A Teen Just Attacked a Planned Parenthood with a Hatchet: Why We Need to Pay Attention
Claremont, a small town in moderate New Hampshire, has had its Planned Parenthood health center vandalized twice in the past month. Is it because words have consequences? (Nadeen Nakib for Yahoo Health/Getty Images)
New Hampshire is a moderate moderate’s state, the go-to place to take the temperature for where the political center of the country lies and what issues are most important to the people in this group.
Which is why, regardless of where you live, you should care about what’s going on in New Hampshire — and the real implications it has not just on Washington politics, but on public safety and women’s health.
On October 6, the Planned Parenthood health center in Claremont, New Hampshire was vandalized with spray paint, including one tag which said “Murderer” on an outside window.
Then on Wednesday, Oct. 21, a teenager was arrested inside the Claremont health center after charging the facility with a hatchet. Before being apprehended, the perpetrator managed to destroy computers, furniture, plumbing fixtures, office equipment, medical equipment, phone lines, windows, and walls. The damage resulted also in the flooding of the facility.
When the perpetrator was arrested by police, he was found to have spray paint on him, in addition to the hatchet. Police still have not determined whether there is a connection between this week’s incident and the one earlier this month.
However, it’s hard not to draw a connection between the recent physical attacks on Planned Parenthood in New Hampshire and the verbal attacks on the sexual reproductive healthcare provider that have been on-going since the release of the widely discredited undercover “sting” videos taken by the antiabortion activist group the Center for Medical Progress [CMP] and released this summer.
Related: Catching Up on the Planned Parenthood Controversy: Everything You Need to Know
On-going rhetoric lifted from the CMP has been repeated, tirelessly, by GOP legislators on both the national and state levels — including everything from the three Congressional hearings about Planned Parenthood already held in the House of Representatives, Republican presidential hopeful Carly Fiorina’s insistence that a tape of Planned Parenthood engaging in illegal acts exists (despite fact-checkers insistence otherwise), and the near-government shutdown over the elimination of Planned Parenthood as a Medicaid provider.
And in New Hampshire, where these most recent attacks on a Planned Parenthood health center have taken place (attacks earlier this summer occurred at Planned Parenthood health centers in Washington state and Louisiana), the rhetoric is only amplified by the senate race that has only just begun there.
With two female candidates — incumbent Kelly Ayotte, a Republican, and Governor Maggie Hassan, a Democrat — both eyeing the Senate seat up for grabs in 2016, women’s health has become not just a talking point, but the kindling for real threats to the health, safety, and well-being of both patients and healthcare providers.
In a letter to supporters at the end of September, Ayotte wrote:
“You’ve probably seen the back-and-forth in the press about a possible government shutdown over Planned Parenthood funding. I deeply value your support, so I wanted to reach out directly with where I stand. I am sickened by the recent videos that show Planned Parenthood callously discussing the harvesting of organs from unborn babies. We need to hold Planned Parenthood accountable for their appalling disregard for the dignity of human life. I fully support the Senate Judiciary Committee’s ongoing investigation into Planned Parenthood’s actions. I also recently voted to take federal money away from Planned Parenthood and transfer that money instead to community health centers that provide women with health care. Sadly, that vote failed. And now we face a choice about how we move forward.”
Over the past month, Ayotte has also released a series of television ads focusing on her commitment to women’s health care and women’s equality. In her first video, entitled “Our Daughters,” released on Sept. 18, Ayotte tells the camera how she is compelled to do the work she does to ensure that not just her daughter, but “all our daughters” have access to better healthcare, better job opportunities, and “be treated fairly.”
Her Oct. 6 ad “Workplace Fairness” begins with Ayotte saying, “Women should not have to choose between their jobs and a healthy pregnancy” and her October 13 ad “Strong Families” features Ayotte discussing the importance to ensure that working mothers are granted flexible time so that they may continue to work and take care of their families.
Related: This Image Is Proof That Planned Parenthood Provides So Much More Than Abortions
This week, her campaign released a radio ad about her Senate bill, the “Allowing Greater Access to Safe and Effective Contraception Act,” a measure that would make birth control available over-the-counter – but could also potentially end insurance coverage for contraception care, forcing women to pay out-of-pocket for this basic health care need.
Yet, Ayotte voted against the Paycheck Fairness Act “to revise remedies for, enforcement of, and exceptions to prohibitions against sex discrimination in the payment of wages” multiple times, voted for the Blunt amendment (which would allow employers to deny their employees health care coverage for moral or religious reasons), repeatedly voted against a raise to the minimum wage, and voted both to implement a federal 20-week abortion ban and to defund Planned Parenthood.
But just as important as her voting record are the words she chooses. And when a woman — and an elected official — tells supporters that Planned Parenthood is “sickening” and that “[w]e can’t let President Obama do this to the pro-life cause” in regards to continued funding for Planned Parenthood, it seems hard to look away when attacks such as that which happened this month in Claremont occur.
“I strongly condemn these unlawful and despicable actions, which have no place in New Hampshire and are contrary to our tradition of respectful, peaceful public discourse,” said Senator Ayotte in a statement via email to Yahoo Health.
All the more reason to remember: Words have consequences.
As Dr. Andrew Newberg, a neuroscientist, and Mark Robert Waldman write in their book Words Can Change Your Brain: “Angry words send alarm messages through the brain, and they partially shut down the logic-and-reasoning centers located in the frontal lobes.” In other words, violent, inflammatory rhetoric isn’t just political gesturing. What our politicians say can literally change how people think, feel and, ultimately, choose to act.
And right now, all eyes and ears should be on New Hampshire — because the words being said there are endangering the safety of providers and preventing women from being able to access Planned Parenthood for their healthcare.
Updated Oct. 26 with statement from Sen. Kelly Ayotte
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