Whatever their ideology, whether they are state-run, state-sanctioned or stateless actors, terrorists operate with one chief objective – instilling so much fear with their bloody attacks that they force people to alter their behavior in ways that they would not freely choose. The terrorists of the armed wing of the extremist faction of the anti-choice movement has succeeded in doing just that.
Their murders, bombings and arsons have combined with harassment, stalking and vandalism to drive many gynecologists, nurses and other practitioners who believe in reproductive choice away from providing women with legal abortions. Many who continue to do so take different routes to work every day, wear bulletproof vests, or, like Dr. Warren Hern, who operates out of the Boulder (Colorado) Abortion Clinic, never sit in front of a window with the shades open.
The stress of that kind of life can wear a person down, no matter how courageous s/he may be. It can spur family members to urge the taking up of a new career. So it would be no surprise if the assassination of Dr. George Tiller succeeds in spurring a few more people to stop providing abortions. Exactly the change in behavior the terrorists desire.
Ever since Roe v. Wade (and Doe v. Bolton) emerged from the U.S. Supreme Court 36 years ago, foes of reproductive choice have chipped away at legal abortion, succeeding in making it more difficult to obtain, particularly for the young and for the poor. Today, in the vast majority of America’s 3140 counties, there is no abortion provider. As a consequence of the 1976 Hyde Amendment, 33 states pay for Medicaid abortions only in cases of rape or incest or when the pregnant woman’s life is at risk. From 1981 until 1993, it was even worse: Most states did not cover Medicaid abortions except to save the life of the pregnant woman.
Activists have pushed back against this undermining of rights. For example, groups such as the National Network of Abortion Funds have sprung up to provide money to thousands of women in need. They also pushed back and received congressional support during the Clinton administration against the tactics of the anti-choicers.
But it took a murder to make that happen. For years before then, the terrorist wing had bombed and burned clinics, and organized mobs had coiled themselves outside clinics to harass women, block their path or grab and lecture them. While some protests were perfectly within legal bounds – the kind of actions that must always remain a guaranteed right – others went way beyond simple free speech and assembly. And often, in a turnaround from the usual case, local law enforcement authorities were more sympathetic to the protesters than to those being protested against.
However, when Dr. David Gunn was assassinated in Pensacola, Fla., in 1993, the political dynamic was changed for a time. Out of that act came the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances law. This makes force, the threat of force and physical obstruction that interferes with, or seeks to intimidate a person from seeking or providing reproductive health services a federal crime punishable by criminal and civil penalties. In the Senate, there were 25 votes against that legislation. Five of the opponents – Bob Bennett and Orrin Hatch of Utah, Charles Grassley of Iowa, Richard Lugar of Indiana, and John McCain of Arizona – are still Senators.
Although it took awhile, FACE did tamp down the violence and confrontations at clinics. As Daphne Eviatar of the Washington Independent reported last week, that was because the Clinton administration took the law seriously. From the time it passed, the Clinton Department of Justice prosecuted an average of 10 defendants a year under FACE, 17 of them in 1997 alone. Under Bush, however, the average was two a year.
Whether the dropoff in prosecutions is because the FACE Act successfully deterred crimes after its enactment or because the Bush administration wasn’t interested in prosecuting them is not clear. "The amount of activity really did drop a lot after FACE was enacted and it was beginning to be enforced," said Cathleen Mahoney, Executive Vice President of the National Abortion Federation who was an attorney in the Justice Department until 2006. "Certainly the political will wasn’t there."
That’s disappointed Janet Crepps, deputy director of the legal program at the Center for Reproductive Rights. "I don’t think that the government has done enough," she said, noting that while the Clinton administration had created a task force in the Department of Justice to coordinate responses to clinic threats and violence, during the Bush years, "we’ve heard that providers during that time would call DOJ for help and get no response."
No kidding.
As we now know, Scott Roeder, the accused slayer of Dr. Tiller, was pretty much ignored by authorities, both local and federal, despite his criminal record and despite repeatedly vandalizing the clinic where the doctor worked, clearly interfering with people’s right to obtain reproductive services. Pistol in hand, Roeder took the ultimate approach to that interference 10 days ago.
In the usual upsidedownism of the extremist factions of the anti-choice movement, the Rev. Donald Spitz, whose "Army of God" considers assassination of anyone who provides abortions justifiable homicide, the FACE law is itself to blame for Dr. Tiller’s death because it feeds the anger and frustration of the foes of reproductive choice.
"I understand that anger," he says. "You know children are dying, and you want to do something. And just, you know, people just can't take it anymore. That might just drive them to it. So I think the pro-abortion people brought this on themselves by forcing the politicians to pass these laws."
Quite understandably, despite the "lone nut" theme being trumpeted by, among others, Operation Rescue and other anti-choice outfits, some people who have fought to maintain women’s right to reproductive choice see the Kansas slaying as the possible beginning of a renewed reign of terror. Right after the November election, believing as other groups did that the election of President Barack Obama could mean a wave of right-wing violence, Vicki Saporta, president of the National Abortion Federation, sent out a security alert to abortion providers. Saporta told Rachel Maddow last week:
In tracking abortion violence we know that oftentimes when these extremists see themselves losing an election or don’t see themselves winning in political, legislative or judicial battles, they often resort to violence. And we were concerned that we might see an uptick in violence,;we wanted our providers to be on a little bit of a heightened security alert. And we have found that threats and activity and the intensity of activity outside abortion clinics has increased.
In addition to instructing the FBI to assess the threat level to clinics and sending federal marshals to provide security to some of the most vulnerable of them, Attorney General Eric Holder has opened an investigation into the Tiller assassination for evidence there were violations of the FACE Act or other federal laws. That’s good news, a first step toward ending the lackadaisical approach to enforcing the FACE law under the Cheney-Bush administration.
But, with health care workers at women’s clinics around the nation looking over their shoulders and mail-ordering body armor, the question that must be asked is whether the FACE Act would be enough if it were fully enforced.
If it isn’t enough, what legislation can be passed that both enhances the protection of those who make reproductive choice real without simultaneously crushing the civil liberties of those who want to deny that choice? Certainly one law that ought to be enacted is the Freedom of Choice Act, a measure that would codify the right to choose contained in Roe.
Is additional legislation necessary? Perhaps. However, any measures designed to boost the authority of the surveillance state should make progressives squirmy. Defining when incendiary rhetoric becomes an imminent threat is not so simple a matter. What can be used against one group of dissenters can be used against any. So caution is required.
Like many terrorists, the anti-choice extremists have no qualms about adopting authoritarian means to carry out their will. Any efforts to stop them from adding to their murderous tally must avoid falling into that same trap.