“Our mission has always been to help build families, and in times like these, we are reminded of just how fragile and precious life is,” the American Reproductive Centers (ARC) Fertility clinic, located in Palm Springs, California, wrote in response to the recent bombing attack they faced. No members of the clinic were injured, nor was the lab or the reproductive resources inside, including IVF eggs and embryos. However, the building itself faced significant damage; its entrance was engulfed in smoke and flames, riddled with debris after the attack.
The bombing occurred at around 11am on Saturday, May 17, in a car just outside of the clinic. Akil Davis, the assistant director at the FBI Los Angeles Field Office, described the attack as “probably the largest bombing scene that we’ve had in Southern California.” He asserted that the bomb was powerful enough to “throw pieces of a vehicle hundreds of feet in the air then several blocks away.” The attack has been treated as an intentional act of domestic terrorism.
Four people were injured as a result of the bombing, and one was killed. Police believe the sole fatal victim to have also been the perpetrator, 25-year-old California resident Guy Edward Bartkus. Bartkus had posted a variety of alarming online content before the attack, ranging from videos of him testing explosives to expressions of his “anti-natalist” beliefs, as categorized by the FBI. These beliefs generally tracked as deeply nihilist, and he has self-described as a “misandrist” and a “pro-mortalist.” “Basically, I’m anti-life,” he said in one recording cited by the LAist, “and IVF is like kind of the epitome of pro-life ideology.”
Reproductive healthcare facilities have faced an uptick in protests and violent attacks, typically based on beliefs directly opposing Bartkus’. According to the National Abortion Federation, from 2020-2021, reproductive healthcare centers have seen reports of stalking rise nationally by 600 percent, blockades by 450 percent, clinic invasions by 129 percent, and assaults by 128 percent, largely by anti-abortion extremists. IVF facilities have not faced as many violent attacks, but have experienced a surge of protestors, some calling themselves “abortion abolitionists.”
IVF fits into a unique role amidst the post-Dobbs anti-abortion crusade. Only 8 percent of Americans are categorically opposed to IVF care, however, 2024 saw a strong conservative policy movement against the treatment. In June 2024, now-Vice-President JD Vance, along with other Republican Senators, voted against a bill that would establish a federal right to IVF care. Similarly, the Southern Baptist Church voted that same month in opposition to the use of IVF.
While many conservative anti-abortionists ostensibly argue for the “preservation” of life, IVF—whose goal includes allowing women the opportunity to have children—is viewed to them as another “threat to life.” If anything, this mounting opposition to IVF reflects the pro-life movement’s potentially greater agenda. As Karla Torres, a leader at the Center of Reproductive Rights, put it, they are “squarely targeting reproductive freedom more broadly.”
However an attack is motivated, reproductive healthcare providers are facing a critical moment of risk. And this bombing is another devastating reminder of their current vulnerability and need for support. “Those of us working in reproductive medicine are no strangers to these threats,” the group at the American Society for Reproductive Medicine said. “We have seen physicians murdered, facilities attacked, and patients being harassed, threatened, and harmed. We must not allow such violence to extend into the realm of fertility care.”
