Driver Intentionally Rammed Abortion Rights Protesters in Iowa, Witnesses Say

An unidentified male motorist in Cedar Rapids, Iowa intentionally rammed into several women on Friday night as abortion rights defenders peacefully protested the right-wing U.S. Supreme Court’s overturningOf Roe v. Wade.

The driver of a Ford truck maneuvered around multiple cars at a red light and drove through the tail end of a group of demonstrators who were crossing a street downtown, running over one woman’s ankle and sending her to the hospital, witnesses told HuffPost.

“He tried to murder them,” said Lyz Lenz, a local journalist and witness to the attack. “These women see him coming and a bunch of people put their hands out to stop him. And he just keeps going.”

Linn County Supervisor Stacey Walker captured video footage of several women standing in front the truck, reaching out to the driver and trying to get him to stop. However, the motorist continues to push forward, knocking down and injuring many of them.

Alexis Russell, who can be seen reaching into the driver’s side window in an attempt to steer him away from other protestors, told HuffPost that he “grabbed my sign and ripped it, and I fell, and he proceeded to run over one of the girls.”

The Cedar Rapids police department reportedlyInterview with the driver Friday night. No arrests were made.

Iowa is one the three states that have enactedCertain circumstances provide protection for motorists who are caught on the wrong side of protestors.

The bill, which Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds signed into law last June grants a driver “who is exercising due care” immunity from civil lawsuits for injuring someone “who is participating in a protest, demonstration, riot, or unlawful assembly or who is engaging in disorderly conduct and is blocking traffic in a public street.”

Similar bills were also created introducedMore than a dozen states have added this feature since 2017.

According to HuffPost, “Several witnesses argued that the attack was motivated by anger over the protest,” one of many that erupted nationwide after the high court’s reactionary majority eliminated the constitutional right to abortion, immediately harming pregnant people in Republican-controlled states with “trigger bans” and endangering many more elsewhere.

Molly Monk, a witness, told the outlet that the driver went “out of his way to hit protesters in the street who had very visible, very clear signs that they were pro-choice.”

“It makes me feel like the pro-life movement is a complete lie if, in order to be against people who are protesting for abortion rights, you try to murder them in my street, in my neighborhood,” said Monk. “It makes me very, very sad, very hurt, and very angry that this is what people think pro-life means.”

The anti-abortion movement is a large one. history of violence.

Over the past 43-years, anti-abortion extremeists have committed at most 11 murders, attempted more than two dozen others, issued almost 1000 threats of harm or fatality, and been involved 614 stalking incidents as well as four kidnappings. according toThe National Abortion Federation. They have also set fire to more than 200 abortion clinics and made approximately 670 bomb threats.