In the wake of Friday’s shooting at the Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood that left three dead and nine injured, abortion rights groups have renewed their calls for the Department of Justice to investigate attacks on abortion providers and clinics as acts of domestic terrorism.

“This man went into one abortion clinic with the intention of scaring women at abortion clinics all over the nation,” said Ilyse Hogue, the president of the abortion rights group NARAL Pro-Choice America, referring to the suspect in the attack. “Unfortunately, we could have predicted this. This was not a random shooting. This was a politically motivated attack and it must be called out as such.”

Barack Obama quickly met the assault in Colorado with a strong pronouncement against “demonizing organizations like Planned Parenthood” and gun violence. Lawmakers, he said, are “going to have to act in order to make sure we’re preventing people who are deranged from getting weapons that can magnify the damage they can do”.

But the Justice Department has been silent on whether it would investigate Friday’s attack or other violent events at abortion providers as acts of terrorism.



Abortion rights groups have been demanding counter-terrorism resources for months. Since this past summer, when anti-abortion activists released videos edited to show Planned Parenthood employees apparently selling fetal body parts in violation of federal law, the scale of threats against abortion providers and clinics has grown. The accusations contained in the tapes have been disproven. Still, in September, the FBI alerted police departments across the country to the heightened number of incidents against Planned Parenthood, including several cases of arson.

On Wednesday, NARAL and its partners delivered a petition to US attorney general Loretta Lynch demanding a DoJ terrorism investigation – just two days before the shooter in Colorado Springs opened fire, Hogue said.

Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, Shaunna Thomas, a founder of UltraViolet, a progressive women’s rights organization, compared the Planned Parenthood shooting with the mass shooting at the Mother Emanuel AME church in Charleston that killed nine. The Justice Department initially treated those killings as an act of terror, but since backed away from that designation, to the dismay of activists.

“Women have a constitutional freedom to access abortion care,” Thomas said. “That right has to be protected. Right now it is not.”

The Justice Department’s definition of terrorism covers violent or life-threatening acts that “appear to be intended to intimidate or coerce a civilian population” or influence the conduct or policy of the government. In thinking that Friday’s assault falls within these bounds, the abortion rights activists are not alone.

“Clearly, this would fit their definition of terrorism,” said Michael German, a national security researcher with the New York University School of Law’s Brennan Center for Justice. “It’s totally appropriate to investigate it that way and to talk about it that way.”

Michael Greenberger, the director of the University of Maryland Center for Health and Homeland Security, agreed that the door was open to a terrorism charge. “The key here is whether federal prosecutors in the national security division believe that they can prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the shooter was committing a crime to change the political views of the people he was targeting?” he said. “My own view is, yes, there’s an element here of him trying to convert pro-choice people against legal abortion by putting them in fear of their lives.”

Activists confirmed that they were seeking a shift in how crimes against abortion providers are prosecuted. “We hope it can start to reframe the way we talk about these attacks in society,” Hogue said. “Even though there is one man who pulled the trigger, there’s a network of actors who created the culture of hate and violence that led to it.”

But they also argued a need for greater investigative resources. A string of six arsons at Planned Parenthood locations this summer, said Thomas, are being investigated without any apparent coordination.

“What we’re really concerned about is how limited the resources and the scope of the investigations as they currently stand must be, because they are being investigated locally,” Thomas said. Local investigations, she said, are unable to answer larger questions: “Is there a driving connection between these attacks? If there is, what is it? Who is it?”

German said these are the questions domestic terrorism investigations are specifically designed to answer. “It’s easy to look at each incident as isolated,” German said. “And maybe they are. But it’s hard to develop an effective counter-terrorism approach without a greater understanding of the scope of the problem across the country. If we’re not considering these crimes in a broad way, to understand the trend, we’re not being as effective as we can.”

Domestic terrorism investigations, he continued, unlock resources and a sense of urgency that are otherwise unavailable: “Money, manpower, analysis, and all kinds of difference investigative methods – you name it. Counter-terrorism is a much higher priority than other types of crimes.”

Greenberger, the University of Maryland professor, added that the DoJ’s involvement would entail more experienced prosecutors with more resources and time than local officials.

“I think it’s a safe bet that the DoJ will be going through the evidence,” he said. “There is going to be a big incentive for the federal government to take the lead in the prosecution because of the viciousness of the crime.”