Study: Abortion clinic violence still prevalent

A new study co-authored by an IU professor reports crime directed toward abortion clinics in the United States has not dwindled. \nThough such criminal activity has fallen from national headlines, the study claims workers at abortion clinics often confront "vandalism and harassment." \nAccording to the press release, 361 abortion clinics across 48 states responded to the survey. The figures they provided said 7 percent of clinics and 9 percent of their staff were victims of "major or minor violence." In addition, 7 percent reported minor acts of violence, 27 percent said they had dealt with minor vandalism and 44 percent reported they had been harassed. \nIU criminal justice professor William Pridemore said the study is part of an arching study of the "right-wing social movement." \nPridemore worked with professor Joshua Freilich of the City University of New York. Pridemore said Freilich's area of expertise is such social movement, and the two have teamed for similar studies and projects since meeting in graduate school. \nPridemore said the study fit well into Freilich's research. He also said he and Freilich had only been able to find one similar study, and it did not go into as much depth. \n"This is just kind of one of those areas that fall under that larger umbrella of research," Pridemore said. "There'd only been one study in the past conducted about crimes against clinics."\nThe study was conducted by the Feminist Majority Foundation. Pridemore said he and Freilich took the data and fit it into the larger study.\nPridemore said all surveys were answered anonymously for safety purposes. \n"We don't have exact information about any of the clinics, and that's just for normal anonymity purposes," Pridemore said. "This is a very sensitive political issue, and so there can't be any identifying information about any specific clinic."\nThe study did not find a correlation between state laws protecting abortion clinics and reduced violence. The study found that states with stringent anti-abortion violence laws were no less likely to experience some form of criminal activity targeting abortion clinics, according to the press release. The study found neither a backlash against such legislation nor a drastic reduction in violence and vandalism. \nBoth scenarios were hypothesized right after a wave of such legislation was passed at the beginning of the last decade, according to the report. Pridemore said testing both hypotheses was more for informational purposes than to try and establish trends. \n"That to me was the motivating factor ... just the interest in testing these hypotheses and seeing which one is correct," Pridemore said. "Essentially what we found is that ... neither one is correct.\nPridemore said they found serious criminal activity was down from the late 1990s. He said it still happened, but people didn't pay as much attention to it since it had been pushed from the headlines.\n"Sometimes they're very serious acts, you know, like a bomb or rarely a murder or a very violent assault," Pridemore said. "We thought (the data) needed to be seen."\nPridemore said both he and Freilich thought the information was important to release because people tend to overlook this particular brand of terrorism.\n"We certainly think domestic terrorism is an overlooked issue," Pridemore said. "I would think that any serious attack against an abortion clinic ... would fit under that"