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A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C E
http://www.ainfos.ca/
THE TERRORIST CAMPAIGN AGAINST ABORTION
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How violent extremists promote a strategy of maiming and
murdering clinic workers that is shrinking women's access to
abortion around the country
THE VILLAGE VOICE
November 3-9, 1998
http://www.villagevoice.com/features/9845/gonnerman.shtml
By Jennifer Gonnerman
* * *
Barnett A. Slepian knew his life was in danger. So the
doctor worked in an abortion clinic built like a fortress, with
no windows and plenty of surveillance cameras. Still, he is dead.
Shortly after 10 p.m. on October 23, a sniper shot the
obstetrician-gynecologist with a high-powered rifle as he stood
in the kitchen of his home outside Buffalo, New York, chatting
with his wife and 15-year-old son.
Slepian, 52, is the latest victim in a long-running
guerrilla war that is threatening women's access to abortion
across the country. Since 1977, there have been 154 incidents of
arson, 39 bombings, and 99 acid attacks against abortion
providers, according to the National Abortion Federation (NAF).
And the severity of violence has steadily intensified. No longer
content with damaging property, extremists are now determined to
kill. NAF has recorded 15 attempted murders since 1991. And
Slepian's assassination marks the seventh killing of an clinic
worker in five years.
To make matters worse, the pool of people whose lives are
endangered has quickly widened. When Michael Griffin opened fire
at a Pensacola, Florida, clinic in 1993, his only target was
obstetrician-gynecologist David Gunn. A year later, Paul Hill did
not just kill Pensacola doctor John Bayard Britton - he killed
one of the doctor's volunteer escorts and injured another. John
Salvi gunned down receptionists at two Brookline, Massachusetts,
clinics in late 1994, proving that all clinic workers are
vulnerable. And last month, the sniper who shot Slepian in his
home broadcast a new, more frightening message to abortion
workers: There is nowhere you and your family are truly safe.
The cumulative effect of two decades of violence is being
felt in every corner of the United States. Clinic owners hire
more security guards, doctors keep the drapes closed in their
homes, and medical students decide against learning how to
perform abortions. Inside the clinic where Slepian worked, the
question is how to go on. Even as employees' sobs filled the
carpet-lined hallways last week, the clinic's owner dialed
frantically in search of a replacement for her slain doctor.
Slowly and quietly, this campaign of violence is eroding
women's ability to get abortions. The majority of Americans are
prochoice, and pro-violence extremists represent only a sliver of
the antiabortion movement. But still, a handful of zealots have
sowed enough fear in the medical community that it is now harder
to get an abortion than it has been at any time in the last 20
years.
The number of doctors performing abortions dropped from 2758
to 2380 - a decrease of nearly 15 percent - between 1980 and
1992. In rural areas, the number of abortion providers plunged 55
percent during that same 12-year period. During the year
following the first murder of an abortion doctor in 1993,
one-quarter of clinics reported employees quitting because of the
violence. Such resignations have continued over the last few
years, though at a less rapid pace. Today, there are no abortion
doctors in more than 84 percent of the nation's counties.
MOUTHPIECE FOR MURDER
By terrifying clinic workers across the country, extremists
are winning the war over abortion without ever having to pass
legislation or sway the Supreme Court. Ironically, the trend
toward violence gained momentum with what seemed a major
prochoice victory: the collapse of Operation Rescue. This defeat
made some antiabortion activists even more militant - and
dangerous.
"They'd done the picketing," says Dallas Blanchard, a
sociologist who has written three books about the antiabortion
movement. "They had marched around clinics. They had done some
harassment of patients. But it hadn't changed anything. As groups
get less and less successful, they tend to get smaller. And the
smaller they are, the more likely they are to commit violence."
Before the Gunn killing in 1993, the idea of having a
national conversation about the merits of such fatal tactics
seemed unthinkable. Six murders later, it was clear there had
been a major change in the public debate. After both the Slepian
assassination and the January bombing of a Birmingham, Alabama,
abortion clinic, pro-murder fanatics were treated as credible
commentators. They got the chance to spout their views in
newspapers and on national television, including CNN and ABC's
Nightline. One of the most visible of these extremists-turned-
pundits is Michael Bray, a convicted clinic bomber who wrote a
1993 book titled A Time to Kill.
Bray, 46, is a key figure in a loosely knit but increasingly
sophisticated community that has created a nationwide culture of
violence. Surf the Web and you can find more than a dozen
extremist sites, including one honoring the "Prisoners of Christ"
- activists convicted of bombings, arson, and murder. And every
year, Bray organizes the "White Rose Banquet," which will be held
on January 21 at a hotel near Washington, D.C.
Bray, a Lutheran minister based in Maryland, explains,
"While everyone is dishonoring these people and throwing them in
jail, we're going to honor them." A prochoice activist who has
crashed Bray's banquet describes a "family reunion" atmosphere
with 100 activists celebrating recent murders of clinic workers.
In the midst of so much pro-murder rhetoric, it is difficult
to determine who stops at advocating violence and who is actually
committing the crimes. The attack on a federal building in
Oklahoma City raised similar questions, since the antigovernment
propaganda of militias had inspired bomber Timothy McVeigh. In
fact, in recent years, the ties between militias and antiabortion
extremists have grown stronger.
Like other militia-style groups, the center of the
antiabortion extremist movement is nearly impossible to pinpoint.
If there is one, it appears to revolve around the Army of God - a
name that has been linked to at least a dozen acts of violence.
Some experts believe the Army of God is a loosely organized
network of terrorists. Others insist it is just a handy label
used by extremists to inflate the public perception of their
strength. It is generally agreed, however, that the Army of God,
like many militias, does not have a hierarchy, headquarters, or
membership list.
This makes them tough to identify, much less to defeat.
"It's harder to fight criminals than it is to fight protesters in
the streets," says Susan Dudley, deputy director of the National
Abortion Federation.
The Army of God surfaced in the media earlier this year
after a bomb blast at a Birmingham, Alabama, clinic killed
security guard Robert Sanderson and severely injured nurse Emily
Lyons. Reuters and The Atlanta Journal-Constitution received
handwritten letters claiming responsibility, which were signed by
the Army of God. In 1997, media outlets received similarly signed
letters following the bombings of an abortion clinic and gay
nightclub in Atlanta.
The FBI has named Eric Robert Rudolph, a 31-year-old
carpenter, as a suspect in all three bombings as well as the 1996
bombing at Centennial Park during the Olympics. For months,
federal agents have been hunting for Rudolph in the woods of
western North Carolina, where he is believed to be hiding. The
best example of the merger between militias and antiabortion
extremists may be Rudolph himself, who has been linked to the
Christian Identity movement, which is anti-black, anti-gay,
anti-Semitic, and antiabortion. Now that the FBI has accused
Rudolph of bombing several different sites, it has become
apparent that the targets of antiabortion zealots include far
more than clinics.
"These folks are not single-issue," says Eleanor Smeal,
president of the Feminist Majority Foundation, which monitors
antiabortion violence. "One minute, they're screaming and
carrying on about the evils of abortion. The next minute it's
homosexuality, and the third minute it could be the federal
government. Abortion is their training ground for the creation of
domestic terrorism."
BUILDING AN ARMY?
It is nearly impossible to track the history of the Army of
God, but experts believe it starts with a former real estate
investor from Texas named Don Benny Anderson. Anderson is
believed to be the first person to use the Army of God moniker.
In 1982, he kidnapped an Illinois abortion doctor and his wife
with the help of two accomplices. Anderson, then 42, held the
couple at gunpoint for eight days inside an ammunition bunker. At
the time, Anderson claimed to be the leader of the Army of God.
This kidnapping marked one of the first times an
antiabortion activist had attacked a doctor rather than a clinic.
Eventually, Anderson released his hostages unharmed. Now he is
serving a 42-year sentence in federal prison for the kidnapping
as well as for torching two Florida clinics and lobbing a pipe
bomb at a Virginia clinic. Experts believe Anderson's "army"
consisted only of himself and his two coconspirators.
Over the next several years, various other extremists
embraced the Army of God name. In 1983, Joseph Grace, a
34-year-old house painter, told authorities that he was an Army
of God member after he burned down a Virginia clinic. Supreme
Court Justice Harry Blackmun, who wrote the 1973 Roe v. Wade
decision legalizing abortion, received a threatening letter
signed by the Army of God in 1984. And when John Brockhoeft, a
37-year-old postal worker, was accused of firebombing two Ohio
clinics in 1985, he claimed to be a colonel in the Army of God.
Before Bray became a national spokesperson for what he calls
"justifiable homicide," he too claimed an Army of God
affiliation. Bray spent four years in prison in connection with
10 bombings in Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, and Washington,
D.C., during the mid 1980s. At one of the bombed-out clinics,
investigators found a plank with "AOG" written on it. (Asked in a
recent interview whether he still considers himself part of the
Army of God, Bray said, "If I were conspiring with the Army of
God, I couldn't tell you.")
Recent letters sent to the media and signed by the Army of
God include threats of future violence. While it is unclear how
serious such threats are, one letter warned that the East Coast
would be the next target. It stated: "WE DECLARE AND WILL WAGE
TOTAL WAR ON THE UNGODLY COMMUNIST REGIME IN NEW YORK AND YOUR
LEGASLATIVE [sic] - BUREAUCRATIC LACKEY'S [sic] IN WASHINGTON."
RECIPES FOR BOMBS
In 1993, Rachelle "Shelley" Shannon, a 37-year-old
housewife, shot abortion doctor George Tiller in both arms
outside his clinic in Wichita, Kansas. Until then, law
enforcement officials thought the Army of God was little more
than a catchy phrase. When they began digging in Shannon's
backyard, however, they discovered something new: the AOG manual
- a prescription for violence that describes some of the group's
accomplishments.
This 136-page document outlines dozens of strategies for
harassing clinic employees and patients. Recommended tactics
include squirting superglue in a clinic's door locks, drilling
holes in the roof to create leaks, injecting acid into bathroom
walls, shoving Nerf soccer balls and concrete into sewer drains,
dumping cow manure outside the entrance, and spray-painting
slogans like "Mommy, Don't Kill Me" on the clinic's exterior.
In many ways, the Army of God manual is similar to other
publications that have long circulated among antiabortion
extremists. Books like the Abortion Buster's Manual and Closed:
99 Ways to Stop Abortion, both written in 1985, suggest some of
these same strategies. But the Army of God manual goes several
steps further.
The manual recovered in Shannon's backyard seems to be the
third edition, which consists of pages added to the end of
earlier editions. In the original version, readers are reminded
that "non-violence is important." But by the manual's third
edition, the Army of God is encouraging readers to blow up
clinics. There are recipes for plastic explosives, commentary on
the merits of store-bought dynamite, and tips on making bombs
with the fertilizer ammonium nitrate (which was used in the
Oklahoma City bombing).
For prochoicers who pored over the document looking for
clues, the most shocking section was the manual's epilogue.
There, the Army of God describes the 1993 killing of Gunn as "the
first 'direct hit' attributed to us." Eerily, the manual also
mentions that by late 1992, "Douglas Karpen, a baby killer in
Houston had been shot. Two accomplices in Springfield, Missouri,
had also been shot."
When prochoice leaders stumbled upon this passage, they were
stunned. Smeal says, "They were referring to serious incidents
that our side didn't even know about." Karpen had indeed been
shot in 1992 inside a parking garage near his abortion clinic.
And a masked man had fired a sawed-off shotgun inside a
Springfield clinic a year earlier, hitting two employees and
paralyzing one of them. At the time, these incidents received
little publicity.
Several other recent violent assaults against abortion
doctors also slipped under the radar of the national media.
Police officials did not categorize these incidents as
antiabortion violence, but some prochoice leaders believe the
radical fringe of the antiabortion movement may be responsible.
This list of abortion doctors who have been victims of
violence includes George Patterson, owner of the clinic where
Gunn was killed, who was fatally shot in 1993 in a Mobile,
Alabama, parking lot; Paul Hackmeyer, who was shot three times in
the chest after two men ambushed him outside his Los Angeles home
in 1994; and George Klopfer, who was shot at in 1995 while
driving along an Indiana highway.
A WAR WITHOUT GENERALS
The discovery of the Army of God manual - plus the murder of
Florida's Britton in 1994 - sparked a two-year investigation by
the Justice Department to determine whether there is a national
conspiracy to commit antiabortion violence. It found none.
"There were and are cases involving multiple incidents and
multiple clinics, but nothing to indicate that this is a national
effort," says Special Agent Bernard J. Zapor of the Bureau of
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, which worked with the FBI on this
investigation. "We're talking about two or three defendants
getting together and doing damage to two or three clinics. That's
about as widespread as the cases show."
Many prochoice leaders remain unconvinced. They wonder if
the traditional definition of conspiracy applies, since
antiabortion extremists appear to have embraced a strategy of
"leaderless resistance." Militias also use this organizational
strategy, which has been promoted by Louis Beam, a former Ku Klux
Klan and Aryan Nation leader. "The people who are pushing the
ideas don't need to know who's doing the violence," says Adam
Guasch-Melendez, who runs a Web site tracking the exremist wing
of the antiabortion movement. "The ideas and tactics are there.
Anyone can do the violence."
The success of a "leaderless resistance" strategy depends on
the distribution of documents like the Army of God manual. Over
the last few years, this book has become fairly easy to get even
though its author has remained anonymous. Prayer & Action News, a
monthly newsletter that gleefully reports on acts of antiabortion
violence, published the entire manual in early 1996. David Leach,
the 52-year-old editor of the Iowa-based Prayer & Action News,
claims he reprinted the book because antiabortion activists had
received subpoenas ordering them to testify before a federal
grand jury - and hand over their copies of the Army of God
manual.
"It was a First Amendment issue for me," says Leach, who has
about 200 subscribers. "It's not a crime to own a book. I'm
really uncomfortable with government confiscation of books,
especially books that are so mild compared with books they
publish themselves, like the U.S. Army manuals."
A strategy of "leaderless resistance" would enable
antiabortion assailants to commit crimes alone or in small groups
without worrying that the Army of God itself will be infiltrated
by law enforcement or targeted by civil litigation. The Army of
God manual even details the benefits of such a setup:
"Fortunately the A.O.G. (Army of God) folks are not a real army,
humanly speaking. . . . God is the General and Commander-in-
Chief. The soldiers, however, do not usually communicate with one
another. Very few have ever met each other. And when they do,
each is usually unaware of the other soldier's status. That is
why the Feds will never stop this Army. Never. And we have not
yet even begun to fight."
THE STINKY WEAPON
Over the years, antiabortion extremists have demonstrated
again and again that you do not have to resort to murder in order
to terrorize clinic workers. Rosael Albaladejo learned this
firsthand. As soon as she unlocked the door of the Advanced
Women's Center one morning in May, the stench of stale vomit
almost overpowered her. Albaladejo, who works as a secretary at
this Miami clinic, noticed a yellowish-green liquid on the floor.
She assumed the spill had come from the air conditioner. So she
grabbed a mop and cleaned it up.
A few hours later, Albaladejo was lying atop a stretcher en
route to the emergency room. Her chest hurt and she could barely
breathe. Medical workers stuffed her uniform into a sealed
plastic bag. Albaladejo, who suffered no long-lasting health
problems, says, "I felt like a skunk."
The chemical on the floor of Albaladejo's clinic was butyric
acid, an ingredient in perfume and disinfectant. Butyric acid is
also a favorite antiabortion weapon, and the Army of God manual
describes how to use it. In mid May, 10 Florida abortion clinics
were assaulted with butyric acid. Vandals squirted the acid into
the facilities through holes drilled in the walls or by injecting
it into the crack between the front doors. The clinics were
forced to close for a day or two.
"It's definitely intimidating," says Alissa Porter, the
administrator for A Choice for Women, one of the clinics that got
hit. Five months later, Porter's employees are still bringing in
bath sprays, aromatherapy oils, and anything else they can think
of to battle the rotten-eggs odor. "The smell is continuously
there," says Porter. "You're reminded every second that there's
someone out there who can not only do this, but can do a lot more
to you."
Less than two months after the Florida attacks, five women's
health clinics in Louisiana were hit by butyric acid on the same
day. Two days later, there were acid attacks at four more clinics
in Houston. At one of them, the America's Women Clinic, eight
staff members and a security guard wound up at the hospital.
Roneal Martin, the clinic's president, says, "I didn't lose any
employees over it, but they weren't thrilled."
So far, there have been no arrests in these 19 incidents.
Estimated damages range from a few hundred dollars to nearly
$15,000 per clinic. "It's a smart strategic move for people who
want to keep clinics on edge and make providing abortions more
costly and difficult," says Fred Clarkson, who has investigated
far-right activists for 15 years and is the author of Eternal
Hostility: The Struggle Between Theocracy and Democracy. "We have
the ATF and the FBI running through the woods - hundreds of them
with helicopters and dogs after Eric Rudolph - and while this is
going on, there are butyric acid attacks in the South. If there
had been bombings and assassinations, there would've been a
tremendous mobilization of federal resources, which would've put
tremendous pressure on the [antiabortion] movement. A few butyric
acid attacks are a news blip."
Several weeks before this string of acid attacks started,
Leach of Prayer & Action News published a story titled "AOG
Rescue Platoon" on the Web. This four-part series describes the
adventures of Army of God members who launch a nationwide attack
on abortion providers. These fictitious terrorists begin their
campaign of violence by blowing up all of the abortion clinics in
Florida.
Leach denies there is a connection between "AOG Rescue
Platoon" and the Florida butyric acid attacks. "There are many
features in that story that are quite different from what
happened," he says.
But Skipp Porteous, national director of the Institute for
First Amendment Studies, worries that stories like "AOG Rescue
Platoon" trigger violence. Porteous points to The Turner Diaries,
a novel popular in far-right circles that is widely considered a
blueprint for antigovernment assaults. About the acid attacks and
the Army of God tale, Porteous says, "The timing was right for a
connection between the two. If nothing else, [Leach] and others
like him are inciting unstable people to violence."
SHOOT AND RUN
Garson Romalis dropped a slice of bread in the toaster at
7:10 a.m. on November 8, 1994. Then the 57-year-old gynecologist
settled into a chair in the kitchen of his home in Vancouver,
British Columbia, and waited for his toast to pop. But he never
ate it.
A bullet smashed through Romalis's patio window and ripped a
grapefruit-size hole in his left thigh. He crawled away from the
window, slithering through his own blood. Then he pulled the belt
out of his bathrobe and tied it around his leg, creating a
tourniquet.
Romalis managed to save his own life, though he spent eight
hours in surgery that day and was out of work for two years.
Police believe his assailant used an AK-47 or similar high-
powered rifle, firing it from the alley behind the doctor's
house. "He was definitely trying to kill me," says Romalis.
"Fortunately, he wasn't a very good shot."
The shooting of Romalis was the first of five sniper attacks
against Canadian and American abortion doctors. These shootings
have occurred over four years and all took place around early
November. Only the most recent attack, of New York's Barnett
Slepian, resulted in death. Law enforcement officials announced
last week that they believe all the attacks were committed by the
same person or people. No one has been arrested in connection
with these shootings.
Many doctors on both sides of the border are reorganizing
their daily lives in an attempt to prevent their own killings.
Henry Morgentaler, Canada's best-known prochoice crusader, who
operates eight abortion clinics, says, "They take vacations or
arrange their homes so they aren't sitting close to the windows
where someone could shoot through."
Over the last few years, the debate within the extreme wing
of the antiabortion movement has grown explicitly terrorist. No
longer are militants arguing whether it is ethical to murder
doctors. Instead, the question has become: What is the best way
to assassinate clinic workers?
After Paul Hill shot doctor John Bayard Britton and two
clinic escorts face-to-face outside a Pensacola, Florida, clinic
in 1994, he began running away. Then he slowed down to a walk.
Cops quickly arrested him. Today, Hill is one of the most
celebrated martyrs within radical antiabortion circles. But since
he landed on death row - and murderers Michael Griffin and John
Salvi were imprisoned - antiabortion extremists have begun to
question the merits of getting caught.
Several weeks before the first sniper attack in Canada, C.
Roy McMillan, a Mississippi-based antiabortion activist, publicly
endorsed snipers in The New York Times. Speaking about Hill,
McMillan said: "What I don't understand is why he did it
publicly. I think if I were to do something like that, I would do
it clandestinely. Why go to jail for the rest of your life for
doing something that you could do and not go to jail for?"
Romalis's shooting added new momentum to this debate over
how best to kill. Just a few days after the attack - while
Romalis was fighting for his life in a Vancouver hospital - an
American extremist broadcast his support for the shooting on
Canadian radio. Donald Treshman, who is based in Maryland, told
the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation: "That [sniper shooting]
was certainly the superb tactic. It was certainly far better than
anything that we've seen in the States because the shooting was
done in such a way that the perpetrator got away."
News of the Canadian sniper attack traveled quickly. Only
four days after the Romalis attack, Shelley Shannon sat down in
her prison cell and wrote a letter to Paul Hill, who earlier that
year had used a shotgun for his attack on clinic workers.
According to court documents, in her letter Shannon "happily told
Hill about the shooting of a doctor in Canada and alluded to an
earlier discussion of rifles she and Hill apparently had engaged
in: 'Now, see, rifles aren't so bad.'"
One year later, Bray published an essay urging activists to
brush up on their sniper skills. "I am short on shelf space,"
Bray wrote in Life Advocate, an antiabortion magazine based in
Oregon, "so I traded my copy of The Army of God Manual for the
Army's Sniper Training and Employment." Encouraging readers to
get a copy of this military manual, Bray insists that "the very
presence of sniper-minded people serves to instill fear in those
who take it upon themselves to slaughter babies."
In a Voice interview conducted just one day before the
recent Slepian shooting, Bray discussed assassination strategies.
He weighed the benefits of sniper attacks versus close-range
shootings, which he refers to as "public deeds." "I suppose the
sniper is able to go out and snipe again," Bray said with a
chuckle. "From the standpoint of economics, I suppose he has the
potential to save more children." Bray insists that Paul Hill's
earlier willingness to be arrested "answers those who want to
charge the sniper as being a coward." By shooting three clinic
workers and not running away, Bray says, Hill "demonstrated that
there's no shame in such an act."
SURFING FOR TARGETS?
In the wake of Slepian's slaying, national attention focused
on a 54-year-old computer programmer from Georgia named Neal
Horsley. Horsley had crossed out Slepian's name on his Web site
shortly after the doctor's death. Known as the Nuremberg Files,
this section of Horsley's site tracks close to 300 people who are
considered enemies of the antiabortion movement.
This site targets doctors, clinic workers, members of
Congress, Supreme Court justices, and even Whoopi Goldberg, who
has spoken publicly about her prochoice views. The Nuremberg
Files urges readers to collect photos, home addresses, lists of
family members, and license plate numbers for these individuals.
Then the site posts this personal data. According to Horsley,
more than 100 allies have passed along information since the
project began three years ago.
The Nuremberg Files's ostensible purpose is to create
dossiers on the antiabortion movement's enemies in order to
prepare for the day when, extremists believe, abortion will be
declared illegal. "One of the great tragedies of the Nuremberg
trials of Nazis after WW II was that complete information and
documented evidence had not been collected, so many war criminals
went free," explains the site's text. "We do not want the same
thing to happen when the day comes to charge abortionists with
crimes."
Horsley's site isn't the only place on the Web where
extremists can find abortion doctors' home addresses. Another is
Jay's Killer Web Site, which publishes personal information about
doctors at a clinic in Melbourne, Florida. Critics insist that
the true intention of such sites is to create a hit list.
Blanchard, who chairs the department of sociology and
anthropology at the University of West Florida, says, "It's
targeting people for assassination."
Horsley disagrees. In a Voice interview conducted several
days before Slepian's slaying, Horsley was asked how he would
feel if he learned a murderer had used his site to pick a victim.
"I wouldn't be surprised," he said. "The situation we're looking
at inevitably incites certain people to take the lives of those
who are killing children. . . . It's a tragedy that they're going
to be killed, but the information as to where they're located is
available in the Yellow Pages."
FIGHTING BACK
Now, the Nuremberg Files is part of a lawsuit filed by
Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Inc. The prochoice
organization is targeting Bray as well as leaders of American
Coalition of Life Activists (ACLA), the Oregon-based extremist
group that is believed to have originally created the Nuremberg
Files. With its suit, Planned Parenthood is attempting to link
violent antiabortion rhetoric to actual acts of violence - and to
win millions of dollars in damages.
The suit focuses on threats of force allegedly made by the
defendants. These include a 1995 campaign conducted by ACLA,
which targeted a group of abortion doctors it dubbed "The Deadly
Dozen." This campaign featured fliers designed like the FBI's
"Most Wanted" posters. Two of the doctors whose faces appeared on
the posters had already been shot.
In this lawsuit, Planned Parenthood is relying primarily on
the 1994 Federal Access to Clinic Entrance Act, which Congress
passed after the second murder of an abortion doctor. To prevail,
Planned Parenthood's attorneys must prove that the defendants'
activities amount to a threat of force against abortion
providers. The case is expected to start trial in December.
Not surprisingly, Planned Parenthood's lawsuit has enraged
some antiabortion extremists, including Bray. "They could not
find us plotting to kill anyone so they're saying, 'Your opinion
makes people nervous. You are not allowed to write these books,'"
Bray says. "When free speech and abortion rights conflict, they
opt for abortion rights."
To counter such a charge, Planned Parenthood's attorneys are
emphasizing the current context in which extremists are promoting
their pro-murder views. They hold that it's not free speech that
has priority when seven people have already died. (The American
Civil Liberties Union, in a legal brief filed on behalf of
Planned Parenthood in this case, agrees.)
In its complaint, Planned Parenthood states: "The intended
message of the defendants' posters is unmistakable: If you do not
stop providing access to reproductive health care, you will be
injured or murdered like Dr. David Gunn, Dr. George Tiller, Dr.
John B. Britton, James Barrett, Shannon Lowney and Leanne
Nichols."
Lawsuits are not the only way prochoice leaders are fighting
back. They have also resorted to detective work and the lobbying
of law enforcement. Now, some prochoice groups conduct their own
opposition research, compile inch-thick briefing books, and zoom
around the country teaching local law enforcement officials about
their opponents' strategies. The National Abortion Federation has
even hired a "security director," who advises clinics on matters
like buying bullet-resistant glass.
Several hours before Slepian was shot, NAF sent a fax
warning its 350 members to take precautions against possible
sniper attacks. NAF has made such activities part of its mission,
but resents having to devote so much energy and so many resources
to keeping its doctors alive.
"Why did that [fax] have to come from NAF instead of law
enforcement?" asks Dudley of the NAF. "That is emblematic of what
our frustration is. If we were doing some other kind of work that
did not have this political stigma around it, then we wouldn't
even have to be doing the work of law enforcement."
PICKING UP THE PIECES
The hardest part of Michelle Farley's day is the 10-step
walk she takes from the street to the two-story building where
she works. To the untrained eye, there seems nothing scary about
this stretch of sidewalk. The sun shines brightly on a recent
morning as a blue jay hops along a grassy patch near the front
door.
But whenever Farley, 36, gets near the entrance to the New
Woman All Women Health Care clinic, she holds her breath. She
tries not to think about the gnawing feeling inside her stomach.
She tries to stop the flashbacks. But she can't. Next to this
sidewalk is the spot where a bomb disguised as a potted plant
exploded on January 29, 1998, at 7:30 a.m.
Farley, the clinic administrator, arrived one minute later.
The bomb had ripped apart the body of the clinic's security
guard, Robert Sanderson. It had shattered every window in the
front of the building, sent nails flying through two walls,
dislodged all the ceiling tiles, warped the frame of the
photocopier, and left a nurse, Emily Lyons, bloodied beyond
recognition. Farley believes the explosive was designed to wipe
out a waiting room full of patients, but that the bomber
detonated it before the clinic opened because the security guard
had spotted it.
"There's not a day that goes by that when I come in, I don't
see Robert and Emily," says Farley, as she wipes away a tear.
Reminders of that fatal morning are everywhere. The alleged
bomber, Eric Rudolph, glares out from an FBI "Wanted" poster in
the waiting room. Shards of glass work their way up through the
soil and sparkle in the grass after each heavy rainfall. And
Emily's blood has left a permanent dark splotch on the concrete
next to the front-door mat.
But there are also signs of the enormous outpouring of
support that followed the blast. Behind the front desk is a
scrapbook stuffed with encouraging faxes and letters, many from
total strangers. A framed drawing of dancing women hangs in the
hallway, the gift of another supporter. White sheets decorated
with magic-marker-scribbled messages of inspiration cover two
walls. On a sheet sent by prochoice activists in Chicago, one
woman wrote: "Don't let the bastards get you down!"
The bombing closed New Woman All Women Health Care clinic
for only one week. Instead of submitting their resignations,
clinic staffers stayed up until 4 a.m., cleaning toilets,
painting walls, and picking up bits of glass. Nobody quit. But it
has not been easy for these employees, especially not in the days
immediately following the clinic's reopening. "Someone would
disappear and you'd just find them in a corner crying," Farley
recalls. "You knew what it was because you just got out of the
opposite corner yourself."
Today, nothing gets her angrier than antiabortion activists
who hurl violent words. "I want people to realize that this is
not just about Rudolph," she says. "It's not just about people
who call themselves the Army of God. Every time someone says
something inflammatory - 'Abortion kills babies. Abortion doctors
murder babies' - they contribute to another clinic bombing. Every
time they say that, I want them to picture Robert lying dead and
Emily in her wheelchair, unable to see."
Farley's hope is that antiabortion extremists will someday
be defeated by the roar of public disapproval. "If people want to
think horrible things about abortion, that's their business. But
I want it to become politically incorrect and socially
unacceptable to say such inflammatory things."
The New Woman All Women Health Care clinic keeps on
performing abortions. But the battle never ends. Just last week,
the clinic received a bomb in the mail that turned out to be
fake. Meanwhile, a sign in the tinted window facing the parking
lot broadcasts the clinic's fighting spirit. It reads: THIS
CLINIC STAYS OPEN.
Special reporting: Jennifer Del Medico
Research assistance: Soo-Min Oh
Copyright 1998 The Village Voice
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