Chalk up another one for the FBI

A domestic terrorism briefing the FBI gave to law enforcement agencies in 2017 warned them about the threat of “pro-abortion extremists.” That would be fine, except—as the FBI’s own briefing materials subsequently admit—violent pro-abortion extremists barely exist, and in no universe do they constitute an organized domestic terror movement.

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Only one person could be fairly described as a “pro-choice terrorist” (he indeed described himself that way), and that is Theodore Shulman, who went to prison in 2012 for harrassing and threatening to kill two leading figures in the anti-abortion movement. (Shulman served 41 months in prison, followed by three years of supervised release.) The only known death of an anti-abortion protester is Jim Pouillon, who was shot and killed in September 2009 while holding a gory sign and protesting outside a Michigan clinic. Harlan James Drake, who was sentenced to life in prison for the murder, was severely mentally ill, according to his lawyers. He also killed a gravel pit owner the same day, reportedly believing both men had wronged his mother. According to evidence presented at trial, Drake shot Pouillon not because he was a radical pro-choice activist, but because he was offended that Pouillon was holding a disturbing sign in view of school children.

Anti-abortion groups, meanwhile, have harassed doctors and clinics who provide abortions for decades, leading to arson, constant death threats, a wave of bombings throughout the 1990s, and the murders of some 12 people between 1993 and 2012, all either clinic staffers or physicians.

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Gunita Singh, the staff attorney at Property of the People, told us, “It should strike any reasonable person as astounding, irrational, and even offensive to see the words ‘pro-choice extremist’ strung together. Yet, in this FBI document we see this configuration appear in an Abortion Extremism Reference Guide, juxtaposed alongside ‘pro-life extremists,’ as if they’re somehow two sides of the same coin.”

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Shapiro also points out that the idea of violent pro-choice activists is a far-right talking point, promoted by groups like Human Life International and ultra-conservative outlets like The Federalist. Its appearance in a law enforcement document is worrisome, he says, and raises questions about how it got there.

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For many years, the FBI referred to “anti-abortion extremism.” It’s unclear just when they started presenting the issue as one with two sides.

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In a September 18, 2005 document, 266J was classified as “Anti Abortion Extremists.” By October 18, 2010, the same category was referred to as “Abortion Extremism.”

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A report produced for Congress in 2017 is also vague about the date, noting only in a footnote that “In recent years, the FBI has switched from ‘anti-abortion’ to abortion extremism, thus including individuals who may commit crimes to protect abortion rights.”

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But this law enforcement briefing clearly isn’t the only place where they operate as if pro-abortion extremists constitute an actual movement. The FBI also clearly and succinctly summarizes the various kinds of domestic terror it investigates, on, of all things, a website it created for teens. (Dubbed “Don’t Be a Puppet,” the teen site is meant to dissuade the youth from joining ISIS or domestic terror groups.)

There, speaking to the teens, the FBI claims there are abortion extremists on both sides.

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Gunita Singh, POTP’s staff attorney, points out that it’s far from the first time the FBI has highlighted an apparently nonexistent threat. “The FBI has been propagating these false equivalencies for decades,” she says. “For example, Property of the People sued the FBI for records on a terrorist threat category called ‘Black Identity Extremism,’ which very problematically includes the Black Lives Matter movement.” (In an op-ed for the New York Times, two law professors pointed out that this looks very similar to the way the FBI treated the civil rights movement and other, particularly leftist, political movements in the 1960s.)

With the case of supposed “Black Identity Extremists,” Singh says, the FBI shows evidence of ignoring or downplaying an actual problem—the documented resurgence of white supremacist movements—to focus on a non-existent one.

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In essence, the concern is that by creating this fictional category of terrorists, will law enforcement agencies begin to look for them, be primed for them, seek them out, and even identify them where none exist? What does this bode for the future of legal pro-choice activism, particularly in an era where abortion rights are being radically restricted?

“Pro-choice activists should not have to worry about being targeted as terrorist extremists,” Singh told us, “simply for advocating for bodily autonomy and a woman’s right to choose.”

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“We cannot allow law enforcement to construct these false equivalencies that lead to distorted perceptions of the actual threats we face.”

  Jezebel

Well, we allow our president to distort perceptions of the trumped-up threat from caravans of asylum seekers.

Someone was prescient when they coined the term "trumped up".