The radical pro-abortion group, “Jane’s Revenge,” is largely responsible for recent attacks of vandalism on churches and other pro-life organizations.
Like similar left-wing extremists ANTIFA and BLM, “Janes Revenge” is not a tight-knit group with an organized structure and hierarchy; they are more of a band of anarchists set on violence spurred on by social media.
The group started making waves before the dramatic overturning of Roe v. Wade back in June, with vague threats targeting churches, crisis pregnancy centers, and pro-life groups as their enemy. But since that decision, actors affiliated with the group seem to be behind at least six vandalism or arson attacks on pro-life groups, crisis pregnancy centers, and churches.
The first known threat from a group officially identifying itself as “Jane’s Revenge” was posted back on May 8, before SCOTUS overturned the Roe decision, but it was just days after an opinion on that decision had been leaked.
The post was made to the anonymous blogging host noblogs.org, the same day as a vandal and arson attack on Wisconsin Family Action that appeared to be at the hand of left-wing extremists motivated by anger towards the group’s pro-life stance.
The communique characterized the attack as a “warning” and claimed it would not issue any further warnings. Its authors claimed to be the victims of a “war” and to have been “shot, bombed, and forced into childbirth without consent.”
Claiming that attacks on abortion clinics and abortion doctors were happening with “impunity,” the Jane’s Revenge communique demanded “the disbanding of all anti-choice establishments, fake clinics, and violent anti-choice groups within the next thirty days.”
The loosely organized group seems to have taken its name from the Jane Collaborative, although no “official” link between the two groups has been stated in that first post or any since by “Jane’s Revenge.”
The Jane Collaborative was an illegal abortion procurement ring operating out of Chicago in the late 1960s and early 1970s. National Public Radio ran several stories on the group in early May.
An HBO documentary, “The Janes,” was released on June 8. The HBO website portrays the group as “defying the state legislature that outlawed abortion, the Catholic Church that condemned it, and the Chicago Mob that was profiting from it.” The group performed abortions on about 11,000 women, resulting in the deaths of their babies.
In social media posts and other statements in the months since that first mention of the name in May, “Jane’s Revenge” has called for activism and the creation of “autonomously organized self-defense networks.”
Like other left-wing extremist groups such as ANTIFA and BLM, Jane Revenge encourages violence and is critical of more mainstream abortion activists and their “demure little rallies for freedom.”
“We cannot sit idly by anymore while our anger is yet again channeled into Democratic party fundraisers and peace parades with the police.”
The first such violent criminal act invoking “Jane” appears to have taken place early in the morning of May 8, Mother’s Day, when the Madison, Wisconsin, headquarters of Wisconsin Family Action, was targeted by arson and vandalism. The vandalism involved an anarchist symbol, an anti-police slogan, and the phrase “if abortions aren’t safe, you aren’t safe either.”
Other incidents have since followed.
On the night of May 13, a vandal spray-painted slogans, including the words “Jane’s Revenge,” on the walls of the Alpha Pregnancy Center in Reisterstown, Maryland.
On May 22, St. Michael Parish in Olympia was vandalized with the words “Abort the church” spray-painted on a wall. Several other non-Catholic churches were targeted by vandals. In a message submitted anonymously to Puget Sound Anarchists, the Bo Brown Memorial Cell of Jane’s Revenge claimed responsibility for the attacks.
Another attack took place on June 3, when the Capitol Hill Pregnancy Center in Washington D.C. was vandalized with red paint and spray paint that said, “Jane says revenge.”
In upstate New York, a pro-life pregnancy center sustained major damage in a fire and was defaced with pro-abortion graffiti on the morning of June 7.
The center, CompassCare, located in the Buffalo suburb of Amherst, New York, posted photos showing shattered windows and office space heavily burned and damaged. The words “Jane was here” spray-painted on the side of the building.
Pro-lifers and members of the GOP want to see Jane’s Revenge branded for the terrorists that they are.
These and other violent actions the group has perpetrated or influenced more recently are, in their own words, aimed to “intimidate an arm of the government,” namely the Supreme Court, and “to intimidate the public, members of the pro-life movement, and to disrupt their ability to organize at the state and local level.”
The group’s own mission statement fits the very definition of the word terrorism.