Man who damaged Chicago abortion clinics gets a year of home confinement

A Chicago man convicted this year of using a slingshot to damage two clinics providing abortion services in the city has been sentenced to one year of home confinement.

Michael Barron, 42, told law enforcement that he hoped the damage he caused to the clinics in 2021 would prompt them to close even for a day — and perhaps interrupt a planned abortion.

“I was like, you know, if I go over there and do something, you know I’m probably gonna get caught, but they might be closed for a day, you know,” Barron said in an interview, according to prosecutors. “And that might be some woman that has to cancel her appointment and, you know, second-guess her decision or something.”

Barron was initially charged in federal court in October 2022 and was convicted by a jury in March of six counts of intentionally damaging the two facilities because they provided reproductive health services.

U.S. Chief Magistrate Judge Young Kim sentenced Barron on Tuesday to five years of probation, the first of which he is to serve in home confinement.

Prosecutors say he used a slingshot and metal ball bearings to damage the two clinics — in Logan Square and Rogers Park — on six occasions in May and June 2021. He damaged the glass in the windows and doors of the facilities, sometimes shattering the glass entirely.

One clinic canceled and rescheduled several patients because of the damage, records show. The feds say staff members at both clinics became increasingly afraid, not knowing if the attacks would escalate. At least one worker quit.

“This is not a dentist’s office in the suburbs catering to middle-class patients who could simply reschedule an appointment with minimal hassle,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Sivashree Sundaram wrote in a recent court memo recommending 18 months in prison for Barron. 

“These clinics provide services to a wide swath of individuals, including indigent women, women who are traumatized because they are pregnant [or could be pregnant] after they have been assaulted and raped,” Sundaram said.

The attacks were caught on surveillance footage. Barron didn’t dispute at trial that he was the person who appeared in the footage, nor that he intentionally caused the damage, records show. Rather, Barron contested only his motivation.

Barron insisted he meant only to protest Planned Parenthood’s founder, Margaret Sanger, according to his defense attorney.

Barron was previously convicted in state court for two additional attacks on such clinics, leading to a probation sentence, records show.