A man was arrested over the weekend for vandalizing a Planned Parenthood clinic in Washington state — apparently in response to a judge's ruling forcing protesters to move further away from the facility.
According to the Spokesman-Review, the vandal used rocks to smash 14 windows at the facility in Spokane Valley on Saturday afternoon, causing $25,000 worth of damage, before being arrested on site. Paul Dillon, a spokesman for Planned Parenthood, said he doesn't believe it was a random act because a responding officer heard the suspect call the group "baby killers."
In addition, a judge recently ordered members of the so-called Church at Planned Parenthood to move their protests 35 feet away from the clinic. Planned Parenthood filed a lawsuit against the church alleging that its demonstrations were interfering with treatment and intimidating patients and staff.
The Church at Planned Parenthood describes itself as "a worship service at the gates of Hell," according to its website. "The Church at Planned Parenthood is a gathering of Christians for the worship of God and the corporate prayer for repentance for this nation, repentance for the apathetic church and repentance of our blood guiltiness in this abortion holocaust."
The effort is being led in part by Pastor Ken Peters, the leader of the pro-Trump Patriot Church Network.
Last Friday, Planned Parenthood filed a motion seeking a permanent injunction against the group.
"You can't escape that in terms of motive," Dillon said. "This coming right after certainly is alarming."
Dillon noted that the attack comes amid "a ratcheting up, both locally and nationally, of 'inflammatory, hateful rhetoric,'" the newspaper reported. The same Planned Parenthood clinic was the site of a bomb attack by white supremacists in 1996.
According to the National Abortion Federation, anti-abortion violence more than doubled in 2017 and reached an all-time high in 2019 — the most recent year for which it has released statistics. Back in March, the New Yorker explored links between anti-abortion extremism, the QAnon conspiracy theory, and the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection.
