Responding to the Murders of Abortion Providers in Pensacola

Time for a Reality Check!

by Refuse & Resist!

For over a decade now, powerful forces in this society have led a campaign to stuff women back into the role of breeders. This movement was openly encouraged by two presidents in a row, courts chipped away at women's rights, and a paramilitary Christian fascist movement was allowed to organize. Under Clinton, an attempt was made to rein in the anger of middle class women, by affirming a begrudging legality for abortions for urban professional women, while the screws were continually tightened on poor young women, rural women, and women of color. There was virtually no act of murder or intimidation against women that the government was not prepared to ignore.

Before the most recent murders in Pensacola, the director of the local clinic begged the FBI to arrest Paul Hill for violating the new (and worthless) Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances law. The government refused to act, even though Hill had repeatedly proclaimed the justice of murdering women's doctors.

Should this come as any surprise to us?

At no time in history have the police and Justice Department ever come to the aid of those struggling for justice

• When the cops who beat Rodney King were let off scot free in their first trial, the Justice Department said it would intervene to protect King's civil rights. But the small army of FBI agents sent to Los Angeles was unleashed on those who had rebelled after the verdict instead.
• In 1979, a KKK group led by a paid FBI informer murdered 5 members of the Communist Workers Party in Greensboro, NC. None were ever sent to jail; instead FBI surveillance of leftists increased.
• In the early 1970s over 60 people were murdered on South Dakota Indian reservations by a reactionary tribal council in league with the government. The FBI was sent in. Did they solve the murders? Not one. Instead they went after activists, arresting members of the American Indian Movement and provoking the seige of Wounded Knee.
• During Freedom Summer of 1964, the FBI repeatedly refused to protect the civil rights workers and arrest the KKK infested local cops. Instead they spied on militant civil rights groups.

The pattern is always the same. The reactionaries attack the people, moderates plead with the government for protection, and the government uses its intervention to go after the militants in the people's movements.

Today, those who preach reliance on courts, cops, and politicians are disarming our movement, lulling us into complacency and faith in the rulers. The truth is that no amount of writing to our congressperson, or kissing Janet Reno's ass, is going to protect our rights. That we have to do ourselves and by any means necessary.

Abortion on Demand and Without Apology!
Defend Abortion Providers by Any Means Necessary!

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