines, the Christian Right supported and honored its grassroots movement. They energized large numbers of people, and they inspired many, many more who followed their actions. While the pro-choice establishment dismantled our movement, grassroots activists of the Christian Right have never stopped protesting outside clinics. Even in major liberal cities, they harass and shame people who are just trying to get health care. This grassroots, on-site shaming campaign has made abortion something people feel like they need to be ashamed of, feel guilty about, and not talk about—in contrast to the first decade after legalization in the U.S., when people interviewed about their abortions mostly talked about how relieved they felt. This grassroots movement in local areas across the country has grown stronger over the past three decades, getting clinics closed one by one, winning at the state level and now at the national level, proving to us on the Left what we already knew: Power comes from below.

Since the 1990s, any time there’s an upsurge in support of abortion access, it’s been brief and felt kind of abstract. Young people need an inspiring, direct-action movement to jump into with all their heart and their bodies—they won’t be inspired by getting told to carry a sign through the biggest street in their town. Maybe once or twice, but then it dies down. It’s hard to build a base when you’re not at the place where harm is being done and able to stop it, or at the place where lives are being saved and able to protect it.

There’s an honest argument to be made that health clinics should never have to be battlegrounds, that patients in moments of vulnerability shouldn’t have to walk through such a war. But they’ve been walking through a gauntlet of shame all these years anyway, because clinic defenders haven’t been there to shield them from the hate. And in the ’90s, clinic defenders used our creativity and joy as a buffer between patients and attackers. The Church Ladies for Choice brought their drag queen brilliance, and our queer kiss-ins outside right-wing churches freaked out the Christian Right activists to the point they would avoid getting near us.

As a strategy, anarchists and other revolutionaries in the reproductive freedom movement have consistently—as in for more than 50 years—demanded the repeal of all abortion laws. Not more state involvement from the police and courts, but a removal of all state power in our reproductive lives. We call it “reproductive freedom” because it’s about more than abortion. it’s about the history of forced and coerced sterilizations of Black, Latinx, and Native American women and other people with the capacity to bear children. It’s about the population control tactics used against poor people and those who use drugs.

People don’t have the ability to “choose” whether to have a kid or not when wages are too low, childcare is not accessible, and the rent is too damn high. Medicaid hasn’t paid for abortions since the Hyde Amendment in 1977. Giving a baby up for adoption—or being adopted—can be deeply traumatizing, especially under our current, unsupportive system. And it’s worse for children of color adopted by white parents. But “choice” has been our battle cry since the 1980s. Why? This “choice” versus “life” debate has allowed the Christian Right to control the narrative and make it about their idea of morality. It’s been a successful wedge strategy from the Right, dividing people who could be united in coalitions.

Can We Still Win Now?

If the Christian Right won by building their grassroots movement and letting its power grow across the decades, so must we. If our power is strongest at the location of our bodily autonomy—in the places where we are able to exercise our reproductive freedom—then we must build our movement there.

Abortion pills and menstrual extraction (which can be done in our homes by trained people who don’t have to be medical professionals) allow us to take care of ourselves on our own territory. This is our strongest position strategically and what the Right fears most. They are using surveillance by state power and vigilantes to track, hunt down, and punish whoever provides and receives these medications and treatments, because they can’t just rely on hospital and doctors’ records. Every home could be an abortion clinic. It’s a scary situation, but it also makes clear our advantage.

So it seems clear that the reproductive freedom movement’s strategy now is to protect these sites of health care and resistance by building powerful, anti-racist and queer-positive coalitions involving hundreds of thousands of people. We need as many people involved as possible in order to keep the most vulnerable safe and also to make this health care accessible. If it’s limited to those in the know—people who are already activists and people who are able to find out about the support networks they need—that will exclude the people who need it most.

Some of these coalitions and support networks need to be underground, and some need to be above ground. Some need to be sharing information with people who need abortions about how to get abortion pills and what to say if they need to go to the emergency room (“I think I’m having a miscarriage”—don’t mention abortion). Some need to be driving people to appointments, providing emotional support, following up and making sure people are OK. Some need to be talking to the media and educating, agitating, and organizing in our communities and workplaces. Some will need to fundraise for legal support and organize demonstrations in solidarity with reproductive freedom’s new political prisoners. This work is direct action, because you’re meeting a basic human need in defiance of those who’d prefer that we die.

photo: Edson Chilundo(CC BY-ND 2.0)

Comments

anon (not verified) Thu, 08/11/2022 - 09:03

This is a very interesting piece! However, I think there is a lack of nuance when it comes to talking about the Roe v. Wade decision and about abortion in general in the anarchist community.

First, we’ve put ourselves into two camps, Choice and Life, and whenever we break things down to just two sides, constructive conversation is hard to come by. Regardless, since we heavily associate policies, arguments and stances with either of the two I’ll try to keep it geared around them.

The Pro-Choice movement leads with a slogan “my body, my choice”. This statement is used to reference the concern and compassion for women who have to physically and emotionally carry the burden of having a child. There is a lot of passion, purpose, and reasoning behind backing women at this fork in the road, especially when it comes to women involuntarily being put into this situation. However, the retort or rebuttal to that slogan is usually a question: when does what is growing inside you have a right of its own, regardless of whether it is in your body or not? I think this is where the Pro-Life movement roots itself.

Of course, there is heavy Christian influence in other reasonings of the Pro-Life Movement, like the article mentions, and it is for some of those reasons that the Pro-Life movement became so strong, but I have heard many times from non-religious individuals, the argument that since it is not clear when life/consciousness/individuality begins drawing any line is potentially dangerous. For instance, should we abort a fetus when it has a beating heart or when it only has hands and toes or when it is just an accumulation of cells? Where do we draw the line? It becomes rather gray when you start to become detailed on the matter.

Furthermore, the decision to remove a standard for abortion rights from the federal level is just that, a removal of a line drawn at the highest form of America’s hierarchy of justice. It allows for the decision on abortion to be made at the State level which, as a result, allows for greater control by the individual. As anarchy would have it, the limiting of unnecessary hierarchy is crucial to individual freedom. While this decision has been jarring and shocking, it makes room for states to take positions and then individuals to vote based on those decisions.

If you’re Pro-Choice you can vote for officials who support your stance and vice-versa for Pro-Life advocates. At the State level, it is easier for an individual to make a difference. While this change is definitely unprecedented, I believe it is one that supports individuals in both camps because their voices can be used to determine the trajectory of their community to a better extent than at the federal level where individual voices are oftentimes lost due to the complex nature of our national voting system and judicial processes.

Would love to hear rebuttals or additional thoughts on this subject. Always looking for a way to broaden my understanding on an issue or the human condition in general!

el condor pasa (not verified) Thu, 08/11/2022 - 10:49

In reply to by anon (not verified)

you're asking for nuance among anarchists but you're mostly talking about what mainstream discourse about abortion looks like, so I'm not sure what you're getting it. No, voting and state government control are not closer to anarchism, the argument that state laws are more representative or responsive to you than federal ones is ridiculous and also irrelevant. Rights are a poor way to talk about things as anarchists, though given what you're saying I'm not sure you are one. The discussion about when life begins is also irrelevant as a general stance on ending a pregnancy - it may be personally meaningful, but forcing someone to carry a pregnancy to term is the major thing that's fucked up about this situation and I have no idea how you'd reconcile that with an anarchist position on abortion.

anon (not verified) Thu, 08/11/2022 - 13:10

In reply to by el condor pasa (not verified)

Thanks for the reply! Maybe I wasn’t clear on the basis of my argument so I’ll try to clarify here:

You mention me using mainstream discourse as a basis for the abortion issue. I do, mainly to form a base perspective since most dialogue in America stems from the Life and Choice dichotomy. However, I use it mainly to reflect on the two camps and to showcase that there are individuals with positions that don’t fit into either camp, hence the need for nuance. This article also references the left and right many times as a way of showcasing specific groups and sides which is another reason why I use the mainstream talking points to start the argument.

You mention voting and state government as not being closer to anarchism nor laws on a state level vs a federal one. I have to disagree here. While the American government isn’t in anyway close to anarchism there are motions that reference anarchistic thinking. For example, while there are different forms of anarchism, one common denominator amongst these forms is that unnecessary hierarchies in society and humanity should be removed or limited in realistic ways. Therefore, moving from the federal level to the state level and the state level to the local level is a move towards limiting hierarchy or the effect of hierarchy on individual decisions. It may not be wholly anarchist, but it is a move that reflects anarchist priorities.

Your last point on the beginning of life and forcing someone to carry a pregnancy to term has a couple of gaps. When life begins does have to do with pregnancy since pregnancy is the act of creating life, so establishing when life begins is connected. I do agree that forcing someone to continue in a situation they do not agree with is messed up, but the trouble with that is whether or not you’re affecting another life by removing them from an environment where they would flourish and eventually come into full. All I’m saying here is that this area of the topic is very gray which is what I believe leads to the separation of ideals we see in many parts of the US.

Also, I can totally see why you would think this may not be an anarchist viewpoint, but anarchy rejects coercive hierarchies, so in my book, any motion that puts more control into the hands of the individual is a motion towards anarchy, or at lease “a” form of anarchy.

Let me know if you’d like elaboration on any point or if I didn’t interpret parts of your statement the way you meant it to.

anon (not verified) Thu, 08/11/2022 - 13:31

In reply to by anon (not verified)

I call bullshit on this demand for "nuance."
It all comes down to this: do you support, on principle, the autonomy of individuals to make their own medical decisions? If the answer is "yes," then we are friends. If the answer is "no," then you're no anarchist, and we are definitely enemies.

anon (not verified) Thu, 08/11/2022 - 13:58

In reply to by anon (not verified)

That escalated quickly lol

Of course I support, in principle, one’s right to make their own medical decisions. Can we be friends now? :-)

All, I’m saying is that one of the main factors that complicates this situation is regarding the liveliness of the fetus and therefore it’s human rights (if you deem it a life, otherwise carry on). I’m not taking a position on this, I’m just saying that that’s one of the things that is complicating this matter of abortion rights in the country, and that a more leveled discussion on these types of things is needed.

I do understand your need to draw a line in the sand, I just don’t think that makes for a productive discussion on a moral issue. Also, nowhere does it say that all anarchists must think the same on any given issue other than the underlying premise of anarchy which is the rejection, removal or reduction of coercive or unnecessary hierarchies. I can simultaneously be an anarchist and an individual wishing to dive deeper on societal and moral matters by looking at those matters from multiple angles and testing them out. It can be done, I say, it can!

anon (not verified) Thu, 08/11/2022 - 14:07

In reply to by anon (not verified)

Thank you for your feedback and constructive discussion. If there’s anyone who would like to present counter arguments or rebuttals, I’d love to hear them :-)

anon (not verified) Thu, 08/11/2022 - 15:00

In reply to by anon (not verified)

If you predicate your arguments on rights and morality, then you've already lost any anarchist credentials you might have pretended to have. For anarchists and other radicals, this issue exists completely outside the realm of liberal discourse -- precisely where you've been trying to keep it with your initial "nuanced" comments. Rights are a legislative issue; morality is part of an authoritarian discourse.
Clearly we cannot be friends since you insist on truncating the parameters of anarchist discourse into liberal limits.
Let me spell it out even more plainly. Regardless of your personal morality, whatever fantasies you have about rights, other people deciding whether or how or why -- or not -- to have a baby IS NONE OF YOUR FUCKING BUSINESS.

anon (not verified) Thu, 08/11/2022 - 15:41

In reply to by anon (not verified)

You do have a point there. I have been making this a more legislative issue since the topic was predominantly about the overturning of Roe v. Wade. And you do have a point that I was mixing legislative rights and morality together. In that case I will reform my argument to separate the two so you can understand where I’m coming from:

On the Moral Standpoint:
I do not support forcing someone to make a medical decision. Morally speaking, no one should be able to tell anyone what they can or can not do so long as it does not physically harm another person’s ability to exist. That is that. Done. Hopefully we agree on that part.

On the Structural Standpoint:
I personally don’t like having anarchist ideals for the hell of it without actively trying to chart ACTUAL paths to them. And by “actual”, I mean realistic, measured actions that can be implemented in the current environment. On that note, the overturning of Roe v. Wade moved the moved the jurisdiction from the federal level to the state level. In the current environment, one that is riddled with coercive hierarchies, one thing I look for is moments when the decision making moves closer to the individual/community. That is the case with this shift. If you disagree on this part, let me know.

anon (not verified) Thu, 08/11/2022 - 18:30

In reply to by anon (not verified)

What from my previous statement suggested that I’m insistent upon intruding on the lives of others? I said from a moral standpoint that I agree with people making whatever decision they want to make. My other statement was a structural one.

If you’re just triggered and can’t make sense of that and also can’t see past the fact that having dialogue that is uncomfortable is necessary for greater understanding then there’s no helping you. Many of you are just triggered and upset but have no intelligent remarks. All you do is lash out instead of formulating well structured counter arguments or differing opinions. Thought there would be a greater level of sophistication on this platform, but I guess every corner of the internet is filled with people who don’t know how to have sophisticated discourse and who can’t come to conclusions amicably whether they differ or agree.

Btw happy anarchist for over two decades now :-) have met with and heard from so many intellectual anarchists in the past.

anon (not verified) Thu, 08/11/2022 - 19:36

In reply to by anon (not verified)

"Btw happy anarchist for over two decades now :-)"

Prove it. How many times do you shower a week? How many unlubricated fingers can you fit into your rectum at once? How many copies of Evasion have you given away?

anon (not verified) Thu, 08/11/2022 - 20:53

In reply to by anon (not verified)

I could easily take your logic and apply it to shit that we’d all obviously oppose.

“Why do you insist on intruding on the lives and decisions of others? If the neighbor nextdoor is abusing their partner, or a parent is abusing their child in broad daylight, stay out of it, it’s none of your business asshole!”

You might not think that’s a fair comparison, but then why not? Some would argue the unborn child shouldn’t be harmed or otherwise imposed upon. What’s the argument against that that doesn’t invoke (women’s) rights or progressivist morality?

Your stance on morality and the non-existence of rights sounds like something some pretty bad people could get behind.

anon (not verified) Thu, 08/11/2022 - 23:03

In reply to by anon (not verified)

I could easily take your puny body and snap it like a twig. I bet you don't even mine bitcoin, brah.

This is the result of HBO's "the Anarchists". These tricks show up on anarchist websites and think they gonna "well ackshully" everyone with "unborn child" and "abused neighbor" spookytime.

Fuckin' poseur.

el condor pasa (not verified) Thu, 08/11/2022 - 18:59

In reply to by anon (not verified)

The idea that delegating decision-making downwards in a situation where the state and capitalism still exist is somehow empowering to the "individual/community" is a common fallacy among libertarians, which you seem like you might be. How much decision-making power has been increased among people living in Alabama or Texas who want abortions and now can't have them legally? How many people find themselves deprived of being able to do things under threat of force because someone else's community (the state, local power-holders) claims them as a member? Was there a more anarchic situation under segregation before the federal government stepped in and removed decision-making about certain things from some local actors? Where is the "actual path to anarchy" in any of this shit? Fucking ridiculous.

People have always had the ability to "make decisions" before, during and after roe, unfortunately most of those decisions have been in line with prevailing morality and legality. People can still do anarchy now, just as they always have been, there are just more of them just getting crushed a little more in a somewhat novel way.

lumpy (not verified) Fri, 08/12/2022 - 10:43

In reply to by el condor pasa (not verified)

yeah this^

if you think moving "decision making" around within different levels of gov't is the point, you don't have a coherent anti-state position at all, thereby losing any anarchist credibility.

this reasoning is akin to "voting is harm reduction" or something equally embarrassing, where you're still lining up for the "democracy" rollercoaster. anarchists are trying to escape or perhaps burn down the theme park. you might even go on a ride, now and then but it's not anarchist.

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