At A Woman’s Choice, only one person – a man who called in a bomb threat – has been prosecuted under the FACE Act. But Morel found that this federal law, known as the FACE Act, does little to protect against the kind of harassment and intimidation providers face today. His death led to the passage of the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, which makes it illegal to intimidate patients and staff at abortion clinics through force, threat of force or physical obstruction. We hear from David Gunn Jr., whose father performed abortions and was murdered by a fundamentalist Christian in Pensacola in 1993. In the 1980s and ’90s, anti-abortion extremists bombed and blockaded clinics and murdered doctors.
“I mean, no one's picketing the urologist that's doing vasectomies.”įor doctors who perform abortions, threats of violence are not new. “As abortion providers, we should not have to be harassed going to work every day,” clinic owner Kelly Flynn told Morel. Protesters rented a room in the same office park as A Woman’s Choice and now can legally, without trespassing, hold daily protests and even religious ceremonies on the private driveway that leads to the clinic. Morel spent months investigating the anti-abortion movement there and observed what it’s like to be an abortion provider in Jacksonville, where one particular clinic is under siege by a local anti-abortion group that has figured out a way to be near the clinic’s front door. Reveal found that calls to police from Florida abortion clinics for disturbances, harassment and violence have doubled since 2016. But Florida is also increasingly an abortion battleground. The state has 55 abortion clinics – more than seven other Southeastern states combined. Wade, Florida is a case study in what can happen in states where abortion is easy to access.įlorida is an unexpected safe haven for people seeking abortions in the South.
As the Supreme Court is poised to overturn Roe v.