ABORTION PROVIDERS BRACE FOR VIOLENCE

In her first week on the job at a Philadelphia abortion clinic, Amanda Kifferly was taught how to search for bombs. About a year later, protesters blocked the entrances and exits of the The Women’s Centers, at one point pulling Kifferly into something resembling a mosh pit, where they surrounded her and shoved her around.

And on the night of last winter’s arguments before the U.S. Supreme Court in a case that could end the nationwide right to abortion, people gathered outside a clinic in New Jersey with lawn chairs, a cooler and a flaming torch — a sight that brought to mind lynchings and other horrors of the country’s racist past, says Kifferly, who now serves as vice president for abortion access.

Such scenes have become familiar for providers and patients across the country over the decades since the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling legalizing abortion. At times the violence has been far more severe, including bombings, arson and murder — from the 1993 killing of Dr. David Gunn outside a Florida abortion clinic to the 2015 fatal shooting of three people inside a Colorado Planned Parenthood.

Now providers and some in law enforcement worry what will come next. They’re preparing for an increase in violence once the Supreme Court rules, saying there has historically been a spike when the issue of abortion gets widespread public attention, such as after a state approves new restrictions. If the decision ends Roe v. Wade, they also anticipate protests, harassment and other violence to be more concentrated and intensify in states where abortion remains legal.

“We know from experience, it’s not like the people protesting clinics in banned states just pack up and go home,” said Melissa Fowler, chief program officer for the National Abortion Federation.

Shortly after the draft opinion became public, the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Intelligence and Analysis said the draft had made extremist violence — by people on either side of the issue — more likely.

In some places, local police are working with clinics to try to tamp down the potential for violence. In Jacksonville, Fla., the sheriff ’s office said last month it would station an officer outside a clinic, and police in Little Rock, Ark., installed a camera atop a crane near an abortion clinic that has been the site of protests, hoping to deter bad actors.