A Day to Honor Courage
  by Jan Brazill

Many Americans think that terrorism first struck our country on September 11, 2001.

Not true. Threats and violence have been occurring at health clinics that provide abortion services since 1973 when the Supreme Court case, Roe v. Wade, legalized abortion. The public just never described these acts as "terrorism."

Now we need to acknowledge this truth, as we honor the brave doctors, clinic workers, and volunteer escorts who face threats of serious violence daily. March 10 has been designated as NATIONAL APPRECIATION DAY FOR ABORTION PROVIDERS. It is a good time to consider what these people have endured.

Since 1977 there have been over 59,000 acts of violence and/or disruption at the nation's reproductive health care clinics. Much of the early activity constituted legal protests and picketing, but episodes of blockades, trespasses, death threats, kidnappings, and fire bombings gradually increased. 1984 saw more than 25 incidents of bombings and arsons. The violence intensified in the 1990's, when, for the first time, antiabortion extremists began to murder doctors and clinic workers, killing seven and wounding another thirteen.

In response to the escalating violence, a bipartisan Congress passed the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act (FACE) in 1994, establishing federal criminal penalties and civil remedies for violent, obstructionist, or damaging conduct affecting reproductive health care providers and recipients.

This caused a decline in the number of large-scale blockades, but serious violence and threats continued. Opponents target doctors by listing their names and addresses on the Internet. They caused 100 butyric acid attacks and turned to bioterrorism with 557 anthrax threats (of which 480 happened since 9/11/2001) in an attempt to frighten clinic employees and interrupt operations. Clayton Lee Waagner, a self-described "anti-abortion warrior," claimed responsibility for mailing hundreds of anthrax hoax letters and packages to clinics, and told arresting officers of his intent to kill forty-two clinic workers.

Waagner is allied with the Army of God, an anti-abortion group linked to incidences of murder, bombings, arson, and kidnapping that date back to the early 1980's. Their manual gives detailed instructions for attacking abortion clinics, manufacturing bombs, and cutting off the hands of abortion doctors. It glorifies those who kill workers at clinics.

Although Attorney General John Ashcroft has described Waagner as a "domestic terrorist," the Justice Department has not focused on these networks as they have on foreign terrorists. Yet the doctors and staff at reproductive health clinics are in danger every day as they offer women and men health care along with the legal service of abortion.

The threat is eerily similar. The Army of God Manual advocates killing in the name of God: "Our most Dread Sovereign Lord God requires that whosoever sheds man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed." The Islamic assassins of 9/11 killed in the name of their God, too.

Salman Rushdie understood religious-based terrorism when he said, in a 1994 letter to Taslima Nasreen: "How sad it must be to believe in a God of blood! What an Islam they have made, these apostles of death, and how important it is to have the courage to dissent from it!"

On March 10 we honor the courage of those in reproductive health clinics nationwide who face terrorism daily for performing a legal and constitutional service.

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