Reno Calls for Bill To Protect Abortion Clinics : Congress: She asks lawmakers for measure that would also cover interference away from the facilities. House panel hears tales of harassment.

Atty. Gen. Janet Reno urged Congress Thursday to enact legislation extending federal protection to women seeking access to abortion clinics, saying that such a measure is a “top priority” for the Justice Department in the wake of a Florida abortion doctor’s slaying last month.

In a letter to Rep. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), Reno also said she wants the legislation to “address conduct that occurs away from, as well as at the site of, abortion clinics.”

The House Judiciary subcommittee on crime and criminal justice, which Schumer chairs, last week approved a far narrower version of the legislation that would make it a federal crime to blockade clinics, punishable by fines or imprisonment.

However, the panel is considering expanding the scope of the bill to provide criminal penalties for other activities that interfere with access to abortion.

The committee’s major concern, Schumer said, is protecting abortion rights without impeding “the legitimate, all-American, sacrosanct right to protest.”

Schumer released Reno’s letter as he opened a hearing exploring the tactics used by abortion opponents to harass doctors and others involved in providing abortion. The witnesses included front-line veterans from both sides in the battle.

David Gunn Jr., the 22-year-old son of the Pensacola, Fla., doctor who was killed by an abortion foe, told the panel that his father had endured death threats and confrontations in restaurants and other public places.

“He didn’t have a home. He couldn’t have a home. He lived out of a hotel because of the harassment,” Gunn said.

Although the doctor sought protection from local law enforcement, they did nothing, Gunn said. “My father was murdered because no one took the appropriate measures before this to prevent this,” he added.

During his testimony, Gunn held up a booklet labeled “Abortion Busters Manual.” He said that the manual, from an anti-abortion group, suggests ways to harass abortion providers.

Dr. Norman T. Tompkins, a Dallas obstetrician and gynecologist, also described the campaign that anti-abortion activists waged against him after he refused to sign an ultimatum six months ago pledging not to perform abortions.

He and his wife have pulled down more than 200 “wanted” posters with his picture on them and have been harassed at their home, church and offices, he said.

He estimated that they receive as many of 15 phone calls a day and have a foot-tall stack of hate mail.

Tompkins said he has delivered more than 8,000 babies and performs first-trimester abortions only for his current patients and only after counseling and never more than once.

“I’m not an abortionist. I’m an OB-GYN in private practice, who is pro-choice under certain conditions,” he said, noting that abortions account for only 5% of his practice.

Jeri Rasmussen, executive director of a Minneapolis abortion clinic said nails were poured on her driveway and a concrete block was hurled through her dining-room window the day after Gunn’s slaying. The block was wrapped in a note warning her to quit killing babies, she said.

“I look over my shoulder more often. I am short with my staff, and I have moved my bed for safety,” she said. “I am considering a gun, which seems just abhorrent to me, and a bulletproof vest.”

Representatives of several anti-abortion groups said they detest acts of violence but insisted that the Constitution gives them the right to express their views in other ways.

Operation Rescue founder Randall Terry contended that his group is merely using “our First Amendment privileges to expose them, to humiliate them, to disgrace them, which is our right.”

Terry portrayed abortion protesters as “grandmothers, quietly praying with rosaries, . .young women with young children of their own. Thousands of God-fearing, law-abiding clergy, . . multitudes of dads and grandfathers.”

The Rev. Joseph L. Foreman, president of a group called Missionaries to the Pre-born, warned that if mainstream abortion protesters are silenced, violent extremists will take their place.

Anti-abortion activists said they have also been the target of harassment and disputed assertions by abortion-rights groups that judges and police have been lenient with those who oppose abortion. Gay, anti-nuclear and animal-rights activists have been treated far more lightly, they said.

“Is this selective prosecution and persecution because we have dared to confront the crown jewel of the politically correct: child killing?” Terry asked.

Schumer was openly skeptical of the abortion foes’ disavowal of violence and harassment. “I think you are being disingenuous before us,” he told Terry.