As soon as we heard that the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, we knew there would be trouble. Falling on a Friday doesn’t help matters. Right on queue, Democrat politicians, leftist celebrities and social justice warriors were takin to social media to say that the Supreme Court is illegitimate. They implicitly or more directly call for a show of rage, you know, riots. Also, some racism against Justice Thomas may be seen.
This will serve as a historical record of the event in general and, more specifically, a historical record of those calling for rage as well as the rage itself which, it could be argued, began in May.
The times I provide are in EST. Screenshots will vary due to time zone differences.
Earlier this week the office of a Wisconsin anti abortion organization was firebombed.
I have received a statement from the group claiming responsibility. They call themselves “Jane’s Revenge” (a reference to the Jane Collective).
More follows.
The statement was sent to me through an anonymous intermediary I trust. It is hosted on a Tor site (link to follow). The statement is titled “first communique” and opens with the words, “This is not a declaration of war”.
They go on to state that this Molotov attack was “only a warning”. Positioning themselves in response to lethal attacks on healthcare providers by anti-choice activists, they promise to adopt “increasingly extreme tactics” to maintain control over their own bodies.
They are issuing a 30 day ultimatum for all anti choice organizations and fake clinics (crisis pregnancy centers) to disband. They claim to have the ability to reach multiple states and repeat that the attack in Wisconsin was just a “warning”.
They conclude by noting they are made up of several organizations: “We are in your city. We are in every city. Your repression only strengthens our accompliceship and resolve.”
I have not had any direct contact with people claiming to be members of this group or to have been responsible for this attack. The source who sent this to me has a reputation for extreme reliability.
I believe this statement is newsworthy for a number of reasons, including the fact that a large number of people are speculating that this attack may have been a false flag.
I would be very surprised if this was not a legitimate attack.
For clarification folks, if you want to download the txt file you will need to do so using that link in Tor, not your normal browser. I could’ve been clearer but it was last when I got the tip.:
First Communique
This is not a declaration of war. War has been upon us for decades. A war which we did not want, and did not provoke. Too long have we been attacked for asking for basic medical care. Too long have we been shot, bombed, and forced into childbirth without consent.
This was only a warning. We demand the disbanding of all anti-choice establishments, fake clinics, and violent anti-choice groups within the next thirty days. This is not a mere “difference of opinion” as some have framed it. We are literally fighting for our lives. We will not sit still while we are killed and forced into servitude. We have run thin on patience and mercy for those who seek to strip us of what little autonomy we have left. As you continue to bomb clinics and assassinate doctors with impunity, so too shall we adopt increasingly extreme tactics to maintain freedom over our own bodies.
We are forced to adopt the minimum military requirement for a political struggle. Again, this was only a warning. Next time the infrastructure of the enslavers will not survive. Medical imperialism will not face a passive enemy. Wisconsin is the first flashpoint, but we are all over the US, and we will issue no further warnings.
And we will not stop, we will not back down, nor win we hesitate to strike until the inalienable right to manage our own health is returned to us.
We are not one group, but many. We are in your city. We are in every city. Your repression only strengthens our accomplice-ship and resolve. -Jane’s Revenge
Jane’s Revenge is a far-left extremist group which claimed responsibility for an attack against an anti-abortion group’s office in Madison, Wisconsin, in May 2022 after leaks revealed that the U.S. Supreme Court was considering overturning the Roe v. Wade decision that found a constitutional right to abortion. The group’s name is a reference to the “Jane Collective,” an underground organization in Chicago that helped women obtain abortions prior to the decision. [1]
Jane’s Revenge claims membership throughout the United States and a willingness to commit future attacks, though neither the organization’s size nor existence has been independently verified. [2]
At 6 a.m. on May 8, 2022, the headquarters of Wisconsin Family Action, an anti-abortion group based in Madison, was hit with an arson and vandalism attack. Police reported that the office was first hit with a Molotov cocktail that didn’t ignite, and then a fire was started that burned a wall. Two windows were also smashed, and further damage was done during the fire department’s efforts to put out the fire. No one was hurt. [3]
The outside of the building was graffitied with the anarchist insignia, the numbers “1312” (meaning “all cops are bastards”), and “if abortions aren’t safe then you aren’t either.” [4]
Claim of Responsibility
On May 10, Robert Evans, a journalist who has written for the Dutch media outlet Bellingcat, reported on Twitter that he had received a statement through “an anonymous intermediary I trust” from Jane’s Revenge which claimed responsibility for the Madison attack. [5][6] The statement read: [7]
This is not a declaration of war. War has been upon us for decades. A war which we did not want, and did not provoke. Too long have we been attacked for asking for basic medical care. Too long have we been shot, bombed, and forced into childbirth without consent. [8]
The statement also demanded “the disbanding of all anti-choice establishments” within 30 days, and states that its first attack was “only a warning,” but there will be future attacks until “the inalienable right to manage our own health is returned to us.” The group claims to have a presence across the United States that could launch further attacks. [9]
I have not fact-checked the following Wikipedia page or the sources it cites, so please understand that I am not implying it is totally accurate, but it purports to have time-lime of Jane’s Revenge attacks; 19 of them (so far).
Within the month we anticipate a verdict will be issued that overturns Roe v. Wade, setting in motion an evisceration of abortion access across the so-called United States.
This is an event that should inspire rage in millions of people who can get pregnant…and yet, the response thus far has been tepid.
We have agonized over this apparent absence of indignation. Why is it that we are so afraid to unleash hell upon those who are destroying us? Fear of state repression is valid, but this goes deeper than that.
Your anger has been stolen from you.
To this we say: no more. We need to get angry.
We need the state to feel our full wrath.
We need to express this madness fully and with ferocity. We need to quit containing ourselves.
We need them to be afraid of us.
Last week, an evil creature slaughtered 19 children and two teachers in their classroom in Texas. While some may call this horrific act “senseless” or “random,” we know that’s not the case. We know that this was an act of male domination and patriarchal violence, meant to make women, children and teachers live in fear. We know it is deeply connected to the reproductive violence about to be unleashed on this land by an illegitimate institution founded in white male supremacy.
We cannot think of a clearer example in this time of the need for autonomously organized self-defense networks. We cannot think of a clearer example of the desperate need for those who can get pregnant to learn how to confront misogynistic violence directly. We also believe this unlearning of our self-containment can begin in the streets when we organize alongside one another to confront state forces of evil and domination.
Several weeks ago, we watched and waited as self-proclaimed “feminist organizations” and non-profits took the lead on arranging their demure little rallies for freedom. We were told to let them handle it, and to defer to the political machinery that has thusfar failed to secure our liberation. In a world where the news media has an attention span of about 24 hours on their best day, we knew these hollow gestures would fail to capture attention. We knew we were witnessing counterinsurgency in action. We cannot sit idly by anymore while our anger is yet again channeled into Democratic party fundraisers and peace parades with the police.
We were even told we must cooperate with them because they work alongside abortion providers and clinic escorts…a group of people who, at this moment in time, cannot possibly risk their lives or their livelihoods any further than they already are. We honor these providers and their service. We do not honor those who would use them as a shield against direct and militant action. We believe the greatest honor we could give them would be to act meaningfully in their name.
The time to act was decades ago. The next best time is now.
Whatever form your fury takes, the first step is feeling it.
The next step is carrying that anger out into the world and expressing it physically.
Consider this your call to action.
On the night the final ruling is issued——a specific date we cannot yet predict, but we know is arriving imminently——we are asking for courageous hearts to come out after dark.
Whoever you are and wherever you are, we are asking for you to do what you can to make your anger known.
We have selected a time of 8pm for actions nationwide to begin, but know that this is a general guideline. There may be other considerations involved in planning time and place. We do not claim to speak for every community or crew. We are simply calling out to you. And we hope you answer our cries.
To the cis male allies who would be interested in joining us in the streets, we say: you are certainly welcome, but you must use your privilege to shield and support us in a way that also enables us to get angry. Do not police us. Do not tell us what is and isn’t appropriate. But do aid us when we are in need.
We must also say: do not wait until the verdict arrives to organize.
Make plans now. Take action now.
It is not enough to share images on Twitter and Instagram (though that is still important to do). We cannot sustain this movement any longer with the same few hundred people who have been beaten down over and over again. We must not only circulate this call on social media, but reach out to communities who may not be in touch with “radical circles” online.
Mass action requires mass outreach.
We would not be issuing this call if we did not believe in our bones that this kind of action is possible. We have witnessed the wom*n of Argentina, Mexico and Poland organize autonomously for their reproductive liberation. We know it can be done…but we need every soul reading this to do their part.
To those who work to oppress us: If abortion isn’t safe, you aren’t either. We are everywhere.
Tomorrow Saturday, 25th June, 10am. George Square, Glasgow, there is a march in support of the striking railway workers.
So you’re pissed off being driven into the grubber, angry at being promised pie in the sky, those illusions of high skilled, high wage jobs, sometime in the next ten to twelve years, perhaps, and in the meantime, go to the food bank, watch your kids shiver at home during the winter, see your elderly rapidly going to their grave earlier than they should. All this while the rich parasite class grow fat on your austerity. Are you angry at those with salaries in the £100,000’s telling you not to ask for a big pay rise as it will only feed inflation. At the same time, the boss of Birmingham airport has just been given a 10% rise in his salary. They are having a good laugh at us. Well you have a right to be angry, this is an extremely wealth country, meanwhile the government is driving the population into dire poverty, while we have an army of millionaires and billionaires, all their wealth gleaned from your labour. So let’s get angry, really angry and take our anger onto the streets, join the picket lines of those strikers fighting for a decent wage increase, and protecting their conditions. Tomorrow Saturday, 25th June, 10am. George Square, Glasgow, there is a march in support of the striking railway workers. Join them bring your family and friends, bring your street, bring placards, come and make plenty of noise. Their fight is our fight, we the ordinary people of this country, are all being hit by this tsunami of avoidable hardship and with it will come evictions, dire poverty, health problems, children’s potential stunted, and a crumbling health service that will end up being privatised. Tomorrow Saturday, 25th June, 10am. George Square, Glasgow, there is a march in support of the striking railway workers.
A historical look at how anarchists in the 1990s mobilized against attacks on reproductive freedom and autonomy by taking direct action and building autonomous infrastructure.
By Spencer Beswick
As the Supreme Court prepares to reverse Roe v. Wade under a Democratic president, house, and senate, it is clear that action at the ballot box is insufficient to protect abortion. Reproductive rights were not won by electoral means, and that is not how we will defend them.
Anarcha-feminist traditions of grassroots struggle and autonomous abortion infrastructure offer alternative strategies. As the anarcha-feminist Liz Highleyman put it in 1992, “the day when abortion is again made illegal may come sooner than we like to think. We must be ready to take our bodies and our lives into our own hands.”
Anarcha-feminists were on the front lines of the struggle for abortion throughout the 1980s and ‘90s. They were convinced that Roe v. Wade would not last forever and that they could not depend on the state and the legal system to protect reproductive freedom. Anarcha-feminists took a three-pronged approach to abortion struggle: defense of abortion clinics, construction of grassroots reproductive health infrastructure, and an anti-state approach to building feminist dual power.
Defense Of Abortion Clinics
Anarcha-feminists physically protected abortion clinics from the likes of Operation Rescue, which was formed in 1986 to act as anti-abortion shock troops. They assaulted abortion clinics and supported bombings and assassinations of abortion providers using the slogan “if you believe abortion is murder, act like it’s murder.”
Broad feminist and queer coalitions mobilized against Operation Rescue. Anarcha-feminists introduced black bloc tactics and a willingness to engage in physical confrontation. They used these confrontational tactics to successfully protect clinics in NYC, Minneapolis, San Francisco, and across the country.
When Operation Rescue attempted to host a summer training camp in Minneapolis in 1993, anarchists physically confronted them, blocked them in their church, disrupted their meetings, vandalized their materials, protected clinics from their attacks, and generally made them unwelcome. Although some liberals opposed these tactics, anarchists and other militants handed Operation Rescue a major defeat and ran them out of town.
Reflecting on the experience, a local anarchist named Liza wrote that “it seems like no matter how hard activists fight, we rarely win. Except this time we were victorious. We fought against these fascists … We saw the demise of Operation Rescue in the Twin Cities, partly due to our unprecedented aggressiveness and opposition, and partly because their movement is losing, big time.”
Poster distributed by anarchists in Minneapolis (Profane Existence 1993)
Construction Of Grassroots Reproductive Health Infrastructure
Anarcha-feminists established autonomous infrastructure and self-help groups in which people learned to take care of their own bodies and induce abortions on their own terms. As one anarchist put it in a 1991 article, “medicine is something we must take into our own hands. Because how can you smash the state if you’re still walking funny from a visit to the gynecologist’s?”
Threats to legal abortion produced an urgent need, as Highleyman wrote in 1992, to “rebuild the network of feminist women’s health and reproductive resources that existed in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s.” Anarchists called for the revival of groups like the Chicago Jane Collective that provided over ten thousand underground abortions before they were legalized. While anarcha-feminists supported abortions provided by accredited doctors, their focus on women’s autonomy led them to draw on alternative traditions of women-controlled health practices. This includes herbal and holistic methods which women have used “throughout the ages … to control their fertility and reproduction.”
Anarchists advocated expanding grassroots infrastructure and self-organization to gain the knowledge and skills necessary to perform their own reproductive care. They argued that this would produce true reproductive freedom and autonomy that was independent of the state and its laws.
Anti-State Approach To Building Feminist Dual Power
Anarcha-feminists did not appeal to the state to maintain abortion rights. They believed that the state was inherently patriarchal and was ultimately the enemy of reproductive justice. Thus, the Love and Rage Revolutionary Anarchist Federation (1989-98) argued in its draft political statement that “our freedom will not come through the passage of yet more laws but through the building of communities strong enough to defend themselves against anti-choice and anti-queer terror, rape, battery, child abuse and police harassment.”
Anarchists spread this analysis in the feminist movement, including by marching in blocs at reproductive justice demonstrations. In place of the slogan “we’re pro-choice and we vote,” anarcha-feminists often marched behind a banner reading “we’re pro-choice and we riot!”
Anarchists supported struggles to maintain legal abortion but argued that we must be ready to act on our own terms in the fight for bodily autonomy and self-determination. Establishing reproductive healthcare infrastructure is a key component of feminist dual power that challenges the hegemony of the state and capitalism. This kind of infrastructure prefigures—and concretely establishes—a world defined by mutual aid, solidarity, and autonomy.
As Sunshine Smith remarked in 1990, forming self-help medical groups and abortion infrastructure in the Bay Area “has, in very concrete ways, made our struggle against the anti-abortion group Operation ‘Rescue’ and the ‘Supreme’ Court stronger and more effective. We have learned that if the time comes, we can and will do home abortions. We are becoming physically aware of the invasion the government is conducting into our bodies. We are now able to repulse the state from our uteri because we are gaining the knowledge that enables us to control our own bodies.”
Birthright, a non-medical “crisis pregnancy center” against abortion with a location on Snelling Avenue in St. Paul, was vandalized overnight.
Steve Linders, public information officer for the St. Paul police department, said the attack was reported and handed off to an investigator. Linders said it is unclear the exact time when the building was vandalized.
Black spray paint on the side of the building read “Blood On Your Hands.” The front of the building had red spray paint with three messages: “Abort America,” “F*** You” and “Janes Revenge.”
Birthright, a "crisis pregnancy center" located on Snelling Ave in St. Paul was vandalized on Tuesday.Sam Stroozas | MPR News
Karen McCann, the volunteer coordinator at Birthright, said she was one of the first people to arrive on her morning shift when she saw the spray paint and two broken windows.
Volunteers cleaned up the glass and reported the incident to the St. Paul Police Department.
The graffiti is similar to that used by Jane’s Revenge, a pro-abortion rights organization.
Jane’s Revenge began carrying out vandalism targeting anti-abortion groups in May 2022. In Minnesota, Jane’s Revenge is believed to be responsible for an incident on June 14 at Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life in Minneapolis, where windows were smashed and “Abortion is Liberation” was written in red paint.
McCann said she does not know why Birthright was targeted but it does not surprise her. In the last five years, she says the location has been vandalized seven times.
“Our charter says we help people make positive choices and we do not believe in referring toward abortion,” McCann said. “We are all very supportive of life.”
The door leading into Birthright on Snelling Avenue is marked by spray paint. Sam Stroozas | MPR News
