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WOMEN MOBILIZE AGAINST RIGHT-WING TERRORISTS

By Sue Davis

The March 10 Florida shooting of Dr. David Gunn by a "pro-life" 
fanatic was the first murder in the civil war over legal
abortion. It also was a grisly reminder of the terrorist network
that exists in this country but is never called by its real name.

This type of political assassination was the logical outcome of
the ongoing campaign of terror and intimidation that right-wing 
religious groups have been waging, with increasing rancor and 
viciousness, against pro-choice health-care workers, activists
and women patients over the past 15 years.

A strong grass-roots pro-choice defense has been mounted by
women's groups from Buffalo, N.Y., to Houston. But a terrorist
network of anti-abortion groups, with sanctimonious names like
Operation Rescue, Rescue America and Missionaries to the Unborn,
has been allowed to turn what should be a private, highly
personal health-care procedure into a public nightmare.

In the name of "life," these groups have conducted a holy crusade
from coast to coast against women's health clinics. With local 
police standing by, "rescuers" have been allowed to blockade 
doorways, forcing clients and medical workers to run a gauntlet
of venomous verbal abuse and physical attacks.

Doctors and nurses have increasingly become targets of hate mail 
and death threats, forced to wear bullet-proof vests and work 
behind layers of bullet-proof glass. Their children have also
been singled out for the meanest kind of harassment.

'WANTED' POSTER INCITED MURDER

Last summer, a "Wanted" poster with Dr. Gunn's picture, address, 
phone number and itinerary was distributed at an anti-abortion 
rally in Montgomery, Ala. What is that but the most blatant call 
for murder?

Over the past 15 years, this terrorist network has bombed or set 
fire to more than 100 clinics, invaded more than 300 and
vandalized more than 400. Last year's 186 incidents set an
all-time high; 27 have already been reported this year. Just last
month in Corpus Christi, Texas, arsonists leveled a clinic and
three nearby buildings, causing over $1 million in damage. In
early March noxious chemicals were sprayed in eight clinics in
southern California, forcing them to close.

These anti-woman groups have been encouraged from the highest 
levels of state and religious power. Among those who should be
held personally accountable for Gunn's murder are former
Presidents Reagan and Bush, the anti-choice members of the
Supreme Court, evangelist Pat Robertson and Cardinal John
O'Connor.

All have blessed the anti-abortion terror campaign. Though they 
hide behind a smokescreen of concern for the "unborn," they
foment the deepest contempt for women.

None of these men has denounced this cold-blooded, premeditated 
murder. And no leader in the far-right wing of the anti-choice 
movement has expressed a dollop of remorse. Rather, they have set
up a fund for the family of assassin Michael Griffin.

Though now a casualty of this war, Gunn was also one of its
heroes. The only doctor to serve women's health facilities in a 
1,000-square-mile wedge of rural Florida, Georgia and Alabama,
Dr. Gunn chose to help women end unplanned pregnancies at a time
when many physicians have stopped performing abortions.

Abortions are currently available in only 17 percent of counties
in this country. Gunn had opened a new clinic in Pensacola, Fla.,
only a few weeks before he was killed.

Various pro-choice groups have called for passage of two bills 
pending in Congress: the Freedom of Choice Act, which would 
guarantee women's right to abortion and negate recent Supreme
Court rulings abridging that right; and the Freedom of Access to
Clinic Entrances Act, which makes blocking an abortion clinic a
federal crime.

CALLING ON THE STATE

Some have called for posting federal marshals to ensure access to
clinics, and an FBI investigation to disarm the anti-abortion 
movement.

Janet Reno, the new attorney general, has promised to conduct an 
investigation to see what can be done under current laws to
protect women's access to needed health care. Because she is a
woman, many in the pro-choice movement are putting their faith in
her.

But Reno has no record in defense of women's rights. Putting
faith in her means putting faith in the capitalist state she has
chosen to serve. The rights of working and poor people are won
only when there is a mass movement in the streets loudly
demanding those rights.

The death of Dr. David Gunn could have been prevented had the
state listened to the women and men in the pro-choice movement
and made defense of women's clinics a priority. It's not too late
to prevent other murders. That means continuing to build a broad,
forceful mass movement dedicated to winning reproductive freedom
for all women.

                               -30-

(Copyright Workers World Service: Permission to reprint granted 
if source is cited. For more info contact Workers World, 46 W. 21
St., New York, NY 10010; via e-mail: ww%nyxfer@igc.apc.org or
workers@mcimail.com.)


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