Read Every Tweet This Planned Parenthood Worker Sent About Terrorism At Her Clinic

Friday's shooting at a Colorado Planned Parenthood killed three (Garrett Swasey, Jennifer Markovsky, and Ke'Arre Stewart) and led to the arrest of suspect Robert Lewis Dear. The violence was horrific and is part of a wave of both verbal and physical attacks on clinics that offer reproductive health services — attacks that have become terrifyingly routine.

In an interview with NPR this morning, Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards spoke of the "incredible escalation of harassment and intimidation" at these clinics over the past five years, linking it with increasingly vitriolic political rhetoric on the right. "Folks are willing to say anything, it seems, to get ahead in their political ambitions," she commented. Yesterday, former Planned Parenthood worker Bryn Greenwood took to Twitter to detail the terrorism she and her colleagues faced at the Kansas clinic where Greenwood worked for three years. Her tweets offer a ground-level view of the harassment and intimidation of which Richards spoke.

I worked at a #PlannedParenthood clinic in Kansas for 3 years. My coworkers & I were subjected to the following acts of terrorism:

— Bryn Greenwood (@bryngreenwood) November 30, 2015

Gasoline was poured under our back door & ignited 4 times. Twice while the clinic was occupied, causing patients to be evacuated.

— Bryn Greenwood (@bryngreenwood) November 30, 2015

Butyric acid (used as a stink bomb) was poured under our doors & into ventilation system so many times I lost count. Clinic evacuated.

— Bryn Greenwood (@bryngreenwood) November 30, 2015

2 cherry bombs were left on our doorstep after hours, causing damage & clinic closure. Imagine what it's like going to work after that.

— Bryn Greenwood (@bryngreenwood) November 30, 2015

We received hundreds of phone calls, threatening to torch our clinic & to kill the "murdering whores" who worked there.

— Bryn Greenwood (@bryngreenwood) November 30, 2015

3 times someone drove by at night & shot out our windows. Picketers stood on the sidewalk & harassed employees as we swept up broken glass.

— Bryn Greenwood (@bryngreenwood) November 30, 2015

Our clinic didn't perform abortions. We did well woman exams, pregnancy tests, dispensed birth control, & treated STIs.

— Bryn Greenwood (@bryngreenwood) November 30, 2015

Our clinic offered free & low cost services in a low income neighborhood, but every day the "pro-life" movement tried to frighten us.

— Bryn Greenwood (@bryngreenwood) November 30, 2015

The goal was to make us afraid to come to work, to make us quit, to make us close the clinic. That's terrorism. That's how terrorism works.

— Bryn Greenwood (@bryngreenwood) November 30, 2015

Anyone who approves of harassing clinics is giving support to terrorism. #StandWithPP

— Bryn Greenwood (@bryngreenwood) November 30, 2015

Greenwood went on to tweet that she had been asked why protesters and terrorists would attack a clinic that didn't even perform abortions. She addressed the question eloquently: "Because we were a safe space for women & LGBTQA people," she wrote. "Because we understood that not everyone could afford to pay. Because we didn't make people feel ashamed... Because those things are anathema to a certain type of person who thrives on shame, oppression, & denial. PP still stands against them."

As Greenwood demonstrates, to oppose Planned Parenthood is to oppose its patients' right to decide their futures — and while the majority of Americans oppose defunding Planned Parenthood, a minority continues to target the organization with violence, making unapologetically supportive voices such as Greenwood's ever more necessary.


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