Nita Lowey: “we are all aware of the escalating levels of violence directed at reproductive health facilities around the Nation. That…”

“we are all aware of the escalating levels of violence directed at reproductive health facilities around the Nation. That is the shame. The violence has been elevated by the extremists, the radical right wing, not this debate. The tragic murders in Brookline last December were just the latest and most horrible in a series of violent incidents that have left five Americans dead and nine wounded. Every day reproductive health clinics and the doctors who staff them are subject to harassment and intimidation. In the last year alone over half of all reproductive health clinics in the United States experienced a violent incident. There have been literally hundreds of arson and chemical attacks and bomb threats against clinics around the Nation. This nationwide terror campaign is clearly designed to undermine the constitutionally guaranteed right to choose. We must respond. The Schroeder amendment would help address this problem by allowing local law enforcement to use a portion of their block grant to enhance the security of reproductive health clinics within their jurisdictions. Make no mistake: The Schroeder amendment would help save the lives of doctors and their patients. To those who say that reproductive health clinics should accept routine violence as a cost of doing business, we say that organized terrorism and murder must never become routine in the United States.”