Just A Joke...

We Engage was happy to have members of Capital Care Clinic Escorts of Toledo, OH join us in Phoenix, AZ to “counter-message” the Operation Save America (OSA) National Event “Further Up and Further In.” Upon her return home, Kristin Hady, Capital Care’s Escort Coordinator wrote this and graciously allowed us to share it here. Also, Kristin was featured on a recent episode of the Feminist Sleeper Cell podcast - check it out!

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This is Jason Storms. He replaces Rusty Thomas as the head of Operation Rescue/Operation Save America, a group of anti-choice “abolitionists” who advocate for the total abolition of abortion. He was also atop the scaffolding in DC for the attempted insurrection (which he now says didn’t happen, apparently forgetting the internet exists) and out in the streets of Kenosha with other militant white folks and their plethora of automatic rifles.

In this clip (see below), Jason is addressing a group of their youth. Youths. He’s asking for common arguments/positions they’ll find in the secular world. One of the kids had yelled out, “You’re not my judge,” which is what Jason was responding to.

Do you hear the way he jokes about murder? It’s a lighthearted, fun little quip that the CHILDREN laugh about. “Haha…we wouldn’t murder providers…*wink*”. This is a JOKE to them.

I had a lot of one-on-one time (with spectators) with Jason this week. We covered a lot of ground, like queer folks, trans folks, drug addiction, FURRIES (y’all he brought them up on two separate occasions, not me), Antifa, etc. But Friday, I directly asked him whether or not he supported murdering abortion providers, that tiny little doctrinal difference in their movement that everyone laughs about and acts like it’s no big deal.

Do you know how long it took him to give me any sort of answer? About ten minutes. Ten minutes of him evading and whining and dodging the question- why? Shouldn’t that be an easy answer?

It’s going to get really bad for us. A new militant head of their org, abolitionists running candidates up and down the tickets. School boards, city councils, recorder offices, sheriffs - they will get in anywhere they can because people don’t pay attention and all they need is a foot in the door. We will lose Roe and these folks will be embedded everywhere to make sure that we won’t even be able to advocate for ourselves locally.

And maybe they’ll murder a few people or bomb a couple clinics too, for good measure.

I joke a lot (because you have to), but this shit is real and these people are real and what they are doing *is real*. Ten years ago, I never thought I’d be getting in the faces of domestic terrorists to ask if they believe murder is okay, but here we are. Buckle up, we’re going to need all hands on deck.

*adding that this was made possible only because of We Engage and Abortion Access Front. Please consider giving to these two amazing groups of folks who continue to evolve and help shed a light on the dark underbelly of the anti-choice movement!