\u201c<\/span>I have a bomb,<\/span> I have a bomb,\u201d the male voice said. \u201cDon\u2019t let anyone in or out of the clinic, or I\u2019ll set it off.\u201d<\/p>\n For about 25 years, A Preferred Women\u2019s Health Center<\/a>, an abortion clinic in Charlotte, North Carolina, has endured more than its share of threats\u2014usually, broad warnings about damnation in both this life and the next for the murder of innocent babies. But on July 2, 2024, a call came in that, as the clinic\u2019s executive director, Calla Hales, recalls, \u201cabsolutely shook staff.\u201d<\/p>\n Hales, who is in her mid-30s, co-owns this clinic and three others in the Southeast with her parents, Stuart and Lois, who have retired from daily operations. Their children grew up knowing that discussing the family business was not a good idea. \u201cMy parents were very clear,\u201d she says as we drive around Charlotte. \u201cWe don\u2019t talk about it with other people.\u201d No one was allowed to answer the phone at home\u2014an anti-abortion caller might be on the line.<\/p>\n For the last few years, as protesters from the evangelical organization Love Life<\/a> have ramped up their demonstrations, caution and vigilance have again become second nature. So when the bomb threat came, Hales knew what she needed to do. \u201cI have the somewhat unique advantage,\u201d she says, \u201cof living my whole life like this.\u201d<\/p>\n Hales\u2019 team of about 20 halted their services and emptied the waiting and recovery rooms. As patients and protesters watched, police searched the clinic with bomb-sniffing dogs. After an anxiety-provoking hour, they told Hales that the call had been a hoax. Weeks of a federal investigation followed, until agents zeroed in on a suspect\u2014a 37-year-old man with a record that includes child abuse, aggravated assault, and burglary\u2014and prosecution seemed imminent.<\/p>\n The case was being investigated under the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act, a 1994 federal statute<\/a> enacted after a series of assassinations and clinic attacks during an era of abortion-related violence three decades ago. Before the FACE Act, protesters suffered minor, if any, penalties for making threats or erecting blockades around clinics. After it passed, they risked real prison time and significant fines. \u201cThere was this big, foundational shift,\u201d UC Davis abortion historian Mary Ziegler says about the reduction of violence that followed.<\/p>\n Then Donald Trump was reelected.<\/p>\n A few days after his second presidential inauguration, Trump pardoned<\/a> 23 people convicted under the FACE Act, including those who had accosted pregnant patients, stolen fetal tissue<\/a>, and physically blocked access to clinic entrances. The following day, Trump\u2019s Department of Justice announced<\/a> it would pursue FACE Act prosecutions only in \u201cextraordinary circumstances\u201d\u2014cases that resulted in \u201cdeath, serious bodily harm, or serious property damage.\u201d In an online event hosted by the anti-abortion group Live Action, one of the people Trump pardoned, Paul Vaughn, who\u2019d been convicted<\/a> of obstructing a Tennessee abortion clinic in 2021, said the president\u2019s reprieve had \u201cemboldened\u201d<\/a> him and other anti-abortion demonstrators. \u201cThey wanted to spread fear into the church and people that would dare stand up for the unborn,\u201d Vaughn said. \u201cAnd yet, God had other plans.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThese people really don\u2019t give a fuck if I live or die.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n Soon after the pardons, Hales received more disquieting news: The feds were dropping their investigation of the bomb threat and handing off the case to law enforcement in Georgia, where the suspect resides. For the next year, Hales and her staff heard almost nothing. She had pretty much given up hope when authorities surprised her\u2014they had charged their suspect with calling in a bomb threat and the case was being tried at the federal level after all. But with the suspect out on bail and the federal government signaling that it was open season on abortion clinics once again, Hales knew she would have to get used to feeling vulnerable and alone. \u201cThese people really don\u2019t give a fuck if I live or die,\u201d she tells me.<\/p>\n Anti-abortion protests<\/span> have been a part of Hales\u2019 world since she was a kid. But she calls the last five years,\u00a0since the Covid pandemic and the Supreme Court\u2019s Dobbs <\/em>decision, \u201cthe most difficult landscape\u201d she\u2019s ever worked in. She estimates that up to 20,000 protesters now target her Charlotte clinic each year. Most of them are affiliated with Love Life, a national anti-abortion group headquartered in Charlotte and active in 13 states. After Love Life moved into the empty lot next door to Hales\u2019 clinic in 2022 and stationed its headquarters a fraction of a mile down the road, the number of protesters has steadily grown. They show up every day, and monthly prayer walks around the block where the clinic is located draw big crowds.<\/p>\n Back in 1991, during the \u201cSummer of Mercy\u201d protests<\/a> in Wichita, Kansas, thousands of Operation Rescue anti-abortion protesters brought the city to a halt with sit-ins and clinic blockades. Some 2,600 protesters were arrested over six weeks, and the chaos and menace were catalysts for the FACE Act.<\/p>\n So far, the Love Life protests certainly haven\u2019t had that sort of paralyzing effect on either the city or clinic operations. But there is a link: A former director of Operation Rescue, Flip Benham<\/a>, has been demonstrating in Charlotte for the last 25 years and is now a respected elder in the Love Life family. The 78-year-old minister has been arrested and convicted of stalking and harassing providers, but is most famous for having baptized Norma McCorvey<\/a>, a.k.a. Jane Roe of the landmark case that established a national right to abortion. (McCorvey became a born-again Christian and public anti-abortion icon before she ultimately reneged her conversion during a deathbed confession.) Benham is a regular presence outside Hales\u2019 clinic, brandishing a graphic poster of a fetus he calls \u201cBaby Malachi,\u201d which he says was 21 weeks old when it was aborted. His twin sons, David and Jason\u2014whose HGTV show Flip It Forward<\/em> was canceled<\/a> before it even aired after their views on abortion and gay marriage became public\u2014sometimes join him, along with Benham\u2019s sister and grandchildren. Benham\u2019s sons have both served on Love Life\u2019s board.<\/p>\n As one of the last Southern states to allow abortions past six weeks of pregnancy, North Carolina is a natural magnet for the anti-abortion movement. It \u201cis definitely a hot spot and a place where they have had a large protester presence for a long time,\u201d says Melissa Fowler, chief program officer for the National Abortion Federation, \u201cand we have seen that escalate.\u201d<\/p>\n But North Carolina is also part of a larger pattern. \u201cThere\u2019s no question that there has been increased fear of violence and threats of violence since the Dobbs<\/em> decision,\u201d says Katie O\u2019Connor, director of federal abortion policy at the National Women\u2019s Law Center. \u201cThe decision by this administration to pardon those 23 people really has created a sense that it is open season on abortion providers and abortion patients in an already charged atmosphere.\u201d<\/p>\n The National Abortion Federation reports<\/a> that clinics across the country are seeing increasing numbers of protesters and levels of aggression. \u201cIf you\u2019re leading a protest organization, anger is good, right? It recruits people,\u201d Ziegler says. \u201cIt gets people to protest; it does all the things you want. But too much anger is bad, because then you can\u2019t control it.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIf you\u2019re leading a protest organization, anger is good, right? It recruits people. It gets people to protest; it does all the things you want. But too much anger is bad, because then you can\u2019t control it.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n In Florida, a man left a one-star Google review for a clinic that included a bomb threat. A clinic in Ohio received an envelope full of what the sender claimed was anthrax, but turned out to be flour. \u201cYou had your time to repent and quit killing babies,\u201d the attached note said. \u201cTo [sic] late now.\u201d Doctors report being stalked and receiving explicit, credible death threats. In June, former Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, were murdered in their home<\/a>; the man charged with their killings appears to have been motivated by anti-abortion beliefs. The shooter, who also wounded Democratic state Sen. John A. Hoffman and his wife, Yvette, had a list of dozens of targets that included more Democratic politicians, abortion care workers and advocates, and Planned Parenthood locations. Hortman had led the House to pass a law that codified the right to abortion and other forms of reproductive health care in Minnesota after the Dobbs<\/em> decision.<\/p>\n No physicians have been killed since 2009, when Dr. George Tiller<\/a> was murdered in Wichita. But in 2015, a gunman opened fire<\/a> at a Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood, killing three people and wounding eight others. And in November, a leader of a local anti-abortion group allegedly shot<\/a> a man in the stomach during an altercation outside a Planned Parenthood in Columbia, South Carolina\u2014he has been arrested and charged. (The incident was caught on video.) Today, many people in the reproductive health movement think it\u2019s only a matter of time before these kinds of attacks become more frequent.<\/p>\n Carol Mason, a professor of gender and women\u2019s studies at the University of Kentucky and author <\/a>of multiple books on the intersection of anti-abortion and right-wing extremism, says she\u2019s noticed an increasing \u201cfight club mentality\u201d among the people she studies. Encounters have escalated from provocative efforts to spark debate to physical altercations. Anti-abortion extremists inspired by Trump\u2019s reelection and rhetoric are operating within what Mason refers to as \u201ckairotic\u201d time, \u201cthe moment of revolution where people decide what\u2019s happening in real time is not as important as the sense of yourself in a revolution or in a fight that is ongoing.\u201d<\/p>\n In other words, when people see themselves as crusaders in a holy war, they begin to act accordingly.<\/p>\n A year after<\/span> the bomb threat, I visit A Preferred Woman\u2019s Health Center. The clinic and its administrative building are unremarkable twin brick structures positioned side by side on Latrobe Drive, a lasso of a road that connects to a busy main drag in southeast Charlotte. The loop of the lasso is home to some medical buildings, therapy practices, and industrial businesses, including a construction company that hosts Love Life\u2019s headquarters. The empty lot where Love Life demonstrators gather is next to the clinic\u2019s administrative building. The rules of engagement require that protesters go no farther than the sidewalks that lead up to the parking lot. To step off the sidewalk is a violation of North Carolina law.<\/p>\n For people seeking abortions in the South, where most states have made the procedure illegal, North Carolina has become a crucial option, albeit one with its own restrictions<\/a>. In addition to lowering the gestational limit to 12 weeks and six days in 2023, North Carolina passed a law requiring two in-person visits to a clinic\u2014even for people who are getting medication abortions. By design, this has added new hurdles for patients and additional costs for clinics. Abortions in Charlotte range from $550 for a medication abortion to $650 for a surgical one, depending on gestational age, but that\u2019s only a fraction of what patients have to shell out. Hales estimates that nearly 80 percent of her clients receive some form of aid from abortion funds, grassroots groups that help pay for travel, child care, and the abortion itself. But abortion funds are stretched thin as well\u2014the post-Dobbs <\/em>surge of donor generosity has diminished\u2014and the need to cross state lines for care increases costs. Because so many of Hales\u2019 patients are already struggling financially, raising prices is not an option.<\/p>\n Since Dobbs<\/em>, one of North Carolina\u2019s 15 clinics has closed, even as abortion procedures have shot up 44 percent<\/a>. With one of the busiest airports in the country, Charlotte is a vital abortion access point for a region that has been decimated by abortion bans. Mecklenburg County\u2014where Hales\u2019 clinic is located\u2014accounted for 45 percent of all abortions in the state in 2023. Nearly 40 percent of patients came from out of state.<\/p>\n The patients who appear often are emotionally fragile. Every week, Hales estimates, her four clinics in North Carolina and Georgia see 10 to 15 minors. Many patients require more care than others needed in the past. They may be undocumented, non\u2013English speaking, or illiterate. Patients seem angrier and more frightened than in the past, Hales says, and many know nothing about the legal constraints under which clinics must operate. They expect an experience akin to their local urgent care or hospital.<\/p>\n Their confusion and anxiety are unsurprising. By the time they arrive, Hales tells me, many patients have been so jerked around by a system they have no control over that they\u2019re furious. Staff often struggle with figuring out how to balance their clients\u2019 emotional needs with their own complicated reactions to them. A similar phenomenon is playing out around the country among patients who call her organization for help, says Fowler of the National Abortion Federation. \u201cWe\u2019ve talked to people on our hotline who are really angry about all the barriers in place, and sometimes they take out that anger on the clinic staff or hotline staff who are helping them,\u201d she says. Here, too, she says, many callers are shocked to discover just how arduous the path to care will be for them\u2014all of which makes the situation, when they finally arrive at clinics, even more combustible. \u00a0<\/p>\n On the day I arrive, about 10 Love Life demonstrators, juggling clipboards and pamphlets, pace the sidewalk in front of the clinic\u2019s buildings. As I drive into the parking lot, I see volunteers from each organization, like competing sports teams, dressed in their own colors and vying for the attention of people in the cars that approach. A Love Life volunteer in a coral T-shirt that reads \u201cHope Is Here\u201d in white lettering\u2014the \u201co\u201d in \u201chope\u201d contains a heart\u2014pleads with me to roll down my window, presumably so I can be dissuaded from a decision to terminate a pregnancy. At the same time, a clinic volunteer wearing the uniform of a rainbow-hued and purple-and-black vest and holding a bright pink sign telling patients to \u201cKEEP DRIVING, CLINIC AHEAD\u201d tries to redirect me to the clinic. I tell them both I\u2019m a reporter, and they turn back toward the road.<\/p>\n Cars in the parking lot bear license plates from South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida, all states where abortion is banned after six weeks of pregnancy, and Texas, where it\u2019s banned from fertilization. Upon arrival, patients scan a QR code to check in, and most wait in their cars, windows closed, with the air conditioning cranked against the smothering summer heat. Brown tarps hang like shower curtains from tree limbs and encircle the clinic grounds, providing some privacy from the protesters on the sidewalk out front. Occasionally, someone cautiously exits their vehicle for a free snack or drink from a table set out for visitors, maybe a toy for a child. Earplugs are also available.<\/p>\n A slender brunette wearing a Love Life T-shirt near the perimeter of the parking lot begins to shout to anyone who might be able to hear her. \u201cMama, your little baby is alive. He loves you. Your baby has an actual heartbeat\u2026Your baby doesn\u2019t deserve a death sentence.\u201d She pauses. \u201cGod is knitting your baby in your womb right now, fearfully and wonderfully made, the Bible says. We\u2019re still out here praying for you and that beautiful little baby\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cMama, your little baby is alive. He loves you. Your baby has an actual heartbeat\u2026Your baby doesn\u2019t deserve a death sentence.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n \u201c\u2014And yellin\u2019 at you,\u201d finishes Shannon Bauerle, a woman in a rainbow vest with \u201cCLINIC ESCORT\u201d in bold letters across the front. Her skin is tanned from countless hours pacing in the sun, commanding her small volunteer army. Bauerle tosses her adversary a sardonic grin. The brunette ignores her and continues her pleas, careful not to cross the property line, as Bauerle keeps watch. Bauerle teaches women\u2019s and gender studies at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte and is the executive director of Charlotte for Choice, which trains and schedules volunteers. There are escorts who get patients in and out of the clinic safely and defenders who confront the protesters to distract them from patients. She describes the clinic as a \u201cdestination spot\u201d for protesters from all over the country and says her team already has spotted a few of the activists who\u2019ve been pardoned by Trump.<\/p>\n Later, I catch up with her in the administrative building, where, as she organizes granola bars, water bottles, and walkie-talkies for her volunteers, she tells me a story that has become a constant reminder of the human stakes of her work beyond the rhetoric that ping-pongs across the parking lot on any given day.<\/p>\n In 2020, a 12-year-old girl who\u2019d been raped came to the clinic, escorted by an uncle. The child was distraught, Bauerle says, and the protesters\u2019 shouts pushed her into hysteria. The uncle climbed out of the car and begged the protesters, one man in particular, to just lower their voices. \u201cPlease, she\u2019s been through hell,\u201d the uncle pleaded. The protester refused, insisting that by giving birth, the girl would be \u201chealed.\u201d Giving up, the uncle returned to his car. Bauerle tells me it\u2019s the closest she\u2019s come to physically intervening between protesters and patients, but she knew that if she crossed that line, she could be arrested or sued. Instead, she used an oversized umbrella as a way to try to shield the child from the protesters\u2019 view, but she felt helpless nonetheless.<\/p>\n Even now, when she thinks about that day, her face flushes with fury.<\/p>\n Love Life began <\/span>as a small, nondenominational religious community in Charlotte, but over the past decade, it has become an anti-abortion force to be reckoned with. According to the most recent tax forms available, Love Life employs 77 people\u2014full and part time\u2014and mobilizes more than 600 volunteers. Its total revenue in 2023 was $3.7 million. That\u2019s still small as national right-to-life groups go, but it\u2019s growing, with active chapters in at least 10 other states, including California, Idaho, Illinois, New Mexico, and New York.<\/p>\n I meet the 45-year-old executive director, Daniel Parks, at Love Life\u2019s headquarters, which is only 0.2 miles from the clinic. Friendly, if a bit wary, Parks represents a younger generation of anti-abortion activists, respectful of trailblazers like Flip Benham but preferring a more contemporary style. For one, you won\u2019t catch Parks brandishing posters of dismembered fetuses. Love Life strives to present itself as a community of engaged men and women, moms and dads with young families, the kind of people one might see at the local trendy coffee shop. It has an Instagram page with more than 62,000 followers, where posts announce, \u201cAnother precious baby saved in Charlotte, NC, this morning.\u201d<\/p>\n Parks, who sports stylish spectacles and slicked-back silver-blond hair, bristles at my description of the group\u2019s work as \u201cprotesting.\u201d Instead, it\u2019s a \u201cministry,\u201d he clarifies, one that provides pregnant women with church mentors, housing, and parenting classes, among other meaningful social services. A report <\/a>on Love Life\u2019s website estimates that it has helped \u201cmore than 6,700 families choose life for their babies\u201d across the country since its work began in 2016. In the first half of 2025, the report claims that 486 babies were born to women who had planned to terminate their pregnancies before Love Life intervened. Like the previous generation of activists, Parks fervently believes that abortion is murder and that clinic escorts like Bauerle are accomplices. \u201cThe people with the vests on,\u201d he tells me, \u201cin some practical ways are, you know, the enemy.\u201d<\/p>\n The group operates out of a basement office tucked below a property management company that owns the space. The walls are covered with large photographs of people caught up in the rapture of worship and babies with toothy grins who\u2019ve been \u201csaved\u201d by the organization, as well as portraits of high-profile pastors like Rep. Mark Harris, a Republican who represents the state\u2019s 8th Congressional District. An ordained Southern Baptist minister, Harris has preached at Love Life events. (In 2018, he was accused of election fraud<\/a>, and his initial congressional election was overturned, but he never went to trial.) Unlike most people in the anti-abortion movement who identify intensely with the GOP, Parks claims he has no interest in partisan politics. Were he forced to choose, he says, he would prefer to describe himself as a libertarian. As for Trump, \u201cI certainly respect some of the pro-life things,\u201d Parks says. \u201cBut yeah, I\u2019m super-skeptical that he\u2019s actually pro-life for the sake of protecting innocent children.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m super-skeptical that [Trump is] actually pro-life for the sake of protecting innocent children.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n Saving babies from abortion is the primary goal of Love Life, and for that, it targets not just expectant mothers, but also places of worship; its goal is to build a national network of ministry partners. \u201cReally, we\u2019re after the church,\u201d Parks says. \u201cWe want to see the church\u2014the evangelical church, in particular\u2014be aware of the issue of abortion in their city, but then actively do something to help the families that are considering abortion.\u201d<\/p>\n I recount the story Bauerle told me about the pregnant 12-year-old. Parks is skeptical and suggests that the story deliberately positions the Love Lifer as the villain. Such situations, he insists, ought to be handled with compassion. \u201cI\u2019m pretty confident that abortion, in her case, is not,\u201d he lets out a humorless laugh, \u201cgoing to bring healing to her.\u201d He says he would have been gentle instead, attempting not to \u201cadd insult to injury,\u201d but sharing \u201cwhat we believe is true about that baby and about the situation.\u201d Which is, put simply, that she should have carried her assailant\u2019s child to term. In the end, no matter how expansive and supportive the organization Parks describes may be, Love Life is carrying on the tradition of the hardline anti-abortion movement.<\/p>\n Other experiences Parks describes mirror those reported by those who work at the clinic. Bauerle had related the intrusive actions of some demonstrators in approaching cars. Parks, on the other hand, recounts how one Love Life volunteer was merely handing out a pamphlet to someone through an open car window when a clinic volunteer snatched the literature away. \u00a0\u201cIt\u2019s like, wow, okay, that\u2019s not pro-choice,\u201d Parks says.<\/p>\n Parks and I emerge from the basement into the bright morning to head over to the prayer walk, which Love Life holds on the second Saturday of every month. We encounter a woman, looking lost and uneasy, who has wandered up from the parking lot behind the group\u2019s office. \u201cIs this the entrance?\u201d she asks.<\/p>\n Parks pauses. \u201cWell, what are you looking for?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cA Preferred Women\u2019s Health Center.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAre you pregnant?\u201d he asks. \u201cAre you looking to have an abortion?\u201d<\/p>\n A guarded look crosses her face, and she starts to back away toward her car.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t wanna talk about that.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cGod loves you, God loves your baby,\u201d he says. \u201cWe can help you.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI gotta get to my appointment.\u201d She opens her car door and climbs in.<\/p>\n Parks backs off, and we stand in silence for a moment. \u201cWow,\u201d he says. \u201cHow cool that you got to see that.\u201d<\/p>\n The first chords <\/span>of worship music begin to silence the chatter of the gathered crowd, which looks to be nearing 200 strong. After a few songs led by a full band, a pastor ambles onstage. More than 230,000 \u201cprayer walkers\u201d have convened \u201caround abortion centers to date,\u201d he tells the crowd. Love Life chapters in other states like New York and California also organize prayer walks on the second Saturday of every month. But since \u201c500 to 600 abortions happen in Charlotte\u201d every week, he goes on, their work is far from over. (According to state data, the number is more like 370.) Protesters fall silent and kneel on the gravel as the pastor prays. Then a Love Life representative announces that guns are prohibited at \u201cparades,\u201d so anyone who is armed should stow their firearms in a vehicle. (No one moves.) The congregants stand and start their march. At the first prayer station, a sign commands, \u201cRepent!\u201d<\/p>\n We pass Benham and his \u201cBaby Malachi\u201d placard. Signs at three more prayer stations ask us to pray for \u201cmoms & babies,\u201d \u201cdads,\u201d and \u201call involved in abortion.\u201d We stop directly in front of the clinic, across the road so as not to trespass. The front doors are hidden by trees and the brown tarps. A man with a guitar picks up a melody, and the group begins to sing a contemporary Christian tune, hands lifting toward the clinic.<\/p>\n Parks tells me that the purpose of the walk is simply to pray, worship, and reflect\u2014not to engage with clinic workers or patients. Love Life draws a hard line at \u201cvigilante justice,\u201d he says, or any sort of physical confrontation. After a few songs, we return to the gravel lot next door to the clinic, where there is a call for volunteers and, of course, donations. \u201cEvery dollar that you sow into this ministry, God is going to use to save babies, to save lives, and continue to unite and mobilize the church,\u201d the pastor urges. After one more prayer, the crowd slowly disperses. Many head back up the road to Love Life\u2019s headquarters for fellowship and Chick-fil-A sandwiches.<\/p>\n But according to Bauerle and Hales, other, more ardent protesters attend Love Life\u2019s events and are less committed to nonviolence. The people whom they most fear are the most extreme wing of the anti-abortion movement, the abortion \u201cabolitionists\u201d whose aim is to outlaw abortion in all circumstances\u2014seemingly no matter the cost. Abolitionists believe in criminalizing women who have abortions, their doctors, and anyone who offers any assistance. A bill<\/a> in South Carolina that did not pass illustrates the idea: It proposed 30-year prison sentences for people involved in abortions. Some abolitionists go further<\/a>, arguing for the death penalty for both providers and patients.<\/p>\n Parks says Love Life does not identify as an abolitionist organization\u2014\u201cthat\u2019s not really our forte.\u201d But he says it does offer a training<\/a> called \u201cLegalize Life\u201d run by Bradley Pierce<\/a>, president of the Foundation to Abolish Abortion and Abolish Abortion Texas, who has pushed for legislation that would charge anyone who gets abortion care with murder.<\/p>\n When I press Parks on Pierce, he acknowledges, \u201cMany of the people in our organization align with that ideology, and there are variations of it.\u201d As he describes Love Life\u2019s position on abortion, it sounds very much like one an abolitionist would embrace. \u201cWe agree abortion is murder and that it should be outlawed and every human life should be protected under our laws,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd we believe that children in the womb are human life.\u201d<\/p>\n A few days <\/span>after I leave Charlotte, Bauerle emails me. \u201cWe got this video today,\u201d she writes. \u201cThere are a few things, like them talking about guns, that you might find interesting.\u201d I open the file and see an older woman and another woman on the sidewalk outside the clinic, recorded by a security camera affixed to a nearby tree. \u201cI tell you what, the older I get,\u201d the white woman says, \u201cI am tired of rolling over to their acts of aggression and evil.\u201d<\/p>\n The older woman then describes gently pushing away a clinic defender\u2019s sign when the defender got too close to her while she was trying to counsel someone. She says she talked to a police officer who routinely patrols the clinic, and he told her that defending her personal space was fine, so long as it\u2019s done carefully. \u201cMaybe it\u2019s time for me to retire,\u201d she says, adding that she\u2019s talking to Love Life\u2019s lawyer about what she describes as \u201cthe slander and the lies\u201d\u2014that Love Lifers are a threat, for instance\u2014the people she describes as \u201cpro-abortion\u201d antagonists spread.<\/p>\n The other woman responds: \u201cA lot of Christians will say, you don\u2019t need no gun, you shouldn\u2019t have a gun. What did Jesus tell \u2019em?\u201d She then refers to Luke 22:36\u2014\u201cIf you don\u2019t have a sword, sell your cloak and buy one\u201d\u2014which some Christians have interpreted as a call to arms. \u00a0<\/p>\n Bauerle believes the exchange encapsulates a common problem the clinic frequently faces: At what point do vague references to guns and swords lead to actual violence? At what point does a simmer erupt into a boil?<\/p>\n When I ask Hales about the exchange, she sighs. She hasn\u2019t heard about it\u2014probably, she says, because Bauerle is trying to shield her from more stress. Hales used to try to get police to issue citations for credible-sounding threats\u2014if someone said she was going to die that day or someone was going to shoot her\u2014and they would tell her to press charges. \u201cEvery single time I did,\u201d she says, \u201cI would be told that the language wasn\u2019t actionable.\u201d And to be clear, the footage Bauerle shared with me did not lay out a specific threat, which makes it protected as free speech. But it was still unnerving for staff and volunteers. Hales says she stopped trying to get the law to intervene.<\/p>\n In October, when Operation Save America, an abolitionist rebrand of Operation Rescue, joined Love Life\u2019s monthly prayer walk following a conference, some 500 protesters showed up. Charlotte-Mecklenburg police allowed them to pierce the boundary to hand out pamphlets, even though doing so would constitute a violation of local and state law. (The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department declined to comment.) The most aggressive of the protesters clustered along the entrance to the clinic parking lot, where clinic defenders tried to hold them back with rainbow umbrellas. Every so often, someone broke through and blocked the driveway for as long as possible, until a volunteer herded them away with an umbrella. Parks, who wasn\u2019t there, told me that as far as he knows, everything proceeded normally on Love Life\u2019s end, but Operation Save America \u201csort of did their own thing.\u201d<\/p>\n Bauerle and her volunteers had met several times in advance to plan, and it seemed to have paid off\u2014protesters were frustrated by the organized response of the umbrella brigade. \u201cIf we didn\u2019t have the volunteers that we do, we\u2019d have been fucked,\u201d she texted me. Still, she describes the day as a \u201cshit show,\u201d particularly local authorities\u2019 response. At least five times, adult protesters crossed the driveway slowly, holding hands with a child. No citations or tickets were issued.<\/p>\n Last year, blocking the driveway was a federal crime. Now, it\u2019s more complicated.<\/p>\n\n
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