Yet another pregnancy resource center was targeted over the weekend in Gresham, Oregon, a suburb of Portland. At approximately 3 a.m. on Friday morning, police and fire responded to a fire in the Gresham center, which is owned and operated by First Image, a Christian organization that runs multiple pregnancy resource centers in Oregon.
Authorities consider the fire “suspicious in nature,” and the Portland Field office of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) is assisting local police in their investigation. According to initial investigations, authorities believe the fire was started when “an incendiary device was thrown through a window.”
According to First Image, the building was equipped with an alarm system, which immediately alerted emergency responders. Due to the rapid response, the fire “was mostly contained to one room, but damage there was extensive and there is additional water and smoke damage in other parts of the building. Nobody was hurt.” First Image posted photos showing a warm and cozy office transformed into a blackened shell.
The Gresham attack is the fifth incident of pro-abortion vandalism in Oregon since a draft Supreme Court opinion in the Dobbs case, indicating that Roe v. Wade may be overturned, was leaked on May 2. In early May, unidentified vandals attacked another Portland-area pregnancy resource center operated by First Image, less than 10 miles from the Gresham center, smashing windows and leaving foul messages in graffiti. On May 8, Oregon Right to Life’s office in Salem was firebombed by an incendiary devices thrown through the window. On May 27, vandals graffitied a pregnancy resource center in Eugene, Oregon. Sometime in May, a pro-life billboard in Portland was defaced with the message, “abort the Supreme Court,” an antifa symbol, and the slogan, “my body, my choice.”
On June 8, only two days before the Gresham attack, a pregnancy resource center in Vancouver, Washington, was vandalized with red paint and the spraypainted message, “Jane’s Revenge.” The Vancouver center is just across the river, 21 miles from Gresham, Oregon.
According to data compiled by Family Research Council using publicly available information, since the Dobbs opinion was leaked on May 2, there have been 16 attacks on churches and 23 attacks on pro-life organizations and pregnancy resource centers by pro-abortion activists, plus an additional nine incidents of disruption or violence.
In response to the leaked Dobbs opinion, a group of anonymous individuals identifying themselves as “Jane’s Revenge,” has ridiculed peaceful pro-abortion demonstrations as “demure little rallies for freedom” and called instead for violence, “whatever form your fury takes … the next step is carrying that anger out into the world and expressing it physically.” They express the political purpose in bold font, “We need the state to feel our full wrath. … We need them to be afraid of us.”
On June 8, an armed California man was arrested outside of the Maryland home of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh and charged with attempted murder, after he called 911 to turn himself in. To date, The Washington Stand is not aware of any individual who has been arrested and charged with perpetrating pro-abortion, political violence against churches and pro-life resource centers.
On June 7, the Department of Homeland Security advised that “the United States remains in a heightened threat environment” because of the potential for political violence on both sides. “Given a high-profile U.S. Supreme Court case about abortion rights, individuals who advocate both for and against abortion have, on public forums, encouraged violence, including against government, religious, and reproductive healthcare personnel and facilities, as well as those with opposing ideologies.”
Joshua Arnold is a senior writer at The Washington Stand.
