NAF 2025 Violence & Disruption Report
Introduction
Attacks on FACE Amid Surge of White Nationalism
Since the fall of Roe in 2022, anti-abortion states and federal officials have continued their efforts to restrict access to abortion, even as their voters have enshrined abortion rights into state constitutions. In 2025, the situation worsened when Donald Trump returned to the White House. Moreover, in addition to the familiar battles around abortion access, the political landscape severely compounded the challenge to ensure care. Suddenly, abortion providers also had to help their patients contend with the fear of ICE raids and violence against immigrant communities, alongside a surge in hate speech and racist rhetoric, which often prevented them from seeking the health care they need.
2025 saw a consistent, intense continuation of the type of violence and harassment seen in recent years, with significant increases in numerous categories.
The year began with the incoming Trump Administration immediately setting the tone that abortion providers and people accessing care would not be protected from incidents of violence and disruption. President Donald Trump pardoned 23 anti-abortion extremists who had been convicted of violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act for invading and/or blockading clinics that provide abortion care. At the same time, the Department of Justice announced it would only enforce FACE to protect abortion clinics in “extraordinary circumstances.” FACE prohibits using force, threat of force, or physical obstruction to prevent someone from providing or seeking reproductive health care services.
Overall, incidents were more widely spread across the country, more providers experienced at least one incident, and a small number of facilities experienced extremely high levels of activity.
The overall increase in incidents from 2024 to 2025 is primarily driven by a rise in targeted threat and harassment behaviors, particularly death threats (+113%) and stalking (+111%). The data show a shift toward more personal, sustained, and higher-risk targeting of providers and clinic staff. NAF attributes this to a combination of polarizing political rhetoric and the availability of personal information on the internet. The anti-abortion movement now includes younger groups who are more tech-savvy (such as the Progressive Anti-Abortion Uprising and Survivors of the Abortion Holocaust) and able to leverage online resources to target and harass individuals.
NAF’s 2025 Violence & Disruption Report is essential to highlighting the continued and escalating attacks against abortion providers nationwide. Going beyond the data, this year’s report also centers first-hand accounts from providers about the incidents their clinics faced throughout 2025 and their continued fight to ensure abortion access for all patients.
Report Findings
NAF has tracked incidents of violence and disruption at abortion providers since the 1970s, documenting decades of persistent and escalating threats. However, in the wake of the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision, the landscape has shifted dramatically. Widespread clinic closures, shifting state policies, and the redistribution of care have fundamentally changed where and how incidents occur, making direct year-over-year comparisons less reflective of on-the-ground realities. For this reason, in addition to outlining key data on incidents of violence and disruptions throughout 2025, this year’s report also focuses on key indicators and notable trends within the current environment, while continuing to underscore the broader historical context.
Notable rise in incidents in 2025 compared to 2024, including:
Death threats / threats of harm
2024:
38
to
2025:
81
Assault & Battery
2024:
19
to
2025:
23
Stalking
2024:
19
to
2025:
40
Blockades
2024:
1
to
2025:
6
Full Report Data
Violence
Arson
2024:
0
2025:
4
Attempted Bombing / Arson
2024:
2
2025:
0
Invasion
2024:
5
2025:
6
Vandalism
2024:
80
2025:
86
Trespassing
2024:
317
2025:
273
Anthrax / Bioterrorism Threats
2024:
1
2025:
0
Assault & Battery
2024:
19
2025:
25
Death Threats / Threats of Harm
2024:
38
2025:
81
Theft
2024:
6
2025:
28
Stalking
2024:
19
2025:
40
Disruption
Harassment
2024:
1,899
2025:
69,740
Suspicious, harassing, or threatening calls, mail, email, or social media posts
Hoax Devices / Suspicious Packages
2024:
18
2025:
19
Bomb Threats
2024:
4
2025:
5
Picketing
2024:
48,583
2025:
24,733
Obstruction
2024:
689
2025:
3,148
Blockades
2024:
1
2025:
6
Particular surges in violence and other incidents, like obstructions and mail/online harassment, include:
Surge of harassment related to the Boulder Valley Health Center Sex Ed Summer Camp event, which included 65,235 hostile calls, emails, and social media comments and direct messages.
Attempts to flood the phone system at Trust Women Wichita with 1,458 automated messages in 35 minutes on September 25 and 1,566 automated messages in 24 hours on December 11. This incident builds off a previous tactic of protestors attempting to block access by scheduling fake appointments so real patients are unable to access care, while also disrupting the financial and operational stability of clinics.
Provider Stories
Boulder Valley Health Center in Boulder, Colorado
Christie Burkhart, Director of Facilities & Infrastructure Operations
In spring 2025, Boulder Valley Health Center planned a youth sexual health education program developed in partnership with the University of Colorado Boulder focused on age-appropriate education around consent and body awareness.
In a virtual meeting intended for parents and guardians, an anti-abortion individual joined without the knowledge of the BVHC staff and recorded the meeting. The recording was clipped, taken out of context, and circulated on popular right-wing social media accounts, and BVHC quickly became the target of a wave of coordinated online backlash. The clinic was inundated with tens of thousands of social media interactions, hundreds of daily phone calls, and threats of violence directed at staff.
To add to this, BVHC was further subjected to an increase in in-person protest activity outside the clinic. While most activity remained online, the volume and intensity of harassment underscores the growing role of digital platforms in amplifying threats against reproductive health providers, regardless of geography.
Feminist Center for Reproductive Liberation in Atlanta, Georgia
Tracii Wesley, Head of Security
At Feminist Center, anti-abortion protestors gather multiple times each week, positioning themselves along the public right-of-way that patients must pass when entering the clinic. Staff reported that protest rhetoric in 2025 was increasingly aggressive and, at times, explicitly racist, particularly toward the predominantly Black and Brown patients served by the clinic.
One long-standing protestor has been a consistent source of disruption, regularly using a bullhorn, displaying graphic imagery, and directing confrontational and racially charged language at people approaching the clinic. Increasingly in 2025, staff noted that patients of color were subjected to more hostile rhetoric and hate speech, while white patients were addressed with more care, often being told, “we’ll pray for you.”
In one instance, protestors convinced a Latino man that clinic staff were undercover ICE agents preparing to detain and deport his partner while she was inside. Staff identified this as a particularly troubling example of how misinformation and racially targeted rhetoric are being used to provoke fear and disrupt care, patterns they report seeing more frequently throughout 2025.
Affiliated Medical Services in Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Dabbie Phonekeo, Clinic Director
In March 2025, just weeks after Affiliated Medical Services opened in downtown Milwaukee, staff were confronted with an anti-abortion blockade inside their own building. Two individuals entered the clinic, refused to leave, and physically blocked the entrance until police dragged them out. Around the same time, another individual smashed the clinic’s front window. For a team that had never experienced this level of intrusion in over 15 years, the message of intimidation was clear. When providers asked local police about enforcing the FACE Act, the officers said they were unaware of the law.
In the weeks and months following this incident, anti-abortion protestors continued to harass clinic staff, shouting at them through bullhorns, following them to their cars, and directing aggressive, often dehumanizing language at them. Black patients were targeted with racist rhetoric, told they are committing “genocide,” and confronted with signs like “Black Babies Matter.”
Beyond the sidewalk, harassment continued over the course of 2025 through fake appointments, threatening phone calls, and hateful mail, all intended to disrupt care, spread fear, and intimidate staff, simply for seeking or providing health care.
Trust Women in Wichita, Kansas
Kat Boyd, President and CEO
At Trust Women, violence and disruption reached a sustained “fever pitch” in 2025. In a city still shaped by the legacy of Dr. George Tiller’s murder, the clinic faces near-daily protest activity, including individuals blocking entrances, attempting to redirect patients, and engaging in increasingly aggressive behavior. This level of activity reflects a broader sense of emboldenment, particularly in the wake of weakened enforcement of the FACE Act and recent political developments.
In fall 2025, one individual spread raw hamburger meat across a 20-foot stretch of sidewalk, blocking the clinic’s entrance. When staff quickly cleared it to avoid disrupting patients, the same individual returned days later and repeated the act. Shortly after, the clinic received a package containing a decomposing hamburger patty and a note calling staff “murderers.”
At the same time, disruption expanded across digital channels. On multiple occasions, the clinic received floods of up to 2,500 emails through its website, forcing staff to sift through each message to identify legitimate patient needs. Together, these incidents illustrate a broader shift: harassment is no longer confined to clinic grounds, but is increasingly coordinated, high-volume, and designed to interfere with care at every level.
The Women’s Center in Delaware County, Pennsylvania
Amanda Kifferly, Vice President for Abortion Access
In July 2025, well-known anti-abortion protestors invaded The Women’s Center clinic under the guise of fake appointments and threw unknown liquids and a white powder around the facility. These protestors had been recently pardoned by President Trump for previous violations of the FACE Act.
While it seems such an act should prompt immediate evacuation and a full emergency response, in this situation, with three to five extremists in the clinic over the course of four hours, staff chose to hold their ground so as to not hand over their space to the invaders. Following the event, there was never any chemical analysis done of the substances – law enforcement and emergency fire responders took the criminal’s word that the substances were non-lethal/combustible. They took it into evidence, with no follow up performed.
Staff were left to manage the situation and reassure patients in real time, unsure of what they had been exposed to. Having happened in the space they spend countless hours providing compassionate care, clinic staff felt uneasy and violated.
Despite this, the clinic did not stop. Care continued, and every patient scheduled that day was still able to receive services. Staff remained focused on supporting patients through an already difficult experience, even as they navigated fear and uncertainty themselves—underscoring both the risks providers face and their unwavering commitment to ensuring access to care.
Key Threats to Providers
Erosion of FACE Enforcement
During the 1980s and early 1990s, violence against abortion providers was escalating across the country, culminating in the murder of Dr. David Gunn outside a Pensacola, Florida clinic and the attempted murder of Dr. Tiller outside his Wichita, Kansas clinic, both in 1993. In response to these incidents, Congress saw a new urgency to pass federal legislation to address violence against reproductive health care facilities and the denial of access to women and pregnant people seeking their services. In 1994, President Bill Clinton signed the FACE Act into law.
Since the passage of FACE, its enforcement has played an important role in setting boundaries and creating accountability. When enforcement is strong and visible, it can act as a deterrent. When it’s less consistent, it may contribute to an environment where individuals feel more emboldened to engage in disruptive or threatening behavior.
In 2025, the Trump Administration's pardons and curtailment of FACE sent a clear message to anti-abortion extremists: they will not face consequences for violating the law.
The reaction was swift and predictable. Some of those pardoned said they would likely offend again, and indeed did so. In July, a group of anti-abortion extremists, including two who had been pardoned, conducted a blockade and invasion at a clinic in Upland, Pennsylvania. Two other extremists blockaded a clinic in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Later in the year, Randall Terry of Operation Rescue, a militant anti-abortion organization that fought to shut down abortion clinics in the 1980s and ‘90s, and Terrisa Bukovinac of Progressive Anti-Abortion Uprising (PAAU) formed a new organization called Rescue Resurrection. They purchased property in Memphis, Tennessee for a “pro-life activist academy” and announced, “We are bringing back rescue. This is not a drill.”
In December, members of Rescue Resurrection blockaded the Planned Parenthood clinic in Memphis, Tennessee. The formation of this new group and their immediate blockade in Memphis shows they are emboldened by the weakening of FACE. Arrests occurred but none of the perpetrators face federal charges. This trend is expected to continue.
Shift to Digital Harassment
While reporting shows a decrease in in-person actions, such as a picketing, it's important to understand two factors: First, picketing occurs regularly across the majority of abortion providers, but not other health care providers. Given how commonplace this form of disruption is, many providers often just accept the behavior as the standard and may not report it as disruption. Second, alongside in-person attacks on clinics, providers have reported a significant rise in digital harassment. This includes threats and disruption via social media, phone calls, and hate mail, highlighting a potential shift in tactics and growing threat of online/at-home violence, rather than an overall decrease in harassment.
Online harassment takes much less time and can be far more disruptive than in-person activities. When a Boulder, Colorado clinic publicized a sex-ed summer camp, an anti-abortion campaign flooded them with over 65,000 hostile calls, emails, and comments and messages on social media. A Wichita, Kansas phone system was inundated with over 1,400 automated messages across two separate incidents.
This ties into the increase in death threats, threats of harm and stalking—they have simply moved from targeting facilities to targeting facility employees.
Providers have also reported incidents of harassment and disruption “in real life” but away from the clinic. After targeting city officials and the landlord, PAAU and the Survivors prevented the opening of an abortion clinic in Beverly Hills. They used that experience and evolved their tactics to use against other clinics by going after facilities’ licensing status, harassing construction personnel, and targeting a clinic landlord at their other business.
White Nationalism & Rising Hate Speech
Since the start of the second Trump Administration in 2025, providers have reported a marked increase in hateful, racist, and dehumanizing rhetoric directed at both clinic staff and patients. First-hand accounts point to harassment that is more explicit in its targeting of immigrant communities and people of color. While NAF’s Security team has not documented ICE raids at clinics, the fear of immigration enforcement is shaping behavior of providers, with reports of staff staying home for fear of ICE, as well as patients, with some delaying or forgoing care altogether due to concerns about raids.
This rise in hate speech reflects broader trends—many of the same white nationalist, anti-immigrant, and extremist groups targeting marginalized communities are the same ones targeting abortion providers. Their tactics are increasingly coordinated across digital and physical spaces, driving online harassment campaigns in addition to in-person activity outside clinics, and more overtly racist, xenophobic, and personal in tone.
These dynamics are contributing to a more widespread and volatile threat environment nationwide. More providers are experiencing incidents, while a smaller number of facilities face sustained, high levels of disruption. Notably, death threats and threats of harm increased from 38 in 2024 to 81 in 2025, highlighting the growing severity of targeting.
NAF’s Security Efforts
NAF’s Security program provides our members with 24-7 assistance with security incidents, threats, or emergencies. NAF also provides on-site staff security training and comprehensive physical security assessments for clinic facilities and providers’ homes. We develop and share expert security protocols, resources, and training on a wide range of topics from IT security to how to prevent and respond to various types of anti-abortion harassment or obstruction. We also liaise directly with local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies to report threats, share intelligence, and support efforts to prevent violence at health care facilities. In 2025, for the first time and thanks to a generous donation, we were able to provide operational grants to 50 clinics to upgrade and enhance their security.
Acknowledgements
NAF's Security & Safe Access Program is generously supported by private foundations and individual donors. We appreciate this ongoing support, which enables us to provide our members with 24/7 security support, trainings and assessments, and the collection and production of these statistics.
We would also like to thank Rachel Jones, PhD, from the Guttmacher Institute for support around our methodology.