Picture this: violent anti-abortion protesters swarming every clinic in every state. They’re no longer required to stay a hundred feet from the entrance, and nothing stops them from blocking patients trying to get inside. The screaming and terrorizing we’ve witnessed for years now happens inches from patients’ faces. When protesters are arrested, they file First Amendment lawsuits—and they win.

Right now, America is on the brink of a new era of extreme anti-abortion violence, one where radicals can terrorize women and doctors unchecked. This kind of dangerous free reign is right around the corner—not just in states with bans, but everywhere. And it’s been gift-wrapped by men who campaigned as abortion ‘moderates.’

On Thursday, Donald Trump pardoned nearly two dozen extremists convicted of attacking abortion clinics across the country. The activists, who our felon president called “peaceful” and “elderly,” forced their way into clinics, terrorized patients, and blocked them from entering the building for care. In Michigan, that included a woman whose pregnancy had just been diagnosed with a fatal abnormality and whose health was at risk. In DC, a patient was forced to climb through a window to access the building, while ‘pro-life’ activists refused to let another woman see a doctor even after she collapsed in pain.

And the protesters that Republicans depict as praying grannies? One told a Manhattan clinic “we’re gonna terrorize you so good,” and crushed a staff member’s hand in a door. Another was found with a half a dozen fetuses hidden in her home.

What Trump offered last week weren’t just pardons, they were permission.

In fact, both Trump and JD Vance promised at the March for Life that anyone who harasses patients or attacks clinics will “never have the government go after them ever again.” Vance told the crowd, “We stand with you.”

That’s not a symbolic gesture or empty promise: Abortion, Every Day has discovered that on the very same morning of the march, more than thirty Republican legislators held a private meeting with anti-abortion activists where they pledged to repeal the FACE Act—the federal law that prohibits blocking or doing violence to a reproductive health clinic.

At that event, U.S. Rep. Andy Biggs made their intent chillingly clear: “God demands justice,” he said.

Meanwhile, as Republicans advance legislation to undo the FACE Act, the Department of Justice announced that they won’t enforce it anyway. Not unless there are “extraordinary circumstances...such as death.”

In other words, anti-abortion activists can do anything they want short of murder.

It’s not a coincidence that this is all happening Trump’s first week in office. With the anti-abortion movement eager to roll out a slate of deeply unpopular restrictions, giving extremists the green light to attack patients and providers without fear of arrest is, at least in part, a way to buy the administration time and goodwill.

But let’s be real: Trump has always loved emboldening bullies and inciting violence. This is the same man still pushing ‘post-birth’ abortion lie, fully aware it puts providers’ lives at risk. He thrives on this shit.

It’s not just the legislative and executive branches driving this effort. Behind the scenes, the country’s most powerful conservative legal groups are working to overturn Hill v. Colorado—the Supreme Court decision that established abortion clinic buffer zones. These rules require anti-abortion protesters to stay a safe distance from clinic property, protecting patients and staff from harassment and violence. For years, I’ve tracked lawsuit after lawsuit from these groups, all arguing that stopping close-range harassment somehow violates ‘free speech.’ (Translation: they believe they have a constitutional right to scream in women’s faces, calling them sluts and murderers.)

If SCOTUS decides to take up one of these cases, the national implications would be massive. Because remember, since Roe was overturned, threats and violence against clinics and providers have skyrocketed. Stalking and burglaries are up more than 200%, arson has doubled, and providers are regularly doxxed and threatened with death. In just the last three years, we’ve seen clinics burned to the ground and maniacs drive cars into them. That’s to say nothing of the trauma inflicted on patients simply trying to access care.

Now imagine what would happen if clinics weren’t protected by buffer zones, and if the extremists outside of them had no fear of consequence.

That, of course, is the point. Cloaked in the guise of ‘free speech’ and religious freedom, anti-abortion legislators and activists want to create a country where getting an abortion is an exercise in terror. They want women to feel humiliated, ashamed and afraid—especially right now.

Anti-abortion groups are furious that the abortion rate hasn’t dropped. In fact, abortions have increased since Roe fell. That women have been able to get care in spite of state bans absolutely enrages them. After all, they didn’t spend decades working to ban abortion just to let women go unpunished!

In truth, these people don’t oppose abortion as much as they do women making their own choices without guilt, shame or punishment. That’s why they’re so desperate to get rid of abortion pills. It’s not just that the pills let women have abortions—it’s that they let them do it without running a gauntlet of screaming protesters outside a clinic. How dare they end their pregnancies at home in peace?

That’s why I don’t buy the reports that abortion groups are disappointed with Trump and Vance for not (yet) rolling back access to abortion pills or invoking the Comstock Act. For a movement hellbent on punishment, what Trump and Republican legislators are offering is still significant: it’s more than a policy promise—it’s a way to satisfy their visceral itch for punishment.

They may not be able to stop every woman from getting an abortion, but they can make it as miserable as possible for those who do.

And that’s Trump’s real gift to the anti-abortion movement: The ability to take their anger out on patients and terrorize anyone who dares to break their rules.

Radical anti-abortion groups are at the ready. At the Students for Life summit this past weekend, president Kristan Hawkins cheered the Department of Justice’s announcement to end FACE Act prosecutions and called on activists to “revive community pro-life activism…in front of the abortion facilities.” (This is the same group that wants to force women who self-manage their abortions to bag their blood and deliver it to doctors as “medical waste.” Shame and humiliation aren’t just tactics—they’re the point.)

What comes next is worrying. Without clinic protections, there will be an unprecedented emboldening of extremist protesters. It’s also likely that we’ll see an influx of even more extremists in pro-choice states: With abortion fully banned in ultra-conservative areas, those who have the ability to take their sideshow on the road will do just that.

If and when the Trump administration does roll back access to abortion medication—whether through the Comstock Act, or FDA rules—more patients will be forced to seek care at clinics. And wherever patients go, more protesters will follow.

That means clinic escorts and defenders will need our support more than ever, along with providers and abortion funds. But we’ll need to do more than the logistical work of ensuring people can get care—we have to make it clear, again and again, that everyone has the right to seek an abortion without fear, shame, or harassment from assholes.

Because the anti-abortion movement isn’t just waging a war on access and safety—but our dignity. And that’s a fight I’m ready to take to the streets.

For more information on clinic violence, check out the National Abortion Federation, the Southern Poverty Law Center here and here.

To support Abortion, Every Day, please consider signing up for a paid subscription: