Crisis Pregnancy Center Director Tells Congress How She's Had to Protect Herself from Violent, Machete-Wielding Leftists
Turn on any of the coverage of the Jan. 6 committee and you’d get the impression the left is obsessed with politicized violence and the threat it poses to America.
In breathless tones, truth-challenged reps like Republican Elizabeth Cheney and Democrat Adam Schiff will talk about how close we came to losing our democracy in an “insurrection” — and how, at a wider level, extremists are targeting those they disagree with.
Last week, a woman named Heidi Matzke testified to Congress about how the threat of violence has caused the organization she runs to spend $150,000 in “valuable resources” on security in recent months, all thanks to extremists.
She has good reason to be afraid; organizations like hers have been targeted repeatedly and, as she told the Senate Judiciary Committee, a man armed with a machete recently approached her operation.
You didn’t hear about Matzke in the mainstream media, though, because she runs a crisis pregnancy center. Her organization offers women alternatives to abortion — and because of that, the violent threats she faces aren’t really worth covering for liberal newsrooms, the same way that firebombings of crisis pregnancy centers also aren’t really “news.”
(Here at The Western Journal, we’ve made sure America knows about the violence and destruction being visited upon pro-life organizations in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. We’ll keep bringing readers the truth the mainstream media won’t — and you can help us by subscribing.)
Matzke, the executive director of Alternatives Pregnancy Center in Sacramento, California, detailed how she’s had to protect herself and her employees from attacks and vandalism, according to conservative outlet CNS News.
“Over the last five years, American pregnancy care centers have served nearly 2 million women who are faced with an unplanned pregnancy and wanted an alternative to abortion,” said Matzke, speaking at a hearing titled “A Post-Roe America: The Legal Consequences of the Dobbs Decision.”
“Yet, pregnancy care centers from coast to coast are being targeted for violent assaults of vandalism and hateful attacks online and in the media,” she continued.
Her own organization is among those attacked, she said.
“Just last week … a man approached our care center with an armed machete,” she said.
“We have been forced to hire 24-hour on-site security. We’ve had to reinforce doors and bullet-proof our walls. We’ve had to paint our building with anti-graffiti coating. We’ve added cameras, armed our staff with pepper spray and stopped running our mobile clinic, because of threats of violence,” she continued.
“We have been forced to expend valuable resources – resources for women — of up to $150,000 just to protect ourselves. Why? Because we offer free care to women. What we do, though, is worth the risk. Every community needs a place for women facing unplanned pregnancies who are seeking dependable, medical resources in a safe, caring environment during one of the most difficult times of their lives.”
While these care centers are demonized in the mainstream media and by Democrats — as National Review noted, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren has taken tentative steps toward legislation that would shutter these charities down if they engage in “disinformation,” saying that she aims to “shut them down all around the country” — Matzke noted the valuable services centers like hers provide.
“‘You are pregnant.’ Three of the most powerful words a woman will hear in her life. For some, the words bring incredible joy, and for others, incredible fear. Both deserve support,” she said.
Her center, Matzke said, offers “compassionate, holistic care, ministering in whatever gentle ways we can” to the “physical, emotional, and even spiritual needs” of the women who come to them.
Yet, it’s had to divert $150,000 of money it would ordinarily use to help pregnant woman for security — and for good reason.
Several pregnancy crisis centers and pro-life organizations — including ones in Buffalo, New York, and Madison, Wisconsin — have been attacked in recent weeks. Other centers have been defaced with threatening graffiti. A group called “Jane’s Revenge” has taken credit for some of the attacks.
BREAKING: Somebody vandalized and allegedly threw Molotov cocktails into Wisconsin Family Action’s — an anti-abortion rights group — Madison office, writing w/ graffiti, “If abortions aren’t safe, then you aren’t either.”
Story TK pic.twitter.com/6Wfnyeh9hQ
— Alexander Shur (@AlexanderShur) May 8, 2022
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”.https://t.co/5ZhcDHiA7A pic.twitter.com/9Y0d03mXoq
— Robert Evans (The Only Robert Evans) (@IwriteOK) May 10, 2022
Fire and broken windows at Compass care Buffalo NY. Graffiti on the side of the building, saying “Jane was here. 1230 Eggert Rd pic.twitter.com/545QI6oRGf
— NBCC (@NBCCWNY) June 7, 2022
Clinic director Janet believes the vandalism was done by pro-abortion protestors concerned about the possible overturn of Roe v. Wade. Police on the scene pic.twitter.com/Mx31uBqxiP
— Mary Margaret Olohan (@MaryMargOlohan) June 3, 2022
“This is not a declaration of war,” read a statement from Jane’s Revenge after the Madison attack in May. “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.”
The group warned the attack was “only a warning” and said further violence would follow if “all anti-choice establishments, fake clinics and violent anti-choice groups” weren’t shuttered within 30 days.
“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,” the group wrote. “We are forced to adopt the minimum military requirement for a political struggle.”
It’s little wonder, then, that the Department of Homeland Security issued a memo after the leak of the decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health that threats against the government “are likely to persist and may increase leading up to and following the issuing of the Court’s official ruling.”
The memo also warned of a “threat to government, religious and reproductive healthcare personnel and facilities and ideological opponents.”
According to Axios, the DHS memo warned that while violence involving abortion has historically been committed by those opposed to abortion (the Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe decision was the law of the land for almost 50 years), this time, the threat was from the left.
When even President Joe Biden’s DHS is willing to acknowledge that unpleasant reality, things are especially dire.
From firebombings to machete-wielding individuals looking to menace pregnancy care centers, it’s only a matter of time before someone is seriously injured or killed.
And yet, mainstream media outlets turn a blind eye to all of this. Why? Because the narrative doesn’t look good for their side.
Meanwhile, like Nancy Pelosi’s Jan. 6 committee, they’ll still breathlessly flog the theory that the real threat of future political violence comes from the right.
When the real threat claims a life, the blood will be on their hands.
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