Hope Pregnancy Center in Philadelphia had four windows and three glass doors smashed sometimes between Friday, June 10 and Saturday, June 11, 2022. / Courtesy Hope Pregnancy Center
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jun 15, 2022 / 03:41 am (CNA).
A pro-life pregnancy center in Philadelphia was vandalized last weekend with smashed windows and graffiti.
Latrice Booker, director of Hope Pregnancy Center in Philadelphia, told CNA that when she drove by her clinic Saturday, June 11, she found four windows smashed, with one written on with graffiti. It is unclear what the graffiti says.
Three glass doors were smashed as well, she said. She estimated the damages to be around $15,000. As of Tuesday afternoon, the windows were boarded up and the clinic is in the process of repairs. They are still open for business, she said.
Booker said that the clinic offers all its services to help women and families in need at no cost. She said that the clinic is not dissuaded in its mission by the vandalism and called on people of faith to “stand tall” despite the vitriol against pro-lifers.
The Philadelphia Police Department was notified of the vandalism and an investigation is ongoing, Booker said.
An online blog post on the website phlanticap.noblogs.org dated June 12 contains a message of someone claiming responsibility for the vandalism under the name “Anti Hope Brigade.”
“We smashed out all of the windows of the ‘Hope’ pregnancy center on Broad st. We are tired of your ‘family values’ and you forcing families, and your values onto our bodies. This fake clinic spread lies and is part of a broader attempt to strip away body autonomy from hundreds of women and people,” the post says.
The post also says that the vandalism was inspired by the “actions of comrades in Wisconsin, Colorado, New York, and a growing list of places.” Attacks on either pro-life pregnancy centers or pro-life churches have occurred in each of those states.
“If the attack on abortion does not stop our attacks will broaden,” the post says. “This is also intended as a small gesture of complicity with all those imprisoned by the state, in honor of June 11th.”
The vandalism is the latest in a series of attacks against pro-life pregnancy centers around the country. A steep rise in violence toward pro-life pregnancy centers began in early May when a leak from the Supreme Court showed that the justices may have been prepared to overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 landmark case that federally legalized abortion.
The court is expected to release the official opinion or decision in that case, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, at the end of June or beginning of July.
Since the leak, pro-life pregnancy centers in Washington D.C., Washington state, Maryland, Wisconsin, Oregon, Alaska, Florida, and Texas have been vandalized.