NAF 2024 Violence & Disruption Report

Introduction
Report Findings
Violence and Disruption Incident Maps
Violence and Disruption Story Map
Threats to the FACE Act
Clinic Closures
Large Anti-Abortion Gatherings

Introduction

The post-Dobbs landscape

It has been nearly three years since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, ending almost 50 years of federal protection for abortion rights and opening the door for a slew of state-level abortion restrictions in dozens of states. These legal victories have emboldened anti-abortion extremists, and following the Dobbs decision, we saw an immediate spike in major incidents targeting abortion providers, including arsons, burglaries, and death threats.

The National Abortion Federation’s 2023/2024 Violence and Disruption Report demonstrates that there has been sustained and consistent violence and harassment targeting abortion providers, even as clinics have closed and restrictions make it harder to access abortion care in many regions.

Anti-abortion extremists continue to perpetrate high levels of violence and harassment against abortion providers, including arsons, obstructions, assaults, constant picketing, death threats, and other activities meant to intimidate and terrorize abortion providers. Even with clinics closing in states that have banned or restricted access to abortion, extremists are traveling—or even moving—to states where abortion remains legal. There, they protest, intimidate, harass, and even attack abortion providers to interfere with people’s access to abortion care.

Due to the significantly different landscape post-Dobbs, we cannot report national statistics in the same way we have previously. For one, there are no longer clinics across much of the Midwest and southern U.S. This reduces the universe of providers and limits our ability to directly compare and track changes from year to year. Many of the clinics that closed were located in hostile areas and reported high numbers of incidents, which also affects our overall numbers.

Additionally, the actual number of incidents of harassment and violence targeting abortion providers is likely much higher than our reports. Not all abortion clinics are NAF members, and not all NAF members submit reports. On top of that, providers and clinic staff are experiencing intense burnout and fatigue as a consequence of today’s abortion landscape and may not have the resources, staff, or capacity to track incidents and make reports. As a result, incidents are likely being underreported. Sadly, many clinic staff also normalize the unacceptable harassment, threats, and violence they endure, which likely contributes to underreporting.

Report Findings

This year we are highlighting the incidences of violence & disruption in 2023 and 2024 alongside the total number of incidents NAF has tracked since 1977. Our goal is to show the cumulative impact of years on years of violence against abortion providers.

Highlights

Obstruction

777

Trespassing

621

Death Threats / Threats of Harm

296

Picketing

128,570

13

37

Disruption

Harrassment

1977-2024:

34,679

2023-2024:

3,582

777

Blockades

Number of Incidents

1977-2024:

1,071

2023-2024:

1

Number of Arrests

1977-2024:

33,914

2023-2024:

0

Violence and Disruption Incident Maps

The percentages shown on the maps represent abortion-providing clinics in each state that submitted incident reports in 2023 and 2024. Reports from states with total abortion bans reflect incidents either from early 2023—before some bans were fully in effect—or from facilities that remain open to provide other reproductive health care services but can no longer provide abortion care. It is important to note that not all abortion clinics are NAF members, and not all NAF members submit reports. As a result, the actual number of incidents is likely significantly higher than what is reflected here.

Obstruction – Over the last two years, we documented 777 incidents of obstruction. The number of incidents in 2024 was an increase over 2023, but a decline over previous years, likely a result of clinic closures following abortion bans. Many of the sites that previously experienced the highest levels of activity are no longer operating.

Trespassing – Trespassing is a frequent occurrence at many clinics, and in 2023 and 2024, clinics reported 621 incidents of trespassing. There are often only minor penalties associated with trespassing, which is one of the reasons the enforcement of the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act is so critical for ensuring access to clinics.

Protesters – Many clinic staff and patients encounter anti-abortion protesters outside of facilities. Protesters often use graphic, angry, and inflammatory rhetoric and behaviors meant to threaten, intimidate, and instill fear in clinic staff and patients. Providers reported 128,570 protesters over 2023 and 2024, which we know is a vast underestimation. Clinic staff may become accustomed to the protests and stop tracking and reporting them or don’t have the time or resources to make daily reports while caring for patients.

Threats - In the last two years, there have been 296 incidents of death threats or other threats of harm aimed at abortion providers and patients.

Violence and Disruption Story Map

Click through this map to hear the stories behind the statistics. Hear from providers both in states where abortion is banned and where it is protected as they share their experiences coming face-to-face with violence, disruption, and harassment—while simply trying to do their jobs.

Take the Tour

Threats to the FACE Act

The Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act is a federal law that makes it a crime to use force, the threat of force, or physical obstruction to prevent individuals from obtaining or providing reproductive health care services. The FACE Act was enacted in 1994 in response to escalating violence targeting abortion providers, including large-scale blockades and the murder of NAF member Dr. David Gunn in 1993. After FACE was signed into law, anti-abortion violence dropped by 30%, and there was an increase in convictions against anti-abortion extremists.

Before the passage of the FACE Act, one of the few penalties that could be applied to those physically invading and blockading clinics was trespass, which generally comes with only a small fine. FACE’s civil and criminal penalties have been a significant deterrent and have been utilized to prosecute those who disrupt clinic operations and threaten providers and patients. In fact, when a number of FACE violators were convicted and jailed in 2023 and 2024, we saw a decrease in the number of clinic invasions.

Unfortunately, the second Trump administration has not only pardoned at least 23 anti-abortion extremists who were in prison for violating the FACE Act, but his Department of Justice issued a directive that FACE will not be enforced except in "extraordinary circumstances" such as those that result in extreme bodily harm, death, or significant property damage. As a result, several cases that were in progress, and even some cases where convictions had been handed down, were dropped or overturned.

In early 2025, some of the individuals who previously blockaded and/or invaded clinics have indicated that they plan to not only continue, but to ramp up these activities. Some anti-abortion extremists have said they want to return to the large-scale clinic blockades and other activities that were common before the FACE Act was signed into law.

As we were finalizing this report, two extremists blockaded a clinic in Wisconsin and refused to leave until police physically removed them. We know that without the enforcement of the FACE Act, extremists will likely be able to act with impunity, and this could have a serious effect on the safety of abortion providers and their patients’ ability to access care.

Clinic Closures

State abortion bans have caused dozens of clinics to close: over 60 abortion providing facilities closed in 2023, and at least 11 more in 2024. These closures have forced thousands of patients to travel to other states for abortion care. Guttmacher Institute documented that in 2023, nearly 1 in 5 patients traveled out of state for abortion care, double the rate of 2020.

Clinic closures and abortion bans have also created physician shortages, maternal care deserts, and brain drains. A 2025 study by the Institute for Women’s Policy Research reported that “one in five individuals planning to have children within the next decade has moved—or knows someone who has moved—to another state due to abortion restrictions.” Closures also affect statistical reporting, including in this report, and we know that incidents of violence and disruption are vastly underreported due to a variety of factors, including provider fatigue; staff turnover; and some clinics not having the resources, staff, or capacity to monitor or report protests and incidents, especially as they deal with surges of patients.

Large Anti-Abortion Gatherings

Large national and regional anti-abortion protests such as the annual Operation Save America (OSA) events and others like it, bring higher than usual numbers of extremists to one place to inundate the area with loud protests, graphic signs, parades, home protests, and other disruptive activity. Their goal is to bring negative attention to abortion by “outing” doctors and using graphic language and imagery to falsely portray the local clinics as unsafe places for patients. These activities are meant to intimidate and terrorize clinic staff and they put a very real and dangerous spotlight on facilities and staff.

In July 2023 and October 2024, the NAF Security team monitored OSA events in South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida. The NAF Security team coordinates well in advance and on-site during the events with law enforcement and clinic staff to provide intelligence, address protests, and ensure safety at reproductive health facilities.

Acknowledgements

NAF's Security & Safe Access Program is generously supported by private foundations and individual donors. We appreciate this ongoing support, which enables us to provide our members with 24/7 security support, trainings and assessments, and the collection and production of these statistics.

We would also like to thank Rachel Jones, PhD, from the Guttmacher Institute for support around our methodology.