BY KERRYN WILLIAMS
He's wanted for terrorist acts that caused death and injury. Believed to be hiding in the mountains, his exact whereabouts are unknown. He kills in the name of God, and he's on the FBI's most wanted list. Sound familiar?
His name is not Osama bin Laden, but Eric Robert Rudolph and you've probably never heard of him. He's a white US citizen who's wanted for the bombing of an abortion clinic in North Carolina in 1997, and the 1998 bombing of the New Woman All Women Health Care Clinic in Birmingham that left a security guard dead and a nurse severely injured. He is also charged with the 1996 bombing of Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta and 1997 bombing of a lesbian and gay night club in Atlanta.
There are others like him. Clayton Lee Wagner is still at large after escaping from jail in 1999. He testified that he'd been surveying reproductive health clinics, and claimed that god had asked him to kill doctors who perform abortions.
Another anti-abortion terrorist, James Charles Knopp, recently lost his appeal to avoid extradition from France to the US to face charges over the 1998 assassination of Dr Barnett Slepian, and four other sniper shootings of abortion providers between 1994 and 1997. There are countless more, some serving jail terms, some at large, others continuing to harass clinics.
Terrorist attacks on abortion clinics in the US are by no means new. The June 27 Anti-Abortion Violence Watch reported that there were 19 arson attacks and 11 bombings of clinics between 1997 and 2001.
According to the Feminist Majority Foundation's 2000 National Clinic Violence Survey Report, released in January, one in five clinics providing abortion continue to experience severe violence. This includes "blockades, invasions, bombings, arsons, chemical attacks, stalking, gunfire, physical attacks, and threats of death, bomb or arson".
The report also found that more than one third of clinics experienced harassment such as "Wanted" posters of doctors who perform abortions, internet harassment and anti-abortion leafleting.
Anthrax threats have been widespread in the past two months. On November 8 approximately 200 reproductive health clinics in the US received packages containing white powder and threatening letters. Less than one month before, more than 250 abortion providers received similar anthrax threats.
While one could be mistaken for thinking anthrax threats were a post-September 11 phenomenon, according to the November 9 New York Times, "Because there have been so many anthrax threats against abortion clinics in the last three years, abortion rights groups have developed routines for notifying all clinics of the threats that have been received, and most are careful to screen their mail."
The Feminist Majority Foundation reported that in 2000, 7% of clinics received anthrax threats, while 11% of clinics received them in 1999. The foundation's 1998 report indicated an increase in chemical attacks in that year, describing how in Florida in June, "Anti-abortion activists drilled holes into clinic walls and filled the holes with butyric acid, a foul-smelling substance which irritates skin membranes and whose vomit-like stench can effectively close down a clinic." Similar attacks in Texas and Louisiana the following month caused eight people to be temporarily hospitalised.
The response to the September 11 attacks by anti-abortion fanatics is particularly telling. Right-wing Christian anti-abortion group Operation Save America, formerly Operation Rescue National, issued a statement after September 11 claiming the attacks were a result of the Americans' "basic disregard for the Law of God and for life". Right-wing preacher Jerry Falwell made similar remarks on his Christian Broadcasting Network, stating: "I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists and the feminists, and the gays and lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle ... all of them who have tried to secularise America — I point to them and say, 'You helped this happen'."
There has been little government or corporate media outrage at the constant terrorist attacks on women's health clinics across the US. Clearly, there are some forms of terrorism George Bush can live with.
From Â鶹´«Ã½ Weekly, November 21, 2001.
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