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Terrorist Attacks against Health Care Targets that Provide Abortion Services

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 March 2023

Bart Wirken ,
Dennis G. Barten Open the ORCID record for Dennis G. Barten [Opens in a new window] ,
Harald De Cauwer Open the ORCID record for Harald De Cauwer [Opens in a new window] ,
Luc Mortelmans ,
Derrick Tin  and
Gregory Ciottone
Bart Wirken
Affiliation:
Department of Emergency Medicine, VieCuri Medical Center, Venlo, The Netherlands
Dennis G. Barten*
Affiliation:
Department of Emergency Medicine, VieCuri Medical Center, Venlo, The Netherlands
Harald De Cauwer
Affiliation:
Department of Neurology, Dimpna Regional Hospital, Geel, Belgium; Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, University of Antwerp, Wilrijk, Belgium
Luc Mortelmans
Affiliation:
Center for Research and Education in Emergency Care, University of Leuven, Leuven, Belgium; REGEDIM, Free University Brussels, Brussels, Belgium; Department of Emergency Medicine, ZNA Camp Stuivenberg, Antwerp, Belgium
Derrick Tin
Affiliation:
Faculty, BIDMC Disaster Medicine Fellowship, Department of Emergency Medicine, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts USA
Gregory Ciottone
Affiliation:
Director, BIDMC Disaster Medicine, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center; Associate Professor, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA
*
Correspondence: D.G. Barten Department of Emergency Medicine VieCuri Medical Center PO Box 1926, 5900 BX Venlo, The Netherlands E-mail: dbarten@viecuri.nl
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Abstract

Introduction:

Terrorist attacks against hospitals and health care providers have disproportionally increased during the last decades. A significant proportion of these attacks targeted abortion clinics and abortion providers. In the light of the overturning of Roe v. Wade in 2022, an increase of anti-abortion terrorist attacks is anticipated. Therefore, it becomes imperative to gain further insight into the risk and characteristics of past terrorist attacks. This study aimed to review terrorist attacks against health care targets providing abortion services from 1970 through 2020.

Methods:

Data collection was performed using a retrospective database search through the Global Terrorism Database (GTD). The GTD was searched using the internal database functions for all terrorist attacks against abortion health care providers from January 1, 1970 - December 31, 2020. Temporal factors, location, attack and weapon type, and number of casualties or hostages were analyzed using descriptive statistics.

Results:

In total, 262 terrorist attacks were identified in five different countries. The majority (96.6%) occurred in the United States, with the highest counts during the last 20 years of the 20th century. Facility and infrastructure attacks were the most common attack types, followed by bombings and explosions. The attacks resulted in 34 injuries and nine fatalities. Kidnapping took place in three incidents. Of all successful attacks, 96.9% resulted in property damage.

Conclusion:

Abortion-related health care facilities and providers have repeatedly been the target of terrorists over the past decades. Nearly all of these attacks took place in the United States, with the highest counts during the last 20 years of the 20th century.

Keywords

abortioncounter-terrorism medicineRoe v. Wadesecurityterrorismviolence
Type
Research Report
Information
Prehospital and Disaster Medicine , Volume 38 , Issue 3 , June 2023 , pp. 409 - 414
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Copyright
© The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the World Association for Disaster and Emergency Medicine

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Footnotes

Note: B Wirken and DG Barten contributed equally to the manuscript.

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