Ed Markey: “since 1973, when the Supreme Court decided that a woman's right to choose was constitutionally protected, women's health…”

“since 1973, when the Supreme Court decided that a woman's right to choose was constitutionally protected, women's health clinics across the country have been targeted by violence and other criminal activities by extremists. The crimes are alarming: harassment, arson, acid attacks, obstruction, violent threats, and even murder. Women's safety has been repeatedly put at risk simply for exercising a constitutional right. In the past 10 years, there have been approximately 75,000 incidents of violence against abortion providers in the United States. That is unacceptable. We should always remember that each of these victims of violence has a name, a family, and a story. In 1994, a gunman killed two people and wounded five others at two clinics in Massachusetts. One of these victims was 25-year-old Shannon Lowney, a daughter of public schoolteachers, a beloved sister, and a volunteer who worked domestically and internationally with poor families and children. Shannon worked as a receptionist and Spanish translator at Planned Parenthood in Brookline, MA. She worked there not for the pay but because she fundamentally believed women had a right to affordable health care. She wanted to do her part to ensure that patients at a vulnerable and stressful time in life were greeted with a smile. Five days after Christmas in 1994 she was fatally shot in the neck at a Planned Parenthood clinic by an extremist protester.…”