Violence by anti-abortion activists
From: croth@omnifest.uwm.edu (Chris Roth)
Subject: violence by antiabortion activists
Date: 28 Oct 1995 11:23:13 -0500
Message-ID: <46tldh$h49@omnifest.uwm.edu>
FORWARDED FROM: /professional/law/first/supreme/clause(#204) From:croth(Chris Roth)
*****************************************************************************
*****************************************************************************
*****************************************************************************
********** T h e F i r s t A m e n d m e n t T e a c h - I n ***********
*****************************************************************************
*****************************************************************************
*****************************************************************************
++++++++++ ++
* * * * * * * * * * * *
S E P A R A T I O N O F
++++++ +++ +++++
* * * * * * * * * * * * * *
C H U R C H A N D S T A T E
[begin excerpt]
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion
[end excerpt] --Amendment 1, Constitution of the
United States [1791]
[begin excerpt]
On July 4, 1984, a bomb went off at the headquarters of the National
Abortion Federation, the only national organization of professional
abortion-service providers. As of November, there would be a total
of nineteen reported bombing and arson incidents against abortion
clinics and related offices. Abortion had not become illegal, but
access was being hampered as clinics were attacked.
[content deleted]
The violence of some anti-abortionists was an ongoing problem. On
October 10, 1985, security was tightened at the Supreme Court after
Justice Blackmun received a death threat; the day before, an
anti-abortion protester had disrupted court proceedings. Anyone
who has ever attended a Supreme Court hearing knows one doesn't
even whisper, _much less_ interrupt the Court. On December 4, the
FBI released figures on terrorism, but these did not include data
on abortion clinic bombings, as they were supposedly not attributable
to organized groups. Abortion clinics were increasingly the targets
of acts of vandalism, death threats to employees, telephoned bomb
threats, and other forms of harassment. On Christmas Day, three
clinics were bombed in Pensacola, Florida, and on New Year's Day,
1986, a Washington, D.C., clinic was bombed. The Christmas bomber,
who was later arrested, said his actions had been "a Christmas
present for Jesus."
[end excerpt] attorney Sarah Weddington
_A Question of Choice_
1992
Pages 206, 208
(c) 1992 by Sarah Weddington. All rights reserved.
Sarah Weddington argued Roe v. Wade before the US Supreme Court,
twice, and won. Her summary of violence by antiabortion
activists is confined to some incidents during an 18-month time frame.
Here's a graf from Professor Laurence H. Tribe's 1990 book on
abortion [first edition].
[begin excerpt]
More ominously, some antiabortion activists have vandalized and
even bombed abortion facilities. There has been a remarkable, although
not-much-remarked-upon, rise in the incidence of such antiabortion
violence. Since 1977 extremists in the United States have bombed
or set fire to at least 117 clinics and threatened 250 others.
They have invaded some 231 clinics and vandalized 224 others.21
[end excerpt]
Laurence H. Tribe
_Abortion_
W.W. Norton & Co.
1990
page 172
(c) 1990 by Laurence H. Tribe. All rights reserved.
Professor Tribe, writing in 1990, couldn't have known then that
antiabortion terrorism would increase even further.
Here's a list of attacks ending in death.
All occurred after 1 January 1989. That was the year of the Webster
precedent. That decision of the US Supreme Court is widely regarded
as having energized the send-women-into-back-alleys-and-prison-attire-
for-physicians movement, for antiabortion violence subsequently increased in
both frequency and severity.
ABORTION-RELATED MURDERS AND
MULTIPLE MURDERS
1989-1994
CITIZENS MURDERED BY CITIZENS MURDERED
ANTIABORTION ACTIVISTS BY PROCHOICE ACTIVISTS
Dr. David Gunn
Dr. Wayne Patterson
Dr. John Britton
Lt. Col. James Barrett
[physician bodyguard]
Shannon Lowney
Leanne Nichols
NOTE: The column on the left does not include shots fired at
Dr. Tiller by an antiabortion activist [he was wounded in both arms],
a shot fired into Justice Harry Blackmun's apartment, and a
reported shot fired into the residence of Norma McCorvey [a.k.a.
"Jane Roe"].
The hardcover book _The Right to Lifers_ details a frightening, lengthy
kidnapping incident perpetrated by antiabortion activists.
The tidal wave of bombings continues. And the destruction is not confined
to health care providers. Antiabortion activists leveled an entire city
block of businesses in TX by firebombing one clinic. And a pattern of
organized firebombings against widely-dispersed clinics has
emerged.
ON, WISCONSIN!
Now here's a list of four post-Webster incidents in WI, America's Dairyland.
In August 1993, antiabortion forces pulled off a sophisticated chemical
attack against a Milwaukee WI clinic sited at 6401 West Capitol Drive. On
another day, antiabortion criminals did a second butyric acid attack. In
Appleton WI, antiabortion activists firebombed that city's Planned Parentood
of WI clinic. And a Milwaukee area Planned Parenthood-affiliated physician
broke his silence and went public before TV cameras, citing a written death
threat from an antiabortion citizen.
*****************************************************************************
*****************************************************************************
*****************************************************************************
*****************************************************************************
(c) 1995 by C. Roth.
All rights reserved.
