The Biden administration has charged a 20-year-old woman who identifies as transgender and leads a college socialist group with spray-painting “abort God” on a pro-life pregnancy resource center in the Midwest.
The Justice Department has lodged a federal misdemeanor charge under the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act, against Whitney M. Durant, a 20-year-old student at Bowling Green State University who also uses the name “Soren Monroe.” The Biden administration says Durant/Monroe vandalized HerChoice (also known as the Bowling Green Pregnancy Center), a pro-life women’s center dedicated to helping women “make an empowered decision for your unplanned pregnancy.” Officials at the northwestern Ohio medical office found the messages “Jane’s Revenge,” “abort God,” “fake clinic,” “liars,” and “fund abortion” scrawled across the yellow exterior of their building, located a short walk from the BGSU campus. Pro-life staffers provided law enforcement and local media with surveillance footage, which showed a young woman wearing a surgical mask and a hat vandalizing the facility at 3:26 a.m. on April 15. Pro-life student volunteers and members of the Knights of Columbus cleansed the early morning vandalism off the HerChoice façade by that afternoon.
Several sources confirm that Durant identified as transgender. A message posted on Instagram Tuesday night by “friends of Soren” refers to Whitney with plural pronouns. “On April 13, Monroe sent an email to Falcon Media identifying themself as a steering committee member for Bowling Green Socialists,” reported BGSU’s student news website. (Emphasis added.)
Durant/Monroe had a long history of socialist activism and confrontational tactics which her targets viewed as harassment. The university’s platform for student organizations lists “Soren Monroe” as the contact for the Bowling Green Student Rights Union, a self-described “Leftist student activism organization that will be taking direct action to make change on campus for causes we care about (e.g. workers’ rights, environmentally friendly practices, etc.).” The term “direct action” encompasses leading “strikes, violence, or protests as a way of trying to get what you want, instead of talking.”
Shortly before the assault, BGSRU denounced pro-life advocates as “demonic forced birthers” and sent an “additional f*** you” to Bowling Green police for arresting pro-abortion activists at a pro-life event. In an Instagram video, Whitney claims to be “a former patient” of the pro-life clinic.
Durant/Monroe reportedly harassed the campus affiliate of Students for Life, Falcons for Life, during an event to oppose the abortion pill in February — while equating pro-life views with violence. Durant approached pro-life students multiple times, screaming, “You are promoting violence by forcing people to stay pregnant!” wrote Falcons for Life President Morgan Reece. “When we asked her for a civil conversation with us, she shouted, ‘No, you dumb f***!’” Durant/Monroe returned to the display at least twice after that, repeatedly banging her fists on the table and screaming in pro-life students’ faces, calling them “racists” and “fascists,” Reece said. At one point, Durant/Monroe asked, “How can you say eating animals is okay, but getting an abortion is not?!” The pro-abortion group BGSRU also shared an Instagram message stating, “Veganism is a moral obligation.”
Radical transgender activists have turned increasingly violent, even as Hollywood, the media, the government, and Fortune 500 businesses celebrate their cause. A 28-year-old woman named Audrey Elizabeth Hale, who identified as transgender, murdered six people at Covenant School, a church-run Christian learning center in Nashville, on March 27 before police stopped her rampage. Nearly four months later, the detailed manifesto she left behind, explaining her reasons for targeting the school she once attended, has yet to be released.
At least four mass shooters since 2018 — Hale in Nashville, Lee Aldrich in Colorado Springs, Alec McKinney in Denver, and Snochia Moseley in Maryland — identified as transgender or were undergoing cross-sex hormone injections. National Public Radio highlighted transgender activists conducting firearms drills and training at “Pink Pistol Clubs” with names such as “Rainbow Reload.” As far back as a decade ago, public officials paid for “queer self-defense classes” to teach LGBTQ activists offensive martial arts tactics.
Although Durant/Monroe’s message credited the attack to “Jane’s Revenge,” DOJ officials have not stated whether Durant had any accomplices or formally belonged to the domestic terrorist group, which promised to take “increasingly drastic measures” against pro-life pregnancy centers thanks to last summer’s landmark Supreme Court ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade.
At least 67 attacks on pro-life centers have taken place nationwide since the still-unsolved leak of the Dobbs decision last May, according to Family Research Council’s list. Radicals firebombed pro-life pregnancy resource centers in Wisconsin and Buffalo, New York. A recent study found pro-life pregnancy resource centers are 22-times more likely to be attacked than abortion businesses. Attacks on churches have also exploded since Dobbs, tripling in the first three months of 2023 compared to the same period one year earlier. Many vandals and arsonists target houses of worship due to their biblical beliefs on the sanctity of human life and the immutable nature of sex/gender.
But unlike poorly substantiated complaints against pro-life advocates such as Mark Houck, the Biden administration seems to take its time in arresting anyone for assaults against pro-life centers.
“For months, we were hoping to see justice served for our beloved HerChoice Pregnancy Center in Bowling Green Ohio, and that finally began,” said SFLA Ohio Regional Coordinator Jamie Scherdin. “We hope this arrest sends a message to violent pro-abortion individuals across the country that you cannot attack our life-affirming resource centers without paying the price.”
“FINALLY — radical pro-abortion activists are being held accountable for breaking the law!” said Michael Gonidakis, president of Ohio Right to Life.
The accused perpetrator entered a not guilty plea to the charge last Friday, July 7, and was released on a $10,000 unsecured bond. If convicted, Durant/Monroe faces up to one year of jail.
She will be prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Angelita Cruz Bridges, a Democrat associated with former liberal Ohio Governor Ted Strickland (D), and Wood County (Ohio) Prosecutor Paul Dobson.
According to “friends of Soren,” law enforcement officials also found alcohol in the 20-year-old’s dorm room during the raid, leading to an illegal possession charge. The post complains that, as a condition of her release, Whitney/Monroe must “stay employed or seeking employment no matter the mental health toll of the whole ordeal” on the accused perpetrator.
“We are grateful to local and federal law enforcement for diligently working our vandalism case which has led to federal charges being filed,” HerChoice, the vandalized medical center, told local media. “Our desire is for Bowling Green to be a peaceful community where diverse ideas can be communicated in respectful, non-violent ways. HerChoice has been and will continue to be a place where women can turn to know their options and to know that they are not alone when facing a pregnancy decision.”
Ben Johnson is senior reporter and editor at The Washington Stand.
