It Could Happen Here - How the Right is Coming for Abortion Pills Next

Episode Date: February 24, 2023

In this episode, It's Going Down guests hosts once again and sits down with both abortion clinic defenders and doulas to find out how people have been organizing over the last year in the wake of the Dobbs decision, while antifascist journalist Vishal Singh and Melissa Fowler from the National Abortion Federation warn that the Right is building a coalition that includes openly fascist and white supremacist groups - as Christian Nationalists set their sights on blocking access to abortion pills. Includes: Interviews with a clinic defender from @nycforabortion, abortion doula @Ash_Bash23, and Melissa Fowler from @NatAbortionFedSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You should probably keep your lights on for Nocturnal Tales from the Shadowbride. Join me, Danny Trejo, and step into the flames of fright. An anthology podcast of modern-day horror stories inspired by the most terrifying legends and lore of Latin America. Listen to Nocturnal on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Ed Zitron, host of the Better Offline podcast, and we're kicking off our second season digging into tech's elite and how they've turned Silicon Valley into a playground for billionaires. From the chaotic world of generative AI to the destruction of Google search, Better Offline is your unvarnished and at times unhinged look at the underbelly of tech

brought to you by an industry veteran with nothing to lose. Listen to Better Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever else you get your podcasts from. Welcome to Gracias Come Again, a podcast by Honey German, where we get real and dive straight into todo lo actual y viral. We're talking música, los premios, el chisme, and all things trending in my cultura. I'm bringing you all the latest happening in our entertainment world and some fun and impactful interviews with your favorite Latin artists, comedians, actors, and influencers. Each week, we get deep and raw life stories, combos on the issues that matter to us, and it's all packed with gems, fun, straight up comedia, and that's a song that only nuestra gente can sprinkle.

Listen to Gracias Come Again on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome back to It Could Happen Here. Once again, the folks from It's Going Down are taking over the show, as today we do a deep dive into how autonomous organizers are pushing back against a wave of far-right attacks on reproductive freedom and autonomy across the United States. A note to our listeners, this episode will include discussion on both sexual and far-eyed violence. I'm your host Mike Andrews, let's get into it. In May of 2022, Politico first reported on the historic leak from the Supreme Court about the

overturning of Roe vs. Wade, the landmark 1973 decision which ruled under the 14th Amendment that a pregnant person has the right to privacy, including the liberty to abort their fetus. In June of 2022, the Dobbs decision struck down Roe, ruling that the Constitution does not guarantee a person the right to an abortion, triggering a wave of state governments rolling back abortion rights and access. For many, however, the fall of Roe only further cemented a lack of access to reproductive health care that's already been the norm for millions. As The Hill wrote, As of 2020, six states had only one abortion clinic each, and 89% of America's counties

had no abortion clinic at all, the cumulative effect of decades of restrictions authored by anti-abortion lawmakers. This is not to say that things haven't gotten worse. They have. In the months following the Dobbs decision, in states like Ohio where Axis has been attacked, a rape survivor was forced to travel out of state to find an abortion, while local politicians, including the state's Republican Attorney General, claimed on Fox News that the story was totally fabricated. In other instances, people in Ohio have been denied care even though they face potentially life-threatening complications. In Texas, one woman nearly died due to sepsis because she was initially barred access to an abortion

by doctors. And these are only some of the stories that have made headlines. The deeper impact on this country-wide attack on reproductive health has hit low-income and communities of color the hardest. A recent study from the University of San Francisco found that, quote, a third of American women of reproductive age now face excessive travel times to obtain an abortion, while twice as many are being forced to travel more than an hour to reach an abortion provider. In short, attacks on abortion, coupled with the already

exploding wealth gap, lack of access to health care, the rising cost of living, and the continuing COVID-19 pandemic will only expand existing inequalities, especially for people of color, the disabled, and queer and trans folks in particular. On the legal front, some states have pushed to expand abortion access, and many are challenging legal attacks in the courtroom. Minnesota, for instance, most recently became the first state to enshrine abortion as a right. Meanwhile, many continue to donate to abortion funds, and non-profits like Planned Parenthood

are even launching mobile clinics to provide care in areas hit the hardest due to recent bans. But as our first two guests, Bex, part of a clinic defense group in New York City, and Ash, an abortion doula in North Carolina reported, many autonomous organizers aren't putting their faith in the courts, the cops, or the state. You know, living in New York City, abortion is legal and it was legal before Roe and it's been legal after Roe, but that doesn't really necessarily mean anything kind of is what we've seen. So one of the things that we've seen is we've seen anti-abortion protesters and activists coming up from red states to target blue states

now. And so you've definitely seen their presence increasing outside of the clinic that we defend in Soho in Manhattan. And so that's, I would say is one of the biggest things that we've seen is that they really are targeting blue states or targeting New York City. They're actively trying to recruit people to come to New York City is I think the biggest thing that we've seen. And then also in New York City, we've been struggling a lot with a really escalatory police presence at our clinics. And so that's the other thing that we're definitely really, really struggling with is the response of the state after jobs. that we're definitely really, really struggling with is the response of the state after jobs. So the first thing that I want folks to know is that people, abortion havers, people who might have abortions where I am in time and space, they have always already been navigating some of these post-war realities that a lot of folks are just getting hip to, like after that fateful Friday in June last year. And so I want to name here that we've always had a 72-hour waiting period in North Carolina, which is one of the

longest waiting periods in the country. And there's a slew of other things that we find both hostile and restrictive. And I'm using those words to describe a situation, an ongoing situation, because these are the words that are being used to describe North Carolina now, as we're seeing an influx of folks coming to North Carolina. So I'm saying that for the folks who live here always already, like they've been dealing with a restrictive, hostile climate. Bex just shared a little bit about the presence of anti-abortion protesters. So we've always been dealing with that. In 2018, the abortion clinic that I had two abortions at in my life, they saw the most anti-abortion protesters in the Southeast. And we continue to see this. We also continue to see, as we see these anti-abortion protesters, right, a police presence.

And we know, or I'm concerned about what that means for Black folks having abortions, for people who are undocumented, and for people who otherwise don't want the police all up in their business. In addition to what's changed since Dobbs, or not changed, right, but changed, we have seen an influx of folks coming to North Carolina from states where abortion is illegal, or there are bans, kind of early in gestation. And we're seeing those folks come to the clinics and access the services and the support networks that we have here in North Carolina. I think that one thing with the group that I work with called NYC for Abortion Rights, one thing that we've been working really hard on is not only talking about abortion, not only focusing on, you know, how do these people who are outside of

our clinics are not only anti-abortion, but they're also anti-LGBTQ. They are fascist. That is something that we should be saying. They are also pro-police. None of these things happen inside of a vacuum. They're all interconnected. And I think that that's one thing that we really, really have to do is talk about how the issue of abortion branches out to so many other things. And we can't only fight one issue, we have to fight all of them. But we also have to fight the root of where these things are coming from. And they're coming from this mass conservative movement that's been being built since the 1970s. You know, groups like Focus on the Family, like the Federalist Society, these groups have so much influence in our society. And we need to be going after all of it. We can't only be

going after, you know, one tiny, you know, sector of the massive problem because like Ash said, it is all interconnected. Here, I'm thinking about like some political education that needs to happen, like, and that is the framework and the theories of reproductive justice. I know that they recognize so many, it recognizes so many things. But one of the things that grounds me that it recognizes, that RJ recognizes, is that dismantling white supremacy is key to achieving reproductive justice. It also says, it posits that we live interconnected lives and not single issue lives. And it also, for me, this yields that like we can't rely on the state to like provide what we need. I'm seeing abortion doulas, clinic escorts,

abortion funds, and other organizers and organizations really come together to support people having abortions and resist criminalization and state violence right now. And we need to like see more of that. You talk about pro-choice. I think it's so whack, like the logics of pro-choice. We need to go further beyond the logics of pro-choice and understand that RJ says that there is no choice without access. And furthermore, RJ posits that the key to controlling entire communities is to controlling bodies. So if they're coming for the trans people on their HRT and their access to gender affirming and medical care,

then they're going to come for everyone else. Then they're going to come for the abortion havers. They've been coming for the poor people. I think that, again, when we go back to that reproductive justice framework, we can begin to like make these connections. And I'm also saying this as an organizer, like reproductive justice is my lane, but so is like environmental justice. And so is racial justice. And I'm on the front lines of different movements. And I go back to this framework because it acknowledges that like Black people need an end to anti-Black racism and we need an end to the police and clean fucking water right now. I don't know of a framework that says that

like we ought to demand all of those things right fucking now and that we actually can't live self-determined lives without all of that shit. And so I'm ready to talk about RJ. Like I'm ready to do that political education. I think it's ongoing work. And you don't have to be an abortion doula or a frontline organizer to help someone get to their appointment, to fund an abortion, to affirm someone's decision and support their decision to have an abortion. And so we really need that. We need that vibe right now. We need people to show up that way. I think that my biggest frustration with Democrats is they've been telling us for years, like, oh, you know, vote for us, vote for us. They've been fundraising off of the issue of abortion

for decades now. They have done absolutely nothing. And I think that what they've really done is they've really made us, made us as in like the general, like American populace, feel as though voting is the only way that we can change things. And that voting is the only way that we can change things and that voting is the only way that we can like show our impact and like help our communities when in reality it isn't it's going out onto the streets it's also you know doing abortion do the work it's also you know going out defending clinics it's doing all of this work and we don't need the democrats to do that and what we need to be doing is we need to be talking about the state and how we can go beyond the state. I also want to say here, like, fuck Roe. Like, Roe is the kind of legal infrastructure that made abortion possible, but it also made it possible for, like, both the Democrats, the Republicans, the Christian evangelicals, anyone who was checking for it to take abortion

away. So, like, fuck Roe. It also gave us the trimester framework, which is like really whack. And it also kind of made it more possible for the states and the federal government to put in bans and restrictions on abortion. That's something that we need to get clear about as well as we fight to decriminalize and not legislate further abortion. Stay with us. It Could Happen Here will return after these words from our sponsors. Tales from the Shadows, presented by iHeart and Sonora. An anthology of modern-day horror stories inspired by the legends of Latin America. From ghastly encounters with shapeshifters to bone-chilling brushes with supernatural creatures. I know you.

with supernatural creatures. I know it. Take a trip and experience the horrors that have haunted Latin America since the beginning of time. Listen to Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows as part of My Cultura podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Ed Zitron, host of the Better Offline podcast, and we're kicking off our second season digging into how tech's elite has turned Silicon Valley into a playground for billionaires. billionaires. From the chaotic world of generative AI to the destruction of Google search, better offline is your unvarnished and at times unhinged look at the underbelly of tech from an industry

veteran with nothing to lose. This season I'm going to be joined by everyone from Nobel-winning economists to leading journalists in the field, and I'll be digging into why the products you love keep getting worse and naming and shaming those responsible. Don't get me wrong though, I love technology. I just hate the people in charge and want them to get back to building things that actually do things to help real people. I swear to God things can change if we're loud enough. So join me every week to understand what's happening in the tech industry and what could be done to make things better. Listen to Better Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever

else you get your podcasts. Check out betteroffline.com. On Thanksgiving Day, 1999, a five-year-old boy floated alone in the ocean. He had lost his mother trying to reach Florida from Cuba. He looked like a little angel. I mean, he looked so fresh. And his name, Elian Gonzalez, will make headlines everywhere. Elian Gonzalez. Elian Gonzalez. Elian.

Elian. Elian Gonzalez. At the heart of the story is a young boy and the question of who he belongs with. His father in Cuba. Mr. Gonzalez wanted to go home and he wanted to take his son with him. Or his relatives in Miami. Imagine that your mother died trying to get you to freedom. At the heart of it all is still this painful family separation.

Something that as a Cuban, I know all too well. Listen to Chess Peace, the Elian Gonzalez story, as part of the My Cultura podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. On July 27th, 1996, Eric Rudolph set off a nail bomb during the Summer Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia. The explosion killed one person immediately, while over 100 more were horrifically injured. In a communique claiming responsibility for the bombing, Rudolph denounced the Olympics, abortion, and LGBTQ rights with talking points that seemed ripped right out of Tucker Carlson's nightly news headlines. He wrote, The world converged upon Atlanta to celebrate the ideals of global socialism, nightly news headlines. He wrote, the practice of homosexuality. Whether it is gay marriage, homosexual adoption,

hate crime laws including gays, or the attempt to introduce a homosexual normalizing curriculum into our schools. All of these efforts should be ruthlessly opposed. The existence of our culture depends on it. Rudolph would go on to carry out more deadly attacks against abortion clinics and a queer nightclub, releasing communiques under the banner of the Army of God, a group which endorsed leaderless resistance and was linked to the white supremacist Christian Identity movement and the murder of multiple abortion providers. The Army of God was just one formation that grew out of Christian Identity, a mix of white

supremacy and Christianity that preached that Jews were satanic and people of color were subhuman and needed to be destroyed in a racial holy war. Christian identity adherents set up paramilitary compounds, Bible camps, radio stations, and churches, from the Aryan nations to the Covenant of the Sword and the Arm of the Lord, and they helped usher in a wave of homegrown terrorist groups such as the Order and individuals like Timothy McVeigh carried out the Oklahoma City bombing. Meanwhile, above ground groups like Operation Rescue cheered on the violence against abortion providers while organizing mass protests at clinics with the aim of shutting them down. In 2015, when a gunman killed three people

in a mass shooting at a clinic in Colorado Springs, the far-right anti-abortion movement had carried out eight murders, 17 attempted murders, 42 bombings, and 186 arsons, all targeted against abortion clinics and providers. Wanting to know more about the history of far-right attacks on abortion access, and if they were indeed rising in the current post-OBPS period, we sat down with Melissa Fowler of the National Abortion Federation. Unfortunately, since abortion was legalized with the Roe v. Wade decision, there has been a really coordinated campaign of harassment and violence to target abortion providers and try to stop access to legal abortion. And we've been tracking this since the late 70s. There have been a number of escalating events, everything from clinic protests and clinic blockades all the way up to arsons and

murders of providers just because they do this work. So when we talk about this, it's very real. It's a very real threat. And it is really terrorism that's happening by a coordinated group of people and individuals who really are aimed at stopping any access to legal abortion care. So we definitely have seen for a long time that there is an overlap between the people that target abortion providers and the people that are involved in other types of violent and extremist movements, including white nationalists. We've known that for a long time. It's existed many years. In fact, in the 80s, the KKK began creating wanted posters listing the personal information of abortion providers. And the first provider who was murdered, Dr. David Gunn, who was

murdered in 1993, was murdered by someone who was a white supremacist who had been mentored by someone who was a former KKK member. And so we've seen the overlap of these groups. And in the last couple of years, we've seen that overlap be more coordinated and more public. So on January 6th at the insurrection, a lot of our members were watching on TV and recognized people because they were the same people that protest at their clinics. In fact, providers had even noted that day of pulling in the parking lot and not seeing their usual protesters and wondering what was going on because they saw less people outside of clinics. And we later found out it's because many of them were at the Capitol. And, you know, a number of people who are active in the anti-abortion movement have boasted about being at the insurrection, posted video and pictures of

themselves at the insurrection. And so it's very clear to us and we very much see that overlap. We also see more and more of these right wing groups actually showing up and participating at anti-abortion events. So attending some of the marches around the country in a more visible way than we've seen in the past. Sometimes these right-wing groups will do, quote-unquote, security for the anti-abortion movement. So when they have people who are speaking or they're holding large events to target providers, they'll get security assistance from white nationalist groups. And so, you know, it's particularly disturbing to see. It doesn't surprise us because we've known that there's an overlap in these groups for a really long time.

But as we've seen in recent years, as people seem to be more okay being more visible about their membership in these groups or more vocal about their hate, we're seeing it more publicly. The anti-abortion movement is not doing anything to distance themselves from these groups. So since the leak happened last May, we immediately saw an increase in harassment and online posts that were threatening toward abortion providers. Even though we got a preview of the decision and we knew what was coming and that it would lead to clinics closing, that wasn't enough for some people. We saw calls for people to go and burn clinics or go and take matters into their own hands and not wait for the decision to go and try and stop abortions from being provided that moment. And so we track those types of

online posts. We saw a real spike in May and June around the decision. And we also started immediately hearing from our member clinics that they were seeing an increase in protesters, an increase in threats, and an increase in the intensity and hostility of those activities. more really aggressive protesters that were touching patients and staff, yelling at patients and staff, photographing patients and staff. And since the decision, we have seen a number of clinics close in places that are considered more hostile to abortion rights. But we know from our past experience that when a clinic closes, the protesters don't just give up and go home. In many cases, anti-abortion individuals will travel the same paths that patients are traveling, and they will go to other states where abortion remains accessible and target the clinics there. So we are seeing an increase in activity in the places where abortion is remaining legal and where patients are going to get care. And we're still, you know, we're just now collecting the numbers for 2022. So we don't, we won't have those yet for a little bit, but we do know anecdotally and

what we're hearing from members and what we're seeing on the ground is that there is an increase in that activity. There've been a few arsons this year. We're also seeing clinic invasions continue. And these are instances where people might pose as patients. In some cases, they go to a lot of work to try and infiltrate the clinic and find out about their practices for making appointments. And then they will pose as patients, make fake appointments, and try to get into the clinic forcibly if they have to. And then once they're inside, they're harassing patients. They refuse to leave. In some cases, they hand out flowers or sing or yell. In California, they walked through the halls screaming the name of the doctor, ordering the doctor to come out

and face them. And it was very traumatic for staff. And they didn't know if this person was armed or what they were doing. And, you know, they had patients in procedure rooms with them or in counseling rooms. And they were, you know, locking the door and sheltering in place. And it was very frightening. And we continue to see these types of invasions happen across the country. Ironically, however, laws passed in the 1990s designed to protect people seeking abortions and reproductive health care have now been weaponized against those who have been taking action in the wake of the Dobbs decision, most notably under the banner of Jane's Revenge, a moniker used by anonymous activists taking action, usually in the form of broken windows and graffiti, against anti-choice, crisis pregnancy centers and beyond.

As Natasha Leonard wrote in The Intercept, Congress passed the FACE Act in 1994, calling the assassinations and mass clinic blockades, making the physical obstruction of clinics a federal offense, as well as threats of force and violence against clinic workers and clinic property, and its 30 years on the books has been used sparingly. Now this law is being used to prosecute two reproductive rights activists who allegedly spray painted the outside walls of misleading and dangerous crisis pregnancy centers known as CPCs and now face up to 12 years in prison for the graffiti.

This use of the FACE Act against those fighting to protect reproductive freedom and autonomy by weaponizing law supposedly aimed at those threatening it, mirrors the numerous domestic terrorism charges lodged against forest defenders in Atlanta, made possible by a bill in 2017 following the massacre of nine black parishioners by the white supremacist, Dylann Roof. Stay with us, It Could Happen Here will return after these words from our sponsors. Welcome, I'm Danny Thrill. Won't you join me at the fire and dare enter? Nocturnum, Tales from the Shadows, presented by I Heart and Sonorum. An anthology of modern day horror stories inspired by the legends of Latin America. From ghastly encounters with shapeshifters, to bone-chilling brushes with supernatural creatures.

Take a trip and experience the horrors that have haunted Latin America since the beginning of time. Listen to Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows as part of my Cultura podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Ed Zitron, host of the Better Offline podcast, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. varnished and at times unhinged look at the underbelly of tech from an industry veteran with nothing to lose. This season I'm going to be joined by everyone from Nobel winning economists to leading journalists in the field and I'll be digging into why the products you love keep getting worse and naming and shaming those responsible. Don't get me wrong though, I love technology. I just hate the people in charge and want them to get back to building things that actually do things to help real people. I swear to God things can change if we're loud enough. So join me every week to understand what's happening in the tech industry and what could be done to make things better.

Listen to Better Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever else you get your podcasts. Check out betteroffline.com. On Thanksgiving Day 1999, a five-year-old boy floated alone in the ocean. He had lost his mother trying to reach Florida from Cuba. He looked like a little angel. I mean, he looked so fresh. And his name, Elian Gonzalez, will make headlines everywhere. Elian Gonzalez. Elian.

Elian. Elian. Elian. Elian. Elian Gonzalez. Elian Gonzalez. Elian. Elian. Elian. Elian Gonzalez. At the heart of the story is a young boy and the question of who he belongs with. His father in Cuba. Mr. Gonzalez wanted to go home and he wanted to take his son with him.

Or his relatives in Miami. Imagine that your mother died trying to get you to freedom. At the heart of it all is still this painful family separation. Something that as a Cuban, I know all too well. Listen to Chess Peace, the Elian Gonzalez story, as part of the My Cultura podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. As the culture wars deepen on the right and even mainstream GOP leaders have embraced white nationalist talking points, many openly neo-Nazi and white supremacist groups have come to see the

anti-choice movement as a lucrative recruiting ground and a point of engagement with the wider right-wing base. Again, we hear from clinic defender Bex in New York and abortion doula Ash in North Carolina. In our case in New York City, the group that we defend the clinic from is this Catholic group that gets an armed escort from the NYPD. And so that's one thing that really, really scares me, you know, when we talk about the far right is that the NYPD has been aiding these far right groups and giving them escorts for a very, very long time. And so I think that kind of like goes to a lot of the fears that a lot of us have when it comes to this kind of collaboration and the changing face of anti-abortion protesters. We already know down here that cops and Klan go hand in hand. And unfortunately, like newly white radicalized,

I don't know if you can call them that, but like politicized white women who want to defend clinics, they saw, they realized these realities, like the cops are not here to defend you or people who want to have abortions. And we actually don't need the cops to have abortions and to make reproductive justice a real possibility in all of our lives. I'm thinking here also about like the need to decriminalize abortion and not legalize abortion. Again, as an abolitionist, as an abortion doula, and as someone who's had abortions, I'm making these connections. And as a trans person, right, I'm making these connections that like the folks who are standing outside of abortion clinics, the anti-choice, the anti-abortion folks, these are the same people who are pro-police people. These are the same people who are racist in our communities, who are the same people perpetuating these rhetorics that like gay people are groomers, but also that like critical race theory, for example, shouldn't be taught in school. I am making these connections. And I'm also going back to that reproductive justice framework that reminds me that like, what do we have to do now is that we have to fight together.

reminds me that like, what do we have to do now is that we have to fight together. And one of the ways we can do that is by making these connections, right? Like, these people are Christian evangelicals. They are fascists explicitly, we need to say that. And it behooves all of us to like, really fight together along those lines. In the year since the attempted pro-Trump coup on January 6, neo-Nazis, white supremacists, and Proud Boys have ramped up their presence at anti-choice events. The neo-Nazi group Patriot Front has shown up to march alongside various anti-abortion groups, often to be met with handshakes from anti-abortion activists and police escorts to protect them from anti-fascists. Several weeks ago, openly fascist groups took part in the yearly Walk for Life rally in San Francisco, California, as thousands took to the city streets after being bussed in from across the state.

Marching alongside them were Proud Boys decked out in their uniforms and masked neo-Nazis holding openly racist banners. Wanting to know more about this continued crossover, we spoke with anti-fascist journalist Vishal Singh, based in Southern California. In the wake of the reversal of Roe v. Wade, there was a big spike in demonstrations from the right wing, where they were targeting clinics, they were targeting any kind of school boards with any kind of reproductive health, just anything. They were doing it for several months. In places like California, where abortion is still provided and still

accessible, that makes a lot of the anti-abortion movement still feel like they're the victim of something, even though they just had this massive political victory. And at least in Southern California, I've noticed that they've continued to rally. They've had some pretty large rallies, especially for the pro-life thing that happened recently where cities around the country, including San Francisco, had some pretty alarmingly sized anti-abortion rallies. extremist elements, white supremacist elements showing up quite explicitly, quite proudly. And here in Southern California, I've seen that starting to pick up again. It's almost building off of the momentum from all these rallies targeting drag shows, which have been excellent networking opportunities for different right-wing groups to work with more far-right extremists and even all-out white supremacists. Once they get into a groove together, even if these groups don't always get along,

they have a revolving door of enemies. And if it's time to target somebody because they think there's an advantage to it in the moment, then they're going to do it. And right now, it does seem like reproductive rights is back in the crosshairs alongside LGBTQ rights. Just a couple of weeks ago, there was a rally in Southern California outside of a Walgreens shareholders meeting, where a lot of right-wing activists were marching through the hotel chanting that Walgreens is killing people because you can get an abortion pill through them. I think this has created a very tenuous situation where there's always someone to go after. If it's not Planned Parenthood this week, next week, go after your local pharmacy, go after your local clinic, go after your local doctor. The anti-abortion movement is very malleable. It's very fluid.

And right now they're taking whoever they can get. And that includes a lot of openly radical militant groups who they turn to as groups that can do, quote unquote, security work, you know, because they're afraid of the left coming and attacking them. As our guests from across the country have discussed, the more mainstream organizations with deep pockets also aren't attempting to distance themselves from the street-level fascist groups flocking to right-wing demonstrations, especially at a time when far-right violence is escalating across the country. In our last segment, IGD correspondent Marcella speaks on recent anti-choice demonstrations which brought together both the mainstream and the fringe, organized in part by a progressive anti-abortion uprising, which weaponizes feminist and progressive language, against drugstore giants CVS and Walgreens in an effort to stop them from selling abortion medication.

Anti-abortion people protested outside CVS and Walgreens this past Saturday in multiple places to prevent pharmacies from selling abortion pills. I'm honestly really angry at this, not only because these people are trying to make sure they completely take away our rights to bodily autonomy but because they're also making me have to defend CVS and Walgreens. I've also thought about protesting outside CVS and Walgreens but not because I'm obsessed with those people's reproductive organs. I'm tired of them putting everything I need behind a glass. Anyway like these abortion protests outside CVS and Walgreens were organized by the Progressive Anti-Abortion Uprising.

Yes, I will say that again. The Progressive Anti-Abortion Uprising, P-A-A-A-U, which claims to want to dismantle the abortion industrial complex. Honestly, it sounds like the P-A-A-A-U thinks that you can just add industrial complex to something to make it sound bad. Or they're just trying to sound cool to make people forget that they are fascists like one interesting thing about PAAU is they want to be so cool that their lead organizer Lauren Handy calls herself a feminist I honestly can't believe that I have to say this but being anti-abortion immediately disqualifies you from being a feminist. Fun fact about Lauren Handy is that she randomly, she didn't randomly, she was caught with five fetuses in her apartment and was indicted for blocking a clinic in Washington, D.C. in 2020.

So she's out here blocking clinics, collecting fetuses, just like doing the worst. This is like just the tip of the berg about how like these people are trying to act like they're freedom fighters. The PAAU spokesperson literally said, and I quote, Their vision to turn pharmacies into abortion businesses, which will exploit and kill disproportionately low income people and people of color for profit will be met with nonviolent resistance at every turn. That's hilarious. These people are literally trying to make fascism sound like freedom fighting. Like if PAU actually cared about low income people and people of color, they would be giving away abortion pills at like every corner, not trying to stop people from buying them. And also they'd be boycotting CVS and Walgreens for totally different reasons. They wouldn't be boycotting Walgreens and CVS for trying to sell people abortion pills. What

they would be doing is that they would be boycotting Walgreens and CVS for trying to sell people abortion pills. What they would be doing is that they would be boycotting Walgreens and CVS for putting toothpaste behind a locked glass, which makes it much harder for poor people to get a five-finger discount on things that they need. That is going to do it for us today. Thanks for tuning in. Once again, this has been It's Going Down, occupying the offices of It Could Happen Here. Be sure to follow us online at itsgodown.org and on Mastodon at IGD underscore news. Until next time. It Could Happen Here is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from Cool Zone Media, visit our website, coolzonemedia.com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app,

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