Speaker 1: Oh, it could happen here and earlier this week, not
Speaker 1: the week you're hearing this, but the Weekly recorded it.
Speaker 1: It did it being the end of Roe v. Wade
Speaker 1: via Supreme Court fiat, and also the coming end of
Speaker 1: a hundred years of social progress unless people get real
Speaker 1: organized and aggressive, real fucking quick. I'm Robert Evans. Who else?
Speaker 1: Who else? Do I got on with me? Today? Is
Speaker 1: there a Is there a? Is there a Christopher Wong
Speaker 1: on the line? Yes, there there is one. There are
Speaker 1: many others, but but I am me, yeah, the others
Speaker 1: do not count. Um? Is there a Garrison Davis on
Speaker 1: the line? The only one that I know of? That's right,
Speaker 1: that's right. We exterminated the others in a in a
Speaker 1: brutal set of purges. Alla stalin um. And then of
Speaker 1: course Sharene Lonnie and a shrine. I'm here too. Would
Speaker 1: you like to introduce Sophie and of I mean the
Speaker 1: one and only Sophie. Okay, well that's us. Well, and
Speaker 1: now today I am intensely excited to introduce our guest, um,
Speaker 1: who is a cool person doing cool stuff to steal
Speaker 1: another one of our podcasters, Cat Green of the Abortion
Speaker 1: Access Front, Cat Welcome to the show. Thank you for
Speaker 1: coming on. I know this has been a hell week
Speaker 1: for you. Oh yeah, thanks for having me on. I
Speaker 1: really appreciate it. Now, Um, you and I have a
Speaker 1: friend in common, and you guys were actually at a
Speaker 1: national conference for abortion access when the news dropped a
Speaker 1: little early. Do you want to talk to us a
Speaker 1: little bit about what happened there? Yeah? I mean, now
Speaker 1: that the conference is over, I can say that we
Speaker 1: are in one of the worst cities in the world
Speaker 1: to be in when all of this happened, Orlando, Florida,
Speaker 1: which is basically made of paper sets right. Honestly, you
Speaker 1: could have stopped that sentence at one of the worst
Speaker 1: cities to be in. Yeah, we had actually been out
Speaker 1: to dinner at the oldest restaurant in Florida earlier that night,
Speaker 1: and it was a lovely evening. Um, even though like
Speaker 1: some angry driver tried to kill our mutual friend over
Speaker 1: parking space Florida over that part, you know, I mean
Speaker 1: in Florida. Yeah, you know. Also, the day had started
Speaker 1: with their already being a bomb threat at a clinic
Speaker 1: in Knoxville, so I was trying to help people find
Speaker 1: information about that. Earlier in the day and then um,
Speaker 1: we went out to dinner thinking that we got to relax,
Speaker 1: and then came back to the news as it was
Speaker 1: breaking and into the lobby of our hotel, where um,
Speaker 1: the remaining providers and advocates that were there were, um,
Speaker 1: just trying to make do. Yeah. So Cat, I, first
Speaker 1: of all, I guess we should talk about what the
Speaker 1: Abortion Access Front does and you were job there because
Speaker 1: this is something I don't think a lot of people
Speaker 1: think about it. One of the things that's become clear
Speaker 1: to me from some of the reaction of some folks
Speaker 1: this week on the more liberal side of things is
Speaker 1: there is a general unawareness of how violent and intense
Speaker 1: the threats against abortion access providers have been for like
Speaker 1: forty years. Yeah. Well, so, Abortion Access Front was founded
Speaker 1: by Liz Winstead, my partner who was the co creator
Speaker 1: of The Daily Show, and started as a progressive advocacy
Speaker 1: and messaging hub. And so we were making funny videos
Speaker 1: about abortion and then Trump got elected. We're like, oh wow,
Speaker 1: our job's got way more serious all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: And so we had like volunteers in the week after election,
Speaker 1: and so we started becoming matchmakers for volunteers to UM
Speaker 1: different clinics around the country, and we were doing comedy
Speaker 1: tours where we were trying to build community around the
Speaker 1: n x UM in different states, and so we would
Speaker 1: do a comedy show, have a have a provider on
Speaker 1: at the end to talk about what was at stake locally,
Speaker 1: and then get people to sign up to help because
Speaker 1: people didn't have access to contractors in many of the
Speaker 1: places we were going, you know, like we would go
Speaker 1: out and do landscaping work when we were on tour
Speaker 1: because we were just trying to help out wherever we could.
Speaker 1: And in the course of that, the nice folks at
Speaker 1: the National Abortion Federation reached out to us and we're like,
Speaker 1: we're a little concerned about you putting providers on stage,
Speaker 1: maybe we should talk about your security plans. So they
Speaker 1: they were out with us the first two years and
Speaker 1: UM then we're giving me information about people we needed
Speaker 1: to watch out for. So I got way more involved
Speaker 1: in creating these security plans around our shows and our tours,
Speaker 1: and UM started doing a lot of my own research
Speaker 1: on anti abortion extremists because as we started talking to
Speaker 1: more people the clinic escorts in front of the clinics,
Speaker 1: we were getting information about not just leadership with the
Speaker 1: people on the ground where they were the most afraid of.
Speaker 1: So then I was like, I wish I could just
Speaker 1: put all this into something where I could look something
Speaker 1: up by a ZIP code and be able to tell
Speaker 1: who I need to watch out for in a particular area.
Speaker 1: And that didn't really exist. So, um, there was just
Speaker 1: a whisper network of escorts and then the leadership research
Speaker 1: that NAP was doing. And so I started consoliding all
Speaker 1: my research into a database for all of us to
Speaker 1: be able to use and track incidents and organizations and
Speaker 1: bad actors all over the country. I mean, that's that's
Speaker 1: extremely important, but also extremely cool. Um, it is that
Speaker 1: you brought up right at the start of your what
Speaker 1: you were saying that there was a shooting at the
Speaker 1: Knoxville Clinic. Oh, not a shooting, There was a bomb
Speaker 1: scare at the at the Knoxville Clinic UM on Monday,
Speaker 1: and there was there was an person and the Plan
Speaker 1: Parenthood in Knoxville this past New Year's Eve. UM, and
Speaker 1: that same clinic, that same Plan Parenthood that was burned
Speaker 1: down on New Year's Eve actually had its front door
Speaker 1: shot out about a year earlier. And uh, because this
Speaker 1: this is one of the more frustrating cases. If you
Speaker 1: look this up, you can see that like the fire
Speaker 1: department has said it was an arson, UM, the a
Speaker 1: t F is investigating, the FBI is investigating. They've both
Speaker 1: get given the kind of boilerplate statements they've given those instances.
Speaker 1: You don't see a lot from the local police. I'm
Speaker 1: curious if you have anything to say about like the
Speaker 1: degree to which the local police have been useful in
Speaker 1: responding to this. Well, I don't work with the local
Speaker 1: police at all. Um. I you know, I'm a TV
Speaker 1: person that got into uh doing extremist research. I'm an
Speaker 1: editor and that I sort information, right, So like that
Speaker 1: made sense to me, But law enforcement doesn't really take
Speaker 1: me too seriously. Um. But the people on the ground
Speaker 1: have a lot of thoughts about who it could be. Right,
Speaker 1: there are known people in the Knoxville area who have
Speaker 1: caused all sorts of problems. There was another arson at
Speaker 1: a different community center there too, um, and several white
Speaker 1: supremacists were arrested after protesting a black Lives Matter UH
Speaker 1: event maybe two years ago. And so there's here's the thing.
Speaker 1: There's information about the Knoxville fire that went out on
Speaker 1: telegram with an order of nine angles, Nazi claiming credit
Speaker 1: for it. And how hard can it be to find
Speaker 1: a pagan Naxi in Knoxville? You go to a golf
Speaker 1: club and be like, who's hit you in the face here?
Speaker 1: You know? So, Yeah, I feel like there are hindrances
Speaker 1: to the investigation. Um, and a lot of the a
Speaker 1: lot of the activists on the ground have good leads
Speaker 1: that are not being followed. Yeah, I guess that's probably
Speaker 1: the most direct thing that can be said about it.
Speaker 1: What so to the extent that like, there's seemingly not
Speaker 1: a lot in a lot of these states that is
Speaker 1: going to be done preemptively by law enforcement. Um. When
Speaker 1: it comes to like actually tracing out the threats, Uh,
Speaker 1: how much do you feel like you have a chance
Speaker 1: to actually stop them from carrying out an action? And
Speaker 1: how much of it do you feel is just like
Speaker 1: we need to be documenting this for for when it happens.
Speaker 1: You know, we're already getting early warning about events. We're
Speaker 1: already because we tracked the people who There are a
Speaker 1: number of groups that create the same kind of actions
Speaker 1: that are either invasions or blockades at various clinics and
Speaker 1: people who have been organizing around this for decades, right,
Speaker 1: so in tracking them and starting to put the pieces together,
Speaker 1: we're already getting early warning about where they're headed, about
Speaker 1: who needs to be alerted. You know, there have been
Speaker 1: at this point three incidents. Just like I'm working with
Speaker 1: a group of volunteers. These are all people who either
Speaker 1: escort at clinics or part of a part of advocacy
Speaker 1: orgs that you know, are not getting paid to do intel,
Speaker 1: but they they're invested in the cause, and so they
Speaker 1: just follow this stuff on the regular and we're all
Speaker 1: in touch with each other, and all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: it's like, oh, you know, this person who's been a
Speaker 1: part of twelve other blockades in the last three years
Speaker 1: has been seen going on a tour and said, the
Speaker 1: next three stops, he's going to, let's tell all the
Speaker 1: clinics in the neighborhood what's happening and they can be
Speaker 1: a little bit better prepared. And that's you know, I mean, honestly,
Speaker 1: because the abortion movement is not super supported by law
Speaker 1: enforcement largely, um, it seemed like a necessary thing for
Speaker 1: everybody to start keeping their own records for their own safety.
Speaker 1: And that's really how all this came together. Now, it's
Speaker 1: interesting to me that you you brought up one of
Speaker 1: kind of the leads suspects. I guess you might say
Speaker 1: for the attack on the Knoxville clinic was an O nine.
Speaker 1: A dude, I'm wondering what kind of the threats you're seeing.
Speaker 1: Obviously there's decades of attacks on abortion access providers, including
Speaker 1: a lot of fatal attacks, assassinations, acid attacks, numerous bombings
Speaker 1: and attempted bombings. How has the character of who is
Speaker 1: making the threats and who you see as threats started
Speaker 1: to change over the recent years. I mean the only
Speaker 1: and a thing is a big yeah, that's that's weird.
Speaker 1: You know, we've been following the same Christian nationalists for
Speaker 1: years and largely they have the same playbook. They make
Speaker 1: a few changes to it. A lot of them are older.
Speaker 1: You know, it's lock in blocks or invasions. There's a
Speaker 1: few Catholics who get really aggressive and like shove their
Speaker 1: way into stuff. But it's not um. It hasn't been
Speaker 1: big surprise is until recently, and and a lot of
Speaker 1: the time in the past, even when there was extreme
Speaker 1: violence happening amongst these people. It was still sort of
Speaker 1: tied back to Christian identity stuff, and now we're really
Speaker 1: starting to see it branching out. And honestly, I blame
Speaker 1: I blame a few things. One, just the Internet in general,
Speaker 1: but also the pandemic kind of galvanized extremists across a
Speaker 1: lot of spheres, and um you started seeing a lot
Speaker 1: of Christian identity people that weren't necessarily militia people starting
Speaker 1: to mingle with militia people. And then you know, militia
Speaker 1: people starting to mingle with white suprise like over white supremacists,
Speaker 1: and um so now there's this cross breeding that's happening
Speaker 1: where like I mean, the gropers are a great example
Speaker 1: of just like this weird emailed them of things that
Speaker 1: didn't exist in the same sphere before her. Now they're
Speaker 1: their own movement. Yeah. I can't tell you how much
Speaker 1: I hate that. Like other people who who aren't weirdos
Speaker 1: who spend all of their time on Nazi Telegram know
Speaker 1: what gropers are now. Yeah, it's extremely frustrating. It's the
Speaker 1: worst thing in the world. Yeah. One of the weird
Speaker 1: things about doing this type of research for years is
Speaker 1: seeing like on YouTube, like thumbnails by like Stephen Colbert
Speaker 1: talking about like wacky like nonsense that I've known about
Speaker 1: for years and him talking about it like like it's
Speaker 1: this big new thing. They're always like, oh wow, the
Speaker 1: little tiny corner of the internet I was just watching
Speaker 1: and staring at now is like it's something that isn't
Speaker 1: like a regular Libs political lexicon. And that's like horrible.
Speaker 1: Yeah broke in posting about the Kalie you guy, you know,
Speaker 1: yeah that was That was a are drinking night for me.
Speaker 1: That was a hard drinking night for me. And it's
Speaker 1: so hard to explain to people why it's so bad.
Speaker 1: You're like, oh, well, it's just so once back in
Speaker 1: the twenties there was this lady named Savitri Devy. Now, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's it's really troubling because, um, it's making its
Speaker 1: way into traditional Christian identity stuff, you know, um evangelical stuff,
Speaker 1: quiverful stuff is now starting to cross over way more
Speaker 1: aggressively with MILITIAUS stuff and and with like over white
Speaker 1: supremacist neo Nazi stuff. It's such a problem because and
Speaker 1: this is something in Bert oh Echo you know, noted
Speaker 1: a long time ago, but like fascism is deeply syncretic right,
Speaker 1: and we're that's what we're talking about right now, is
Speaker 1: its ability. It's like a Katamari. I refer back to
Speaker 1: that game a lot because it does just keep picking
Speaker 1: things up, and um, we don't really do that as
Speaker 1: much on like everyone from like the center left to
Speaker 1: like weirdo anarchists and and and whatnot. Like everyone's got
Speaker 1: their own little box, right, and there's some interplay, but
Speaker 1: for the most part, people on the left really like
Speaker 1: making boxes and people on the right it's just one
Speaker 1: big ball pit where everybody's smearing their diseases and snot
Speaker 1: around and it's not great now. And I mean, we
Speaker 1: need to figure out some sort of solidarity because like
Speaker 1: even with the abortion protests that are happening this week,
Speaker 1: we're already seeing people co opting things and turning it
Speaker 1: in really destructive directions. Um, I mean, you know, the
Speaker 1: entire cult of boba back and you know, I mean
Speaker 1: I'm actually worried about that as at this point it
Speaker 1: feels like a get astroturb. It doesn't feel like they're
Speaker 1: fighting with actual abortion providers and saying that, you know that,
Speaker 1: like abortion funds are a problem. It's like those are
Speaker 1: the people actually walking to walk and doing anything about this.
Speaker 1: What are you doing besides showing up in bloody pants
Speaker 1: and picking fights with cops, Like yeah, it's this. You know.
Speaker 1: One of the more uplifting stories that's come out recently
Speaker 1: is that in France, UM, the left is doing a
Speaker 1: popular front again in order to kind of rest control
Speaker 1: of the government from Macron. Will see how it works, right,
Speaker 1: This is just something that's kind of been announced, and
Speaker 1: but this is something like that. This has happened a
Speaker 1: few times in the past in different formulations, and I
Speaker 1: do kind of it would be nice to see a
Speaker 1: broad popular front in favor of abortion access at a
Speaker 1: very blunt level, but that would involve people not just
Speaker 1: getting on board with trying to rest control from the
Speaker 1: right back electorally, but people supporting a legalism. A lot
Speaker 1: of people are going to have to do things that
Speaker 1: are not lead goal in order to maintain access to
Speaker 1: reproductive healthcare. You know. There's the other side of it,
Speaker 1: is like hardline anarchists will have to realize that working
Speaker 1: with lives is occasionally useful UM and using them as
Speaker 1: body shields sometimes can can let you do more illegalist
Speaker 1: type practice. So there's there's both in terms of like
Speaker 1: people who are really dogmatic on the left being like, okay,
Speaker 1: there's types, there's certain times where this type of this
Speaker 1: this intersectionalism can be really useful, and then people who
Speaker 1: are less radical having to be okay with more radical
Speaker 1: tactics happening. I mean, my biggest fear right now is
Speaker 1: the mass criminalization event that's about to happen. Right you know,
Speaker 1: no matter what, people's pregnancies are going to be criminalized
Speaker 1: in various forms. If you have a miscarriage, it's going
Speaker 1: to be criminalized. You're going to have to be more
Speaker 1: cautious about how you use your phone and what you
Speaker 1: say in the emergency room, and you know, what you
Speaker 1: say to people in your own family. And I don't
Speaker 1: think that most people on our side are prepared to
Speaker 1: have that level of caution or divorce themselves from technology
Speaker 1: and the way that kind of needs to happen for
Speaker 1: people to stay safe. I'm also worried that, like, as
Speaker 1: a movement, um, we're not really identifying the fact that
Speaker 1: it's all about bodily autonomy, and so that means everybody
Speaker 1: trying to access trance healthcare is as much or more
Speaker 1: so at risk and um, you know, and we have
Speaker 1: so much to learn from the sex work industry about
Speaker 1: all of this, right, Like so much of what is
Speaker 1: happening now was built on like the permissiveness of what
Speaker 1: people accepted under FOSTA and SESTA and um, you know,
Speaker 1: that's how all of us got de prioritized and stupid
Speaker 1: algorithms in the first place. And and then all of
Speaker 1: a sudden weren't allowed to put ads out for like
Speaker 1: legitimate health care services, and keeping ourselves in boxes is
Speaker 1: really doing everybody a disservice. Everybody that's been criminalized, everybody
Speaker 1: who just trying to exist is at risk right now,
Speaker 1: is in this together? Yeah, it's um. You know, there's
Speaker 1: that famous quote from Who's a Minister of some sort
Speaker 1: during you know, the Weimar years about first they came force,
Speaker 1: you know, YadA YadA, YadA, um, and it is like
Speaker 1: it's always true with fascists. But that doesn't mean that
Speaker 1: people ever spot it while it's happening, right, because there's
Speaker 1: there's very few groups that mainstream America has less inherent
Speaker 1: sympathy for than sex workers, and the reality is that
Speaker 1: they were testing a lot of this out on those
Speaker 1: people because they are marginalized. And I guess one of
Speaker 1: the things I hope we'll see and that might have
Speaker 1: some positive developments is that there are a lot of
Speaker 1: sex workers out there with a lot of ops set
Speaker 1: tips that they can give other people. Now, um, it
Speaker 1: would be dope if you know, there were folks like
Speaker 1: setting up clinics and stuff in that, because I think
Speaker 1: there's a lot of information that does need to get
Speaker 1: shared with folks who are not used to thinking about
Speaker 1: any of the stuff they're doing is illegal. I've been
Speaker 1: seeing stuff on you know, Facebook, among kind of friends
Speaker 1: of mine who are more middle of the road and
Speaker 1: family members who are pretty much centrist politically, where they're
Speaker 1: talking about like, hey, if you need to go on
Speaker 1: a camping trip in another state, I'll take you one
Speaker 1: your camping trip. And it's like, I get it, Like
Speaker 1: it's great to express solidarity, but will you feel that
Speaker 1: way when it's actually a felony and people are getting
Speaker 1: twenty years sentences for doing it? Right, Like, because that's
Speaker 1: where we're headed, you know. Yeah, Yeah, I mean people
Speaker 1: need to get more serious about moving their data out
Speaker 1: of the country altogether, you know, like thinking about what
Speaker 1: can be subpoena. Yeah, the folks at Hacking and Hustling
Speaker 1: are doing really amazing work to spread sort of uh
Speaker 1: sex work and sex work adjacent upset knowledge to other
Speaker 1: communities too. Like they're amazing. Um, that's great. I was
Speaker 1: not aware of what they were doing. Um, would you
Speaker 1: mind giving like a little a brief overview of what
Speaker 1: that is? Try to reach out to them, But I've
Speaker 1: only been in a couple of sessions with them, but
Speaker 1: they're they're generally just sharing information about like tightening up
Speaker 1: your digital footprint and also being conscious about how having
Speaker 1: multiple like if you have to have a clandistine identity online,
Speaker 1: how you can keep that from leaking over into any
Speaker 1: of your other digital identities. Right, it's it's and I
Speaker 1: mean it's a really important distinction because even if you
Speaker 1: have something like a socc account on something like Facebook,
Speaker 1: based on how you set it up and what other
Speaker 1: accounts that's connected to and who your friend in that process,
Speaker 1: it can very easily find its way back to you
Speaker 1: and the people connected to you. So how do Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, whenever somebody angers this podcast, we have Garrison
Speaker 1: tracked them down. It's very easy. Yeah, that is that
Speaker 1: is that is true. I have a whole whole folder
Speaker 1: of people dropping their kids off at school. That's right,
Speaker 1: that's right, So you know, keep your eye out, Hello Fresh,
Speaker 1: don't screw with us again. Or that one reviewer that
Speaker 1: said that there was the woman on the podcast and
Speaker 1: was annoying. I know who you are. I was able
Speaker 1: to I was able to track back via your Apple account.
Speaker 1: Just one, just somebody tried to request access to one
Speaker 1: of my folders that's connected to We had a danure
Speaker 1: six document where we had identified a bunch of people
Speaker 1: and so I just linked it to you know, Google
Speaker 1: drive things so that pressed people could get to stuff.
Speaker 1: And somebody just out of nowhere trying to access one
Speaker 1: of them the other day and requested permission. I'm just like,
Speaker 1: all I had to do was look up your name
Speaker 1: in the word abortion, Like, go on and try a
Speaker 1: little harder. Um so, Cat, I'm wondering. Number One, For
Speaker 1: people who are like Piste and feeling helpless, there are
Speaker 1: things that folks can do to help, assuming you live
Speaker 1: in a state that there's anything at all around because
Speaker 1: like a lot of people who are hundreds of files
Speaker 1: away from any kind of clinic. But if you're not,
Speaker 1: I know, there are ways people going to help. Do
Speaker 1: you have any kind of pieces of advice for folks
Speaker 1: interested in being of use? There are so many things,
Speaker 1: right I mean, right now, I think the biggest thing
Speaker 1: that the movement needs more than anything is abortion funds
Speaker 1: and practical support funds really need financial help because they
Speaker 1: are paying to move people around as as needed to
Speaker 1: get them care, right, So the money thing is always
Speaker 1: the obvious. But um, we're actually having an event on
Speaker 1: July sevent that is sort of an orientation day for
Speaker 1: new people coming to the movement who want to volunteer
Speaker 1: and don't know where. So we're going to cover things
Speaker 1: like how you become a clinic escort, what it means
Speaker 1: to volunteer on like an abortion fund or practical support hotline, um,
Speaker 1: how you can get involved in lobbying groups, how you
Speaker 1: can get involved in direct action groups, and sort of
Speaker 1: pre vetting people and then getting them out to the
Speaker 1: organizations that actually have capacity to take on volunteers right now,
Speaker 1: because a lot of what's happening, like we already saw
Speaker 1: it in Texas where people really wanted to volunteer to
Speaker 1: help in Texas after SPA came down, but they were
Speaker 1: doing things like calling the Abortion Fun Hotline to try
Speaker 1: and get to people, and it's like, no, you can't
Speaker 1: clog up the hotline. That doesn't help anybody. So we're
Speaker 1: trying to take some of the lift off of the
Speaker 1: orgs that are already overtaxed that their people, give them
Speaker 1: some background information, give them a better idea of what
Speaker 1: the landscape is in the movement, and then make the
Speaker 1: connections to organizations that have the capacity to take them on.
Speaker 1: So it's called Operations Save Abortion um. And we're gonna
Speaker 1: do a live stream and house parties all over the country.
Speaker 1: People are either watching the streams we're doing or having
Speaker 1: their own local people to talk about how people can
Speaker 1: get active locally in more direct ways. Yeah. And there's
Speaker 1: stuff like being an escort, which is is something I've
Speaker 1: been learning a little bit more about recently. Um. I
Speaker 1: guess one of the things I'm interested in is like, uh,
Speaker 1: from a perspective of actually like keeping folks safe. Um,
Speaker 1: is that something that you feel has like a lot
Speaker 1: of value or is that something that yeah, um, and
Speaker 1: is that like people would want to like look at
Speaker 1: are there kind of resources for for getting involved with that?
Speaker 1: There are clinic escorting is a little tricky right now
Speaker 1: because there's a whole lot of clinics that don't know
Speaker 1: if they're going to be open in eight weeks. So
Speaker 1: right now, well that's all shaking out. I mean, if
Speaker 1: you already have an established relationship with your local clinic,
Speaker 1: definitely check in with them. UM. Clinics in states that
Speaker 1: are going to see a surge, UM, Pennsylvania, Illinois, New York,
Speaker 1: I mean really anywhere that's still going to have abortion
Speaker 1: after the twenty six states fall, the entire West coast, Uh,
Speaker 1: New Mexico, right, Uh, Minnesota, they are all going to
Speaker 1: need escorts. UM. Which clinic escorting is walking a person
Speaker 1: from their car to the clinic door past protesters. Um.
Speaker 1: It's generally, I would say clinics are non engagement clinics,
Speaker 1: So doing this means that you're there for the patient,
Speaker 1: You're not there to get in a protesters face. Some
Speaker 1: clinics have enough of a protest or presence, like UM
Speaker 1: Clinics and Charlotte Clinics in Jackson, Mississippi, where they have
Speaker 1: they split it up and they have people that are
Speaker 1: there for the patients and people that are there to
Speaker 1: distract protesters and sort of pull them away from the door,
Speaker 1: you know, just get them a little bit removed so
Speaker 1: that they can get patients past them. This is a
Speaker 1: little bit less pleasant of a question, but you know,
Speaker 1: I've done for a different cause a lot of the
Speaker 1: same research where you're like spending time in these dark
Speaker 1: corners of the Internet making notes of people and threats
Speaker 1: being made, And um, I remember the horrible feeling of
Speaker 1: like having a specific kind of thing that hadn't quite
Speaker 1: happened before that I was sure was going to happen,
Speaker 1: and then the fucking thing happens. Um, are there particular
Speaker 1: things you are worried about in especially like once this
Speaker 1: comes through like that, that are kind of on your horizon,
Speaker 1: Like is there stuff that that people need to be
Speaker 1: kind of preparing for in terms of like an escalation
Speaker 1: in direct action against clinics. Absolutely, I mean we're already
Speaker 1: seeing increased threats against clinics. Um. This this bomb threat
Speaker 1: the other day was a test balloon, right, But there
Speaker 1: are organizations like POW who are actively aggressively invading clinics
Speaker 1: on the regular and doing things like stealing products of
Speaker 1: conception fetle remains right and parading them out to the
Speaker 1: public and naming doctors um in an effort to get
Speaker 1: them hurt. Right, it's it's stochastic terrorism. They're not they
Speaker 1: are not going to be the ones to pull the trigger.
Speaker 1: They are just putting it out there so that somebody
Speaker 1: else does the dirty work for them. And so many
Speaker 1: people are guilty of that right. The church at Plant
Speaker 1: Parenthood is another good example. And they've had you know,
Speaker 1: they've had a long presence and spoken um. They moved
Speaker 1: to Knoxville, Tennessee, they've set up church plants in Birmingham,
Speaker 1: and they've they've been throughout um Oregon and and in
Speaker 1: Oregon they were hiring the crow Boys as their security,
Speaker 1: which eventually, unsurprisingly turned into a big fight when counter
Speaker 1: protesters showed up, the police showed up, tear guessed everybody.
Speaker 1: It's like how is what? How is this church to
Speaker 1: you know, like what is anybody trying to get out
Speaker 1: of this? And and so there's a lot of people
Speaker 1: who have been putting it out there for a long
Speaker 1: time that there's all this other ring language of calling
Speaker 1: people demons because it makes them easier to kill. There's
Speaker 1: going to be clinic violence. I mean, there's going to
Speaker 1: be more clinic violence. I should say, all of this
Speaker 1: is violent. It's violent to have people out there screaming
Speaker 1: at you and calling you a horror with a giant
Speaker 1: sign of fetus, you know parts and then but I
Speaker 1: mean they're really waiting for somebody to like more buildings
Speaker 1: on fire or shoot somebody, and it's going to happen. Yeah, Well,
Speaker 1: does anyone else have anything to get into here? On
Speaker 1: that happy note? That happy? I think, Um, it's just
Speaker 1: it's not going to be like actual Nazi extremists that
Speaker 1: do a lot of these attacks either, I think, especially
Speaker 1: with it of being especially if if like if Rovie
Speaker 1: Wood does get fully taken away, that will justify pretty
Speaker 1: violent action. In the minds of like most regular Christians.
Speaker 1: Even when I grew up in like a pretty evangelical
Speaker 1: uh type of community, those types of attacks against planned
Speaker 1: parenthood were almost that like. There was the there was
Speaker 1: the overall feeling that they were like celebrated, and people
Speaker 1: who would do it would be lauded it as like
Speaker 1: biblical heroes, um, for for like for like just our
Speaker 1: sending a building like that. That was very much the
Speaker 1: sense that I got when I was a kid, Like
Speaker 1: I I remember thinking thinking those thoughts like, oh, that's
Speaker 1: what like a good people do. Like that's like people
Speaker 1: who are brave will go and burn down an abortion
Speaker 1: clinic they were openly celebrated. You know, the Army of
Speaker 1: God would have the White Rose banquet to raise money
Speaker 1: by auctioning off the personal effects of people who had
Speaker 1: bombed clinics and shot doctors. And you see a lot
Speaker 1: of that mirrored now in things like the Saints Calendar, right,
Speaker 1: and and so you see you see neo Nazis and
Speaker 1: other white supremacists promoting the Saints Calendar and then directing
Speaker 1: people to the Army of God website. And then you
Speaker 1: see Christian nationalists finding accelerationist handbooks and having that knowledge now, right,
Speaker 1: and so they can have the knowledge and loosely collaborate
Speaker 1: without ever having to say, oh, I'm a part of
Speaker 1: you know Front or the prow Boys or whatever. Like,
Speaker 1: they won't see themselves as extremists. They'll see themselves as
Speaker 1: like regular Christians. They'll see them as regular conservatives. And
Speaker 1: what they're doing is like is like sanctioned by God,
Speaker 1: and it's like good, righteous, holy work. Um. So I
Speaker 1: think that is definitely something to keep your eye on,
Speaker 1: because it's not all going to be like skull mask
Speaker 1: wearing people doing bomb threats. It's going to be like regular,
Speaker 1: like regular conservative Christians who are who are like been
Speaker 1: on this right words track the past the past few decades.
Speaker 1: Most of the people that we track are are not
Speaker 1: part openly part of extremist group well not openly part
Speaker 1: of like known militant extremists, right, but um, a lot
Speaker 1: of them are hold office. You know, there is Derek
Speaker 1: Evans was in West Virginia. You've got um John Jacob
Speaker 1: in Indiana, like the whole Oklahoma contingent, Like abolish Human
Speaker 1: Abortion has really just become a lobbying group that's trying
Speaker 1: to get people in office wherever they can. There's I mean,
Speaker 1: they've gotten really strategic about getting people into smaller um
Speaker 1: legislative roles so that they have more power to push
Speaker 1: things and and so that they look more respectable. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And it's that leads kind of to another point, which
Speaker 1: is that when you get right down to it, once
Speaker 1: the ruling comes through finally as it looks like it will,
Speaker 1: the vast majority of violence that's going to be done
Speaker 1: to abortion providers and too people seeking abortions into people
Speaker 1: supporting them is going to be done by police, like
Speaker 1: that's the that's the eventual end game here. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: that's that's the thing I'm the most afraid of, right
Speaker 1: because it's so much easier to turn somebody in than
Speaker 1: it is to actually attack a person physically or a
Speaker 1: building even And so that's what it's going to be.
Speaker 1: It's going to be people calling in their neighbors, calling
Speaker 1: in something from the hospital, turning in their grandkids. You know, well,
Speaker 1: is there anything right now that's making you optimistic? Cat,
Speaker 1: Not to put you on the spot, No, No, it's okay.
Speaker 1: I thought about that a lot. I mean, honestly, the
Speaker 1: people working in this are so dedicated to helping people
Speaker 1: that that always gives me hope. And I genuinely feel
Speaker 1: like there's enough of us that have plans, you know,
Speaker 1: even if even if not ever bodies on board with
Speaker 1: the same stuff, there are enough people really doing the
Speaker 1: hard work and being pragmatic about what's happening and not
Speaker 1: just cowing under the pressure of it, that are energized
Speaker 1: by helping people that I think there will always be
Speaker 1: people helping. They might not always be visible, but they're there,
Speaker 1: and it's just going to be harder to find them.
Speaker 1: So yeah, um, well, thank you so much. Um, do
Speaker 1: you have anything else you'd like to plug before we
Speaker 1: kind of roll out here? Any place people could and
Speaker 1: donations are volunteer if they're into that. Oh, I mean,
Speaker 1: you can always donate to Abortion Access Front where a
Speaker 1: front dot org and um, there's a volunteer form there.
Speaker 1: But also if you want to participate in our event
Speaker 1: on July sevent you can go to Operations Save Abortion
Speaker 1: dot com. Uh, and there's a registration form there to
Speaker 1: get involved in the event. Awesome. Um, well, thank you
Speaker 1: so much, Kat Green. You are amazing and what you
Speaker 1: do is incredibly important. Um. And to everybody else, um,
Speaker 1: go find some way to help or you know, at
Speaker 1: least uh, it's easy to pee in a water balloon
Speaker 1: and sorry, okay, well let's that It could happen here
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Speaker 1: You can find sources for It could Happen here, updated
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Speaker 1: for listening,