Anti-Choice Group Targets Women Harmed by Abortion Bans
Stochastic terrorism involves the use of mass communications to disseminate, repeat, and amplify hostile rhetoric against a target, predictably elevating the statistical risk of ideologically motivated violence by random individuals against the target.1 “In an incident of stochastic terrorism, the person who pulls the trigger gets the blame… Meanwhile, the person or persons who have triggered the triggerman, in other words, the actual stochastic terrorists, often go free, protected by plausible deniability.”2
In the late 20th century, abortion providers were the main targets of the hostile rhetoric used by the organizations and activists within the militant wing of the anti-abortion movement. Predictably, this hostile vitriol increased the statistical risk of ideologically motivated violence by random individuals and lead to the assassinations of multiple abortion providers.
In the first two decades of the 21st century, abortion providers remained the main targets of hostile anti-abortion rhetoric; however, the use of this rhetoric was no longer confined to militants—it had become mainstream. Predictably, the hostile, absolutists, and inflammatory rhetoric increased the statistical risk of ideologically motivated violence by random individuals and lead to multiple attacks of violence, including the assassination of a physician, as well as multiple murders.
Since the 2022 Dobbs decision overturning Roe v. Wade, several of the more fanatical activists and groups within the anti-abortion movement have directed their hostile and inflammatory rhetoric at a new target: women and families who speak about the harm they endured from state abortion bans. This is a concerning development.
Jennifer Adkins and John Adkins, Ashley Brandt, Samantha Casiano, Kate Cox, Dr. Austin Dennard, Jessica Djukanovic, Taylor Edwards and Travis Edwards, Kayla Smith, Lauren Miller, Megan Kling, and Jillaine St.Michel: these thirteen individuals were all harmed by their states’ abortion bans.
In July, lawyers with Amplify Legal representing the above thirteen individuals harmed by their states’ abortion bans sent a ‘cease and desist’ letter to Lila Rose, founder and president of anti-abortion media organization Live Action, and to the organization's assistant editor Nancy Flanders. The letter meticulously details alledged instances in which Live Action falsified and/or twisted details of the thirteen individuals’ stories and experiences in cruel, incendiary, and defamatory ways.
For example, one of the individuals, Kayla Smith, has a history of a dangerous form of pregnancy hypertension called preeclampsia. She was 19 weeks into an already high-risk pregnancy when she and her husband learned their fetus, a boy they'd named Brooks, had a fatal and inoperable heart abnormality and would die shortly after birth. This also meant that Kayla was even more likely to develop preeclampsia, but because of the state's abortion ban, she and her husband were forced to travel out of state to induce early labor and delivery (labor induction abortion). ‘Baby Brooks,’ as his parents affectionately call him, did not survive the delivery.
Live Action claimed that Brooks died “by lethal injection in the name of pro‐abortion propaganda.” While fetal asystole is sometimes performed prior to the induction of labor and delivery, it was not undertaken in this case and it is never undertaken in service of propaganda.
Live Action also falsely claimed that Brooks’s fatal and inoperable heart anomaly was operable, and that the abortion was not medically necessary, and suggested Kayla was flippant in regards to the value of her son’s life.
In addition to what is quoted in the cease and desist letter, the 2024 Live Action article cited (archived here) further claims that “the goal” of Kayla Smith’s labor induction abortion “was to ensure Brooks did not survive” (italics in original); that Baby Brooks was intentionally killed and that his death was a “murder”; and that Kayla hadn’t “truly been worried about the development of preeclampsia.”
Accurate details of Kayla Smith’s experience, detailed in a legal complaint against the State of Idaho, have been publicly available since 2023, before the Live Action article in question was published.
The cease and desist letter also reveals what appears to be a pattern of recycling of several similar, predetermined narratives against multiple individuals. For example, Live Action accused multiple individuals of carrying out eugenic killings. — Really awful stuff!
This is stochastic terrorism.
Live Action’s stochastic terrorism targeting women and their families who have been harmed by abortion bans increases the statistical risk of ideologically motivated violence by random individuals, and, as documented by Amplify Legal, has already lead to death threats against several of the individuals and their families.
In the cease and desist letter, Amplify Legal informed Lila Rose and Nancy Flanders that death threats were being made against their clients and demanded that all false accusations be retracted.
Lila Rose, Nancy Flanders, and Live Action could have chosen to oblige. Doing so would have demonstrated a proper concern for the safety of the individuals they've targeted. Instead, Lila Rose, Nancy Flanders, and Live Action responded: “The answer is ‘No.’”
Angove, J. (n.d.). Philosophical and public security law implications of “stochastic terrorism.” Philosophical and Public Security Law Implications of “Stochastic Terrorism” | Max Planck Institute for the Study of Crime, Security and Law. https://csl.mpg.de/en/projects/philosophical-and-public-security-law-implications-of-stochastic-terrorism
Tarico, V. (2015, December 1). Christianist Republicans systematically incited Colorado Clinic Assault. AwayPoint. https://valerietarico.com/2015/11/28/christianist-republicans-systematically-incited-colorado-clinic-assault/