Internet Provider Shuts Down Anti-Abortion Site

An Internet service provider has shut down an anti-abortion Web site that an Oregon jury said constituted a threat to abortion providers.

The move Thursday night came a day after the creator of the Web site, Neal Horsley, said he planned to add video cameras at abortion clinics in five American cities as well as in England and Japan to monitor activities for the Web.

The Web site includes the names and addresses of abortion providers and features photos of mangled fetuses and drawings of dripping blood.

Three times, doctors whose names appeared on the list were killed, most recently in October, when Dr. Barnett Slepian was gunned down by sniper fire in his home outside Buffalo, N.Y. His name on the Web site was crossed out that same day.

MindSpring, which provided the Internet space for the Web site, said it shut it down for violating “our appropriate use policies,” spokesman Serge Clermont said Friday. “We can’t go into the details why because of the privacy of our customers.”

Among the violations listed on MindSpring’s Web site is one prohibiting “threats of bodily harm or destruction of property.”

Pathway Communications, which has maintained the site, said in a statement that “The Nuremberg Files” site was knocked off-line without notice Thursday night. The company said it was informed Friday that it violated MindSpring’s policy on “threatening and harassing language.”

Horsley called the move a “temporary setback.”

“We feel privileged to take each and every lick and setback as they come because the challenges only strengthen us in our resolve to present the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth about legalized abortion,” according to the statement.

A federal jury ruled Tuesday that the site constituted a threat to abortion providers and awarded the plaintiffs $107 million in damages. The plaintiffs said their next step would be to get an injunction to shut the site down.