If you were to listen to hate radio or Fox News, you might think anti-choice activists are peace-loving passionate people who simply want to express themselves.

Nothing is further from the truth, as NPR reports.

Via Media Matters:

NPR host Terry Gross highlighted the long history of anti-choice violence against abortion providers and explicitly linked this year's uptick in threats and violence to the hateful rhetoric that followed the release of deceptively edited videos from the Center for Medical Progress (CMP), Media Matters' 2015 Misinformer of the Year. In spite of this violent history and recent upsurge, right-wing media has consistently pushed the narrative that violence against abortion providers is minimal and that anti-choice groups are peaceful. On the December 17 edition of NPR's Fresh Air, Gross interviewed David Cohen and Krysten Connon, and discussed their new book: "Living in the Crosshairs: The Untold Stories of Anti-Abortion Terrorism." Cohen and Connon discussed the . long pattern of violence towards abortion providers and their families and the importance of classifying such attacks as the acts of terrorism they often are. Objections to classifying acts of violence against providers and clinics as domestic terrorism are pushed by the right-wing media by denying the systemic nature of the violence, and claiming people like accused Planned Parenthood shooter, Robert Lewis Dear, are "kooks" while ignoring a history of violent rhetoric directed at abortion providers. In reality, the threat of violence is ongoing and severe, and recently saw an uptick after the release of the CMP videos.

You can listen to the whole interview or read the transcript here. It's not embeddable, so I can't include it in the post.