Abortion Foes Target Doctors for Harassment

When last week began, the embattled Aware Woman’s Clinic had three experienced, albeit apprehensive, doctors on its staff.

By Saturday, fear had driven off all but one.

The only facility providing abortions in this conservative community south of Cape Canaveral, Fla., the clinic has been targeted for harassment since mid-January by a team of abortion foes from Operation Rescue.

Each day for weeks, the doctors and clinic employees were condemned by name as “baby killers” by protesters who stood 50 feet from the door of the small medical office. In a vain effort to protect their identities, some physicians had taken to arriving with blankets or bags over their heads.

At night, their homes were often picketed by abortion foes who had traced the doctors’ addresses through their license plate numbers.

The doctors also were portrayed as “child killers” on large “Wanted” posters distributed throughout their neighborhoods. The posters not only included such personal information as the doctors’ home telephone numbers but also details about their children, their spouses and parents. In the mornings, their driveways were blocked by protesters. They were followed on the way to work, and, they say, sometimes run off the road at night.

Perhaps for Dr. Frank Snydle, the worst moment came when the abortion protesters followed him into a local hotel and demanded that this “child killer” be removed from the premises.

When he entered the lobby restaurant, they followed him, telling fellow diners that he was using “blood money” to pay for his meal.

But on Thursday, one day after the slaying of David Gunn, an abortion doctor in Pensacola, Fla., Snydle and a second physician announced they were quitting, fearful of further deadly attacks from “fanatics.”

By Saturday, usually the busiest day of the week, the only remaining staff physician that the Melbourne clinic could call on was a 90-minute drive away in Daytona Beach, Fla.

For women’s rights leaders, the slaying of Gunn and the departure of the two Melbourne doctors are a result of the same phenomenon: an intensified campaign by anti-abortion forces to stop abortion through the harassment, humiliation and intimidation of doctors.

Until last year, the anti-abortion movement had hopes that its influence on the Republican White House of George Bush and the U.S. Supreme Court would win a reversal of the high court’s Roe vs. Wade decision and end the right to legal abortion.

But the court’s ruling affirming the abortion right, followed by the election of Democratic President Clinton, dashed those hopes. Undaunted, the most extreme factions of the anti-abortion movement have simply changed their focus, turning up the pressure on abortion providers instead. And their campaign here seems to be working.

To be sure, the leader of the nation’s largest anti-abortion group, Randall Terry of Operation Rescue, has denounced Gunn’s killing, calling it “repulsive.” He and his followers insist that theirs is a nonviolent mission, and his organization is quick to point out that the man accused in the killing, 31-year-old Michael Griffin, is not a member of Operation Rescue.

However, Terry has acknowledged that doctors are the new targets of anti-abortion efforts. Two weeks ago in a local rally, he referred to them as the “weak link” in the abortion business.

“Intolerance is a beautiful thing,” Terry said. “We’re going to make their lives a living hell.”

The Feminist Majority Foundation and the National Organization for Women have issued alerts in the last few weeks about what they describe as a “reign of terror” surrounding abortion clinics. But their complaints drew little attention until the murder last week in Pensacola.

“Abortion providers throughout this nation live every day in a war zone, never knowing when they will be targeted for harassment, intimidation, attacks and now death,” said Eleanor Smeal, president of the Feminist Majority Foundation. “As a nation, we are in danger of having the rights we won at the ballot box and in the courts destroyed through force and violence.”

Amy Borge, a spokeswoman for the National Coalition of Abortion Providers, which says it represents 200 independent abortion clinics, said doctors have been calling the group’s Washington office and inquiring about how to get bulletproof vests and guns. She noted that 83% of the nation’s counties are without an abortion provider and said the percentage is likely to grow because of the recent threats and violence.

Melbourne clinic operator Patricia Baird-Windle described her ordeal in a loud but shaky voice, her hands waving as she spoke.

“Every time I turn on the ignition, I’m afraid,” she said. Her home and her clinic have been picketed for weeks, and even from inside her office the shouts of “murderer” can be easily heard.

Among the recent incidents, she is most angry that anti-abortion activists have sought out the children of her employees. Justin White, 14, whose mother works at the clinic, says he was offered a ride to a hamburger stand one afternoon last month by two young women. After he accepted, they took him for a ride in their car instead to talk about the evils of abortion and to advise him that “your mother will die in hell.”

Baird-Windle said she is also frustrated that county prosecutors have refused to bring harassment or stalking charges against the abortion protesters.

“They haven’t done a goddamn thing,” Baird-Windle said of local officials.

Police officers have been stationed at the clinic regularly to ensure that protesters do not trespass and that the driveway is not blocked.

Officers at the scene point out, however, that picketing and shouting slogans are not violations of the law, even though clinic employees consider the acts harassment. Even death threats are not illegal unless they are specific, said Officer S. T. Smith.

“Even if they say something general like: ‘We’re going to kill all you baby killers,’ that might not be specific enough to make out a violation,” he said.

In response to Gunn’s death, Democratic leaders on Capitol Hill and newly confirmed Atty. Gen. Janet Reno pledged to explore whether the federal government should intervene to protect abortion clinics. But it is not clear that new laws could stop the campaign of Operation Rescue and other abortion foes.

The Supreme Court has said repeatedly that the First Amendment protects a protester’s right to carry signs, shout slogans and picket outside doctors’ homes, even in quiet residential neighborhoods.

For their part, the anti-abortion activists who have gathered in Melbourne do not dispute the details of the harassment cited by clinic workers, including following doctors into hotels and restaurants.

“We are very up front about that,” said Chet Gallagher, a leader of the Melbourne protests. “We are serious and tenacious about stopping child killers.”

The protesters do, however, resent being linked to Griffin. Like the doctors who practice here, Gunn had been featured on the “Wanted” posters issued by the abortion opponents.

Gallagher said theirs is a “nonviolent movement” that is using every legal means of persuasion to stop abortion.

“We think child killers are the same as mass murderers. We don’t believe they should be permitted to lead a normal, peaceful life like other Americans,” said Gallagher, a former Las Vegas police officer.

Along with his wife, JoAnn, also a former police officer, they sold their five-bedroom home in Las Vegas four years ago, bought a trailer and have traveled the nation since then as “Christian missionaries to the pre-born.”

Unlike Baird-Windle, who shows the stress of being under daily attack, Gallagher calmly and confidently discussed Operation Rescue’s strategy for ending abortion.

“We want to expose child killers wherever they go,” he said. “If I know a doctor is eating in a restaurant, I feel quite justified in telling the people around him that he is dining with blood money from killing children. If (convicted mass murderer) Jeffrey Dahmer lived in your neighborhood, wouldn’t you want to know about it?”

Operation Rescue this year chose Melbourne as a training center for new anti-abortion leaders. After 12 weeks here this winter, the several dozen new leaders, ranging in age from 18 to 70, are instructed to fan out around the nation and put their pressure tactics to work.

Gallagher said he is convinced that through sheer persistence, or a “holy tenacity,” as he puts it, his small band of activists can stop abortion.

“We can come into a community and surround a killing center and expose the child killers, and the community will rise up against them,” he said.

Eventually, the doctors and the clinic employees will be persuaded to quit, he said. As he spoke, a dozen protesters gathered around a car entering the clinic and shouted in the windows. “Would you want to work in a climate like this?” he asked.