Army of God

In the early 1980s, a shadowy group calling itself the Army of God emerged in the anti-abortion movement. While the group has often been linked to threatening or violent acts, investigators believe that it does not necessarily represent an organized group but has instead become an umbrella label for some extremists. However, many pro-choice advocates maintain that there is a conspiracy among the more violent factions of the anti-abortion movement, arguing that if the Army of God did not start as an organized group, certainly the vast networking capability spurred by the World Wide Web has given it some cohesion.

The group first surfaced in 1982, when it claimed responsibility for the kidnapping of an Illinois doctor and his wife, and for the firebombing of two Florida abortion clinics. Authorities eventually arrested three men in the case. Don Benny Anderson, the ringleader in the abduction and the founder of the group, told investigators he was acting on orders from God and the Archangel Michael. Although authorities originally believed the group consisted of only these three men, subsequent anti-abortion activity throughout the following decades, including fires and explosions in several abortion clinics, has been attributed to the group. The Army of God has also sent threatening letters to prominent figures such as Supreme Court justice Harry A. Blackmun, the author of the landmark Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion.

The name “Army of God” became more widely known in 1997, when it was signed on letters claiming credit for the bombings of an abortion clinic and a gay nightclub in Atlanta. Examination of the letters in these cases, however, led investigators to believe that the suspect had a larger agenda than abortion and was more antigovernment and militia-like. These incidents were eventually linked to the highly publicized Olympic Park bombing in 1996 and the bombing of a Birmingham, Alabama clinic in 1998. The suspect named in the case, Eric Robert Rudolph, was found to have links with followers of Christian Identity, a racist, anti-Semitic, anti-abortion, and anti-gay ideology.

Some experts theorize that it is becoming more common for anti-abortion proponents to be taking a militant antigovernment stance. Since the 1994 Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, which made it illegal to obstruct access to reproductive health clinics, the number of clinic blockades and arrests decreased dramatically, while violent abortion-related crimes increased.

Also in 1994, the Army of God Manual surfaced. Similar to one found a year earlier buried in the yard of a woman convicted for the attempted murder of a doctor, the manual outlines methods for causing disruption at what it calls “abortuaries.” It offers suggestions on how to use the putrid-smelling butyric acid to disrupt activities, and it encourages violent acts like cutting off the thumbs of doctors and firebombing clinics. The manual became a focus of a federal grand jury investigation into the possibility of a conspiracy. Abortion rights activists testified that many of the methods described in the book have been used to disrupt clinics throughout the country, and many vandals have tagged the letters “AOG” on abortion clinic walls. The grand jury found no evidence, however, of a nationwide conspiracy.

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