Lessons From the Fight to Protect Abortion Clinics in the 1990s

Lessons From the Fight to Protect Abortion Clinics in the 1990s

From It's Going Down

A Discussion



On this episode of the It’s Going Down podcast, we talk with both long-time anarchist organizer Susie Subways and historian Spencer Beswick about how anarchists in the 1990s organized in the face of a deadly far-Right attack on abortion access across the so-called United States.

With the growth of both the above ground organization Operation Rescue, which mobilized thousands to shut down abortion clinics and the underground anti-abortion movement which targeted doctors and reproductive health offices with firebombings and assassinations, abortion access was under threat like never before. But while liberals stuck to legalistic attempts to sway the courts, anarchists, utilizing strategies and tactics from groups like Anti-Racist Action, brought a fresh perspective to the struggle and began to mobilize and build coalitions.

During our discussion we cover this history as well as what led to the passing of Roe v Wade; as Beswick argues that it was the creation of a mass, militant movement that centered bodily autonomy and freedom that forced the State to codify limited abortion rights into law. As the supreme court is poised to rule on striking down Roe v Wade, this history, and the lessons and questions that it raises, is needed now more than ever.

More Info: We’re Pro-Choice and We Riot: How Anarcha-Feminists Built Dual Power in Struggles for Reproductive Freedom, Empty Hands History, and Claim No Easy Victories: An Anarchist Analysis of ARA and its Contributions to the Building of a Radical Anti-Racist Movement

Music: Drowning Dog and DJ Malatesta

There are 10 Comments

good fucking god listening to spencer is an exercise in masochism. what the fucking fuck.

Some members of the clan/milieu/gang/community/sect/ideology occasionally go apeshit over the most petty personal reason and then proceed to vent and project their negative social energies all over the place, even on their popular communications internet devices. Eventually others get annoyed by this bad talking and complain back until eventually what is called a thread begins, usually directed by a master of ceremonies, (lumpy on this particular site), then trolls and anyone can give their opinion, which acts as a self-governing regulator of sorts, unlike thecollective approach. The male of the species is the most pokey!

let me add to that brief comment that spencer's voice is not for radio, that organizer's bingo was reached in five minutes of him talking, and that yes, some of us have allergic reactions to too much triumphalist talk of "this thing that we know is the correct thing is SO the correct thing we must just do more of it and continue doing it forever and ever amen."

i have seen comments (removed now) that one need not listen to (or read, presumably) the things that bother one, but in this case, perhaps spencer (or someone else) will take some of this feedback to heart.

not partaking of things once we've found them to be unpleasant can make for a pleasant, exceedingly small world. perhpas that other commenter is happy there...

i live for the most part in an exceedingly small world (as far as humans go), and i honestly find it the only way i can possibly be happy. and not for lack of trying the alternatives, believe me. i am 62, and i spent the first 40 years in 2 of the most interesting (to me) U.S. cities.

for an issue that has more personal elements that these activists want to discuss, it's not about opposing "reformism" but bringing mutual aide and reciprocity into abortion like the Jane collective tried to do. I'm really sick of these pro-life/pro-choice types of discussions...liberal-activist/anarcha-activist.

I appreciate anarchists talking about abortion because it's a discourse that's lacking, but given that Spencer is in the academy I'd like some citations for the claim that clinic defense in the US is descended from ARA tactics. The term "militant" gets thrown around a lot in the conversation but I'm also not sure about the narrative that a "militant" movement compelled the court to do anything about Roe v Wade, or that you'd even describe something like Jane and its fellow-travelers as militant to begin with, unless militant is just a placeholder term for "were doing things"

I also appreciate digging up history (in this case not so long past) of what anarchists have done, though I don't know how relevant fucking with antis is gonna be when they don't have to harass the clinics that don't exist in large portions of the US anymore. Should we be defending clinics in the first place? Bless Suzy Subways for being so modest about the stuff she did back then, I'm sure she made a lot of antis uncomfortable, but I assume the way she keeps saying we need to be inclusive means that hanging out with a bunch of terfy women-loving-women at Lillith Fair in the 90s left something to be desired. Very self-effacing to attribute the engine of radical history to identity groups you don't belong to, but we don't need to trace everything back to the combahee river collective or any other lineage of statements of purpose and position papers.

Spencer - between the academy, the DSA and burying yourself in Love & Rage newspapers you're rotting your mind - find some better books to read, make some new friends, and stop rattling off talking points from the various programs you've subscribed to during your dissertation. Also, work on your radio voice.

Requesting citations is impossible. Requesting citations is authoritarian.

way that jk-rowling/candice-owen types think of themselves as "feminists" can be helpful, I'm personally more interested in how history effects present dialogues on abortion rights rather than trying to re-establish certain strategies that do have merits. I thought the podcast was really annoying but it didn't have anything to do with their tone of voice. I'm personally really sick of the igd theme, sounds kinda dumb.

it's fukin excrutiating ...I cringed when it was still only a year or 2 old, then it was funny in a lame dad joke kind of way ... now? what. the. actual. fuck.

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