U.S. military disavows soldier training class claiming pro-life groups are terrorist actors

Womack Army Medical Center at Fort Liberty, formerly Fort Bragg, in North Carolina offers pregnancy care and contraceptives, but not abortions.

So when a routine training class on July 10 for soldiers who guard the base entrance gates, identified, in a PowerPoint presentation, both Operation Rescue and National Right to Life as terrorist groups, as well as showing a “Choose Life” license plate, there was initial confusion followed by immediate outrage as an image of that slide leaked onto social media.

Just as quickly, the garrison public affairs office moved to quell the controversy, saying that the slides had not been vetted by base personnel before they were shown.

“After conducting a commander’s inquiry, we determined that these slides were not vetted by the appropriate approval authorities, and do not reflect the views of the XVIII Airborne Corps and Fort Liberty, the U.S. Army or the Department of Defense,” the garrison’s July 11 statement said.

“The slides were developed by a local garrison employee to train soldiers manning access control points at Fort Liberty. “These slides will no longer be used, and all future training products will be reviewed to ensure they align with the current (Department of Defense) anti-terrorism guidance.”

Military.com reported that the Army would also conduct a formal inquiry, known as a 15-6 investigation.

With a total population of about 282,000, which includes about 50,000 active-duty soldiers as well as family members, reservists and civilian employees, Fort Liberty is the largest U.S. Army base, and one of the largest in the world.

A reporter from Military.com who viewed other slides in the presentation wrote that the one with the two pro-life groups was not the only one with dated information, suggesting that the issue was the use of old material. The slides identified Operation Rescue as “opposes Row v. Wade,” misspelling “Roe” in Roe v. Wade, the decision the U.S. Supreme Court overturned in 2022, sending the abortion issue back to the legislative branch.

Another slide listed Earth First and the Earth Liberation Front. Both are considered eco-terror groups which have committed property damage and arson, but have faded from prominence for the past dozen or so years.

Other slides cited neo-Nazis, the Christian Identity Movement, the Weather Underground (defunct for decades) and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), a longtime Army critic for its use of dogs, but “seemingly conflating it with the Animal Liberation Front,” which has engaged in violence, the publication reported.

National Right to Life, founded in 1968, five years before the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision legalized abortion on demand nationwide, is a lobbying organization. It has never been labeled a terrorist group by any law enforcement agency.

Operation Rescue, founded in 1986, was built on demonstrations at abortion clinics and developed what was known as a “lock and block” blockade in which outside gates were locked and inside hallways blocked to prevent the clinics from operating.

The enactment of the Federal Access to Clinic Entrances Act, or FACE Act, in 1994, which made blockades a felony punishable by long prison terms and substantial fines, ended those for decades, but organized by scattered other groups, they resumed in 2017 and have been prosecuted by the Department of Justice.

But neither Operation Rescue nor the more recent blockades were ever prosecuted as domestic terrorism.

In a statement, Carol Tobias, president of National to Life, called the Fort Liberty presentation “a demonstration of lazy scholarship. In our over 50-year history, National Right to Life has always, consistently, and unequivocally, condemned violence against anyone.”

In his statement, Operation Rescue President Troy Newman said the Fort Liberty statement “stopped short of an apology.”

Newman also said of the training for soldiers manning base entrances: “Pro-life organizations have absolutely nothing to do with those responsibilities, therefore, the only perceived purpose for disparaging pro-life organizations in such a training would be to satisfy a political agenda and indoctrinate our soldiers.”

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