Progressive Anti-Abortion Uprising

Progressive Anti-Abortion Uprising (PAAU), also known as the Fetus Thieves, are an American anti-abortion group that emerged in October 2021. They have a strong religious component, though a handful of leaders in the group are atheists. Many of their religious members pose as Christian left. Several members of the group have been arrested in the past for their interference at abortion clinics. Most famously, one leader for the group was found to have had five fetuses in her refrigerator when her house was raided by police.

In its own words, PAAU set out "to mobilize grassroots anti-abortion activists for direct action, educate the public about the exploitative influence of the Abortion Industrial Complex through an anti-capitalist lens, advocate for pregnant people, and connect abortion vulnerable communities with life-saving resources." They claim that abortion is a form of oppression like sexism, racism, homophobia, et cetera. They also believe this is perpetrated by "Big Pharma" and "Big Abortion".

Despite the apparent leftist branding, this has little apparent consequence for the group's activism: their founder, Terrisa Bukovinac, described PAAU as a one-issue organization in an interview for the German-language Die Tagespost, a right-wing Catholic publication.

It smells like potential astroturf (especially given their direct relationship with Randall Terry, the conservative founder of Operation Rescue), but who knows anymore. Some religious doctrines may allow for progressivism on a slate of issues while disallowing it on others, including abortion, depending on interpretation. It may then be the case that this group is an outgrowth of the "religious left", but some observers may remain skeptical given a combination of a long history of astroturf by the Religious Right and demonstrated links that PAAU has with Religious Right activists.

Sloganeering
The first thing you see upon opening their webshite is a bunch of (occasionally tweaked) buzzwords, slogans, and symbols that are sure to demonstrate their "progressive credentials" such as: • 3 Alongside those are a couple of anti-abortion slogans: • 2

Bum-rushing abortion clinics
At least three PAAU members, alongside other people not affiliated with PAAU, barged into an abortion clinic (the Women's Options Center at San Francisco General Hospital), according to the San Francisco District Attorney. They proceeded to film staff and patients there. At least one member for the group (Lauren Handy) was arrested and indicted for her involvement, though they pleaded "not guilty". Handy was also accused of stalking a doctor, having allegedly been caught in surveillance footage vandalizing his home. Stickers were placed all around the doctor's neighborhood that said "THERE'S A KILLER IN YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD!", with a QR code that named the doctor alongside "false, inflammatory claims about abortion procedures".

In July 2022, three PAAU leaders were sentenced to some brief jail-time for trespassing at Alexandria Women's Health Clinic during a demonstration. In November 2022, four PAAU members were sentenced to 45 days in jail for obstructing the operation of a clinic in Michigan.

PAAU's Lauren Handy was also allegedly involved with an October 2020 incident at a clinic in Washington, D.C. where the assailants knocked over an employee and set up a blockade, preventing people from entering the clinic "using their bodies, furniture, chains and ropes". The incident was apparently live-streamed on Facebook. At least one person was blocked from their appointment. After this incident, Handy was restricted by a federal judge from entering reproductive health clinics unless for a personal appointment. She got around this by sending other people to do it for her instead, after which the judge restricted her from doing that either.

Fetus kleptomania
According to PAAU themselves, they have taken the remains of at least 115 fetuses. They claim that they were allowed by a medical waste company's truck driver to take a box of fetal remains (which was marked as a biohazard). However, the company itself denied these claims, stating that using its services to dispose of fetal remains was disallowed by its own policy. According to the company, "Fetal remains and human cadavers must be segregated from the medical waste stream and buried or cremated according to all applicable state and local regulations."

Five fetuses were found in the refrigerator of one PAAU leader during a police raid in response to a tip about "potential biohazard material". The fetuses were then collected by the D.C. Office of the Chief Medical Examiner. The police stated that the five fetuses "appeared to have been aborted legally" and that there did not "appear to be anything criminal about that – except for how they got into that house".

Anyway, Handy apparently "helped baptise and bury" the other 110 fetuses in West Virginia, and a priest (Bill Kuchinsky) was present to give a Catholic funeral in front of the refrigerator beforehand. According to themselves, Handy has been "regularly dumpster diving" for fetuses since about 2016; their father "freaked the fuck out and said under no circumstances" would they be allowed to store fetuses in the basement freezer.

Criminalizing abortion
We're dancing on the grave of Roe v. Wade. But the real work is only beginning.

PAAU disputed that the five fetuses found in Handy's apartment were aborted legally, alleging they were in "late gestational ages" that would have disallowed this under the Partial Birth Abortion Act. They demanded autopsies to determine this, in which they were supported by 23 Republican members of U.S. Congress. Ted Cruz even gave them a visit in person. PAAU's claims were widely spread across the anti-abortion mediasphere. As Reverend Rob Schenck suggested, it is possible that these five fetuses were simply "the result not of elective abortion but of fetal death in the womb or of spontaneous miscarriage". Dr. Jane Turner, a medical examiner, commented that drawing conclusions from any autopsies could be made more difficult depending on how the fetuses were stored by the clinic or by PAAU.

For a bunch of alleged anarchist police-abolitionists, they sure want an opportunity to sic the cops on abortion doctors, don't they? The Baffler put it as such: "[S]ome of PAAU’s members are self-described abolitionists and devotees of police and prison abolition organizer Mariame Kaba. But, ironically, they consider the criminalization of abortion a victory, even when patients themselves are charged for performing their own abortions." According to Slate, the group calls for a national abortion ban. The group may have even handed Ron DeSantis the framing that he felt he politically needed to instate a 15-week abortion ban in Florida (with no exceptions for rape or incest).

The group actually offered a $25,000 cash incentive for current or former staff at Washington Surgi-Clinic to testify that Dr. Cesare Santangelo had engaged in illegal activity. By the way, where may they have gotten $25,000 from? The fact that Randall Terry was there to help them spread the word about this cash incentive in person may prompt some speculative answers.

Moral panic at the CVS
Beginning in February 2023, the group began a campaign against pharmacies such as Walgreens, CVS and RiteAid pharmacies for stocking abortion pills. Their campaign is also supported by (a Christian organization in part criticized for its name) and. A spokesperson for PAAU stated: "Their vision to turn pharmacies into abortion businesses which will exploit and kill disproportionately low-income people and people of color for profit, will be met with nonviolent resistance at every turn." PAAU have been known to fearmonger about the safety of abortion pills, and have endorsed scientifically unproven "abortion pill reversals".

Members
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Connected organizations
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Other possible links
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Critique
There are some straightforward reasons to believe that PAAU may undermine its purported feminist and economically progressive stances. For example, abortion reduces poverty and increases economic gender equality. A lack of abortion access is especially linked to higher child poverty. Commenting on the group, Katherine Hancock Ragsdale of the National Abortion Federation stated: "Simply calling yourself a feminist does not suddenly give you the right to make reproductive decisions for others". Also, how is a minority viewpoint (total abortion ban) consistent with anarchism when it is clearly politically coercive of people who don't share that viewpoint?