Anthrax Threats Common at Clinics

For one group of office workers, anthrax threats in the mail are not stunningly new, but instead have become both scary and commonplace.

Since 1998, scores of employees of clinics that perform abortions have received envelopes that contain a white powder and a note identifying the substance as anthrax.

Many of the messages are signed by “the Army of God,” a shadowy group of antiabortion extremists that has taken credit for several clinic bombings and murders of abortion doctors.

“Unfortunately, anthrax threats are not new for our members,” said Vicki Saporta, executive director of the National Abortion Federation.

The government has pledged to punish threats and hoaxes involving anthrax, but no one has been arrested so far in connection with the letters to clinics.

This week, the Army of God apparently has taken advantage of the nationwide anthrax scare to launch a new wave of threatening letters. As of Friday, at least 200 medical offices that perform abortions have received letters with a powder that is purportedly anthrax.

The official-looking envelopes refer to an “Urgent Security Notice” and have a return address from the U.S. Secret Service or the U.S. Marshals Service. Inside is usually a message that says, “You have been exposed to anthrax.” The letters have been postmarked from Atlanta; Columbus, Ohio; and Chattanooga and Knoxville, Tenn.

The Planned Parenthood Federation said 146 of its affiliates, most of them in the South and the East, had received such letters this week.

“They’re still coming in. We had several more today,” said Ann Glazier, director of security for Planned Parenthood.

Meanwhile, the National Abortion Federation, whose members include private clinics, says at least 132 of its affiliates also have received such letters. Because the membership of the two groups does not overlap entirely, its leaders believe that more than 200 clinics in all were targeted.

No California clinics were among those reporting threatening letters this week. “But in the past, some of the letters have shown up later on the West Coast,” Glazier said.

The letters and powder have been sent for testing. So far, none has tested positive for anthrax.

On Tuesday, Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft promised to prosecute all threats and hoaxes with the full force of the law.

Although the FBI has not identified the perpetrators of the anthrax hoaxes, members of the Army of God are not hard to find.

The Rev. Donald Spitz of Chesapeake, Va., says he is a member and has set up a Web site for the group. “I believe helpless babies deserve to be protected from those who plan to kill them, just like the people in the World Trade Center deserved to be defended,” the site says. “In the same manner, those who stop baby-killing abortionists from murdering innocent children are heroes.”

In a phone interview, Spitz applauded the anthrax threats at clinics as a “good thing” and a “brilliant move. Some of the abortion mills were forced to shut down, so they couldn’t kill babies today.”

He denied that he had anything to do with sending the letters, and said he did not know who had done it. “We have learned not to tell one another what we have done,” he explained.

Planned Parenthood officials say they are frustrated by the FBI’s lukewarm response in the past and its failure to arrest those who have sent the dozens of anthrax threats.

“We’ve gotten a very mixed response. They will take any information we give them, but we never hear anything back,” Glazier said. “They don’t tell us about the status of the investigation, and nothing seems to come out of it.”

The threats to clinics, she said, deserve more attention from federal authorities. “Imagine if 200 banks or 200 hospitals had received anthrax threats. I think there would have been more of a response,” she said. “It could be because the threats in the past were not real [anthrax], they are assuming these [threats] are not real either.”

However, a Justice Department spokesman insisted the FBI continues to pursue the threats against the clinics.

“These threats are taken very seriously. The FBI has been in contact with the clinics, and the threats are being investigated,” said Dan Nelson, a department spokesman. “These cases are still open, and they remain a top priority.”