Abortion providers have long grappled with threats of political violence, but Saturday’s shootings targeting Minnesota lawmakers have put them on high alert, and many say they feel newly vulnerable.

Suspected shooter Vance Boelter had a list of targets that included other elected officials and abortion providers, including Planned Parenthood affiliates and employees, multiple outlets reported. Boelter had also previously spoken out against abortion, per multiple statements surfaced by news outlets. 

Since Saturday, Minnesota’s Planned Parenthood clinics — which already have tight security — have been working with law enforcement to enhance those protocols. Multiple Planned Parenthood facilities in Minnesota were open and providing care when news of the shootings surfaced Saturday.

“We are seeing this reality where political violence is being normalized for us as an organization,” said Ruth Richardson, CEO of Planned Parenthood North Central States, which operates health centers in Minnesota, as well as in Iowa, Nebraska and the Dakotas. 

Richardson, a former state legislator, was friends with former Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman, who along with her husband, Mark, died as a result of the shooting. Boelter is also accused of shooting state Sen. John Hoffman and his wife, Yvette. Richardson was informed by law enforcement that she was listed as a possible target.

“This is not the first time that Planned Parenthood has been targeted. It’s not the first time that I’ve been targeted,” Richardson said. “It’s difficult to process and navigate through all those things and to hold them all at once.” 

Concerns about clinic security and future attacks have spread beyond Planned Parenthood since Saturday. The National Abortion Federation — an association of abortion providers across the country, has been communicating with clinics in Minnesota and elsewhere — providing security assessments and customized recommendations, said Brittany Fonteno, the organization’s president.

“I just can’t really put into words what it feels like to see your colleagues and friends targeted — to see that doing really important, essential and lifechanging work would make you a target of an extremist,” she said.

U.S. Sen. Tina Smith of Minnesota knew Hortman for years. In the 2000s, before becoming an elected official, Smith worked at a Planned Parenthood regional affiliate. Credible violent threats to abortion providers have long been “a fact of life” and a “tragic reality” that have only been underscored by heightened political violence, she said in an interview Tuesday. 

“Some people think this is all just a game, that it’s not real, but this is very real,” Smith said. “I talked to one of my longtime friends, who’s been a leader in the reproductive rights movement, who is actively fearful for her personal safety because her name was on the list. She’s lived through this for her entire working career.”

President Donald Trump has not reached out to Richardson, she said. She is not aware of efforts by the White House to communicate with anyone else connected to her Planned Parenthood affiliate. On Tuesday, Trump said he wouldn’t call Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, who has also been reported to be on Boelter’s list, in the wake of the shootings because it would “waste time,” 

“President Trump pledged to restore law and order in American society, and the Administration will never stand for illegal violence in any form against anyone,” Kush Desai, a White House spokesperson, said in a statement to The 19th. 

Already, it is a moment of elevated risk for abortion providers and other reproductive health facilities. In a National Abortion Federation survey, clinics reported receiving almost 218 threats of violence or death in 2022, a spike that coincided with the year of Roe’s overturn. Over 2023 and 2024, they reported almost 300 more threats, even as the number of abortion clinics has fallen. Since 1977, at least 11 people have been killed in attacks on American abortion clinics.

The federal government has deprioritized prosecuting cases of violence against abortion providers. On January 23, days after his inauguration, Trump announced pardons for 23 people who had been convicted of violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, also known as the FACE Act. The law, which was passed after the 1993 killing of Florida abortion provider Dr. David Gunn, prohibits using or threatening to use physical force to interfere with people getting abortions.

A day after the pardons, the Department of Justice directed government attorneys not to pursue any abortion-related cases under the FACE Act. The same memo dismissed ongoing FACE Act cases in Pennsylvania, Ohio and Florida.

Richardson singled out those policies as potentially increasing the risks clinics face. “It should give everyone pause in terms of thinking about what we want to normalize right now in this country,” she said.

Clinic-targeted violence has persisted the past 30 years, despite the FACE Act’s protections. 

“If someone like this shooter wants to harm people, they’re going to do it. If somebody wants to harm a clinic or get in or something, a federal regulation isn’t going to stop them,” said Tammi Kromenaker, who runs Red River Women’s Clinic, an abortion clinic in Moorehead, Minnesota. 

Still, she added, the FACE Act “did deter a lot of the violence activity that used to happen. Facing those higher consequences definitely put a check on some folks.”

Kromenaker’s clinic, which was closed Saturday, was not on the alleged list, she said. 

The shooting has added a new level of fear for employees at Minnesota clinics, which are the site of regular anti-abortion protests. Already, clinic leaders said, the federal shift away from enforcing clinic protections appears to have encouraged those protesters.

“I’ve seen an escalation and I’ve also seen people emboldened because maybe the little infractions aren’t being taken as seriously,” said Amy Hagstrom Miller, CEO of Whole Woman’s Health, a national abortion provider with a facility in the Twin Cities suburb of Bloomington, which was open when news of the shooting emerged Saturday. 

Upon learning that day that Boelter’s alleged target list may have included abortion providers in the state, Hagstrom Miller telephoned local police to coordinate personal escorts for staff members between the clinic building and their cars. Employees called designated points of contact to inform work they had arrived home safely. On Monday, after Boelter’s arrest, local police swept the building to ensure there were no threats before allowing employees back in.

Whole Woman’s Health does not appear to have been on the alleged list, Hagstrom Miller said. Still, clinic staff, including those working at affiliated clinics in Maryland and Virginia, have since reviewed their safety protocols. So have employees at Red River Women’s Clinic. 

“It’s obviously very scary right now,” Kromenaker said. “There’s always the concern about copycats and people wanting to get the attention that he unfortunately is getting.”

On June 10, the House Judiciary Committee voted to advance a bill to repeal the FACE Act sponsored by GOP Rep. Chip Roy of Texas, who argues the law has been “undeniably — and predictably — weaponized to target pro-life Americans.”

“No American should have the heavy hand of the federal government come down on them simply because they’re speaking out for — or against — life, regardless of who is in control of the executive branch,” Roy said in a statement. 

Reproductive health providers and advocates were swift to criticize the legislative push.  

“The FACE Act wouldn’t have prevented the events for this weekend but [its rollback] really sets a precedent and influences the broader culture and has, I think, empowered and emboldened anti-abortion extremists,” Fonteno said.

Smith believes the past weekend put the United States at “a tipping point” for political violence.

“This is not just an isolated incident,” she said. “It is a culmination of what’s been happening for years. I think we are at a moment — are we going to tip forward into more violence and more chaos that is condoned and even laughed at by some Republican leaders, or are we going to take a step back? Are we going to reclaim our humanity?”

In Congress, some Democrats have said they were notified by law enforcement that they were on Boelter’s alleged target list. Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have raised alarms about their own safety in the wake of Saturday’s shootings and are seeking more funds and resources to bolster security. 

Other lawmakers have fanned the flames surrounding political violence. GOP Sen. Mike Lee of Utah deleted posts from his X account that mocked and intimated at conspiracy theories surrounding the Minnesota shootings after speaking with Smith, who pulled him out of a closed-door meeting on Monday evening, and Sen. Amy Klobuchar, a Minnesota Democrat. 

“This is a human moment. This is not a time for keyboard warriors,” Smith said. “This is a time for people to actually be connected to one another as humans, and I feel I have a responsibility to try to make that connection and hold people, hold other leaders accountable.”