Doctors Offer to Aid in Abortions After Killing

Doctors from other states will rotate at the clinic where slain abortion provider Dr. Barnett A. Slepian had worked, clinic officials said Tuesday, and federal marshals said they will protect those who come to perform the procedure.

Slepian, 52, was shot and killed in his home Friday night. His death cut the number of abortion providers in the Buffalo area to three.

Of those three, one apparently has quit in fear, said Elizabeth Sholes, an abortion clinic volunteer for the last 10 years who had escorted Slepian on numerous occasions.

“What happened is a huge tragedy and the fact that the woman left . . . is understandable,” she said.

Slepian’s shooting was the fifth sniper attack on a doctor who performed abortions in the last four years in Canada and upstate New York. His was the only one to be fatal.

Doctors from across the country have offered their assistance, said Susan Dudley, deputy director of the Washington-based National Abortion Federation.