Abortion providers in Canada and Quebec are facing a new threat. Extremist groups are trying to identify and expose abortion providers, which increases the risk of terrorist attacks against them. Will Offley In the last four years there have been three attempts to murder Canadian doctors connected to abortion clinics. No one has been arrested or tried for any of these shootings. The new "identify and expose" strategy of leading anti-choice campaigners in British Columbia is a clear attempt to profit directly from this terror campaign.
The growth of anti-abortion terrorism obscures the depth of the victory won by the women's movement in general and the pro-choice movement in specific in the 1980s and 1990s. True, sometimes it's hard to see that victory, given the dramatic extent to which English Canada's pro-choice movement has demobilised and dwindled since the peaks of activity in the
In the neighbouring United States, the situation is much worse. There, choice is under a profound and sustained assault unlike anything taking place in Canada Across the US, access to legal and safe abortion is being killed by a thousand cuts. Almost every state legislature is a battleground, and every week more and more grim news piles up, of 24-hour waiting periods, of compulsory counselling (complete with colour pictures of foetal development), of laws requiring compulsory parental notification, of funding cuts, of limitations, restrictions, and outright prohibitions. Over the last 12 months, 28 US states have passed laws banning late-
Nothing like this is occurring in the Canadian state. This is not to say that access is universal. Enormous barriers still remain, particularly for poor, native and rural women. In Prince Edward Island, it is impossible to get an abortion at all.
Despite this, the dominant picture in the Canadian state is a dramatic contrast to the rollbacks, reversals and defeats occurring state-by-state in the US. And, compared to the US, the Canadian anti-choice movement is in a complete strategic Anti-choice movement is in decline...
In the 1970s and '80s, the "antis" were a significant mass movement, capable of collecting 1,017,000 signatures to recriminalise abortion in 1975, and mobilising 30,000 supporters at the Ontario legislature in October 1983, and 20,000 on Parliament Hill in September 1988, What a contrast with their 14 May 1998 mobilisation on Parliament Hill, which, despite the provision of special buses from Toronto and Montreal, attracted a crowd of only 700. At least, that was the estimate. One pro-choice witness counted less than 50 "antis."
In Vancouver, typical attendance at aggressive anti-choice pickets has declined from 1,500 during the 1985 visit by Henry Morgentaler to under 30 at the May 1998 convention of the National Abortion Federation. There has been a similar decline in the more mainstream Life Chain mobilisation in Vancouver every October. Leading "antis" admit that participation has steadily dropped from a high of 15,000 in 1991 to 4,000 last year.
The heyday of Operation Rescue's mass blockades of abortion clinics lasted only two years, from 1988 to 1990. Since then the dozens of small blockades have occurred more as an annoyance than a serious threat to access (though no-one should underestimate the genuine distress caused to those women directly affected).
With the defeat of the blockades and a demobilisation of their supporters,, the antis intensified their sidewalk counselling' programme. This social service was rather unique, involving the involuntary,
'counselling' of women by untrained religious fanatics. But this campaign, too, was hard hit by legal measures in Ontario and British Columbia, preventing the antis from targeting or approaching women in the immediate vicinity of the clinics.
No attempt to remove abortion funding at the provincial level has succeeded. Not even the well-organised campaign in Alberta in 1995, organised by the Committee to End Taxpayer-Funded Abortions Every provincial government except Prince Edward Island now funds abortion. In most provinces, the decision to fund was the result of a victory by the pro-choice movement over a recalcitrant provincial government. ....and the mainstream right is cautious
The durability and the depth of the pro-choice victory of the last 15 years obliges Canada's bourgeois parties to be extremely careful in the way they approach the issue. Just look at the rightwing Reform Party. Its leader Preston Manning is an evangelical Christian, but he's a smart politician, too. Ever since the founding of Reform, he's steered directly away from allowing Reform to come out in opposition to abortion, even where this has meant serious fights with large sectors of his own membership. Manning under-
and state-of-the-art electronic surveil- doctors have been shot here and when lance equipment'. Life Dynamics also six providers have been murdered in the stands very well the serious political price he would pay if Reform ever directly opposed abortion.
To avoid getting trapped between his anti-choice membership and a pro-choice electorate he now proposes 'a Reform policy to call for a referendum, constituency-by-constituency, whose results would be binding on the individual MP' Mainstream gly, gre lps deshrally han groups generally hate Reform.
Cashing in on terror
Canada *
In Canada today, choice on abortion is almost uniquely sheltered. Almost every other social policy and human freedom is under heavy attack in the current neoliberal offensive. Of course, current reverses on abortion rights in the US can't help but spill over the border. In the long run, every freedom is being threatened. But for now, this one victory persists. * * Will Offley is a researcher who was for many years in charge of security at Everywoman's Health Centre in Vancouver.
Since February 1998, there has been a offers the services of 8,000 "spies for US, the threat of publicising one's name, campaign of intimidation against abortion providers in British Columbia. Local health care workers have received letters asking them to identify physicians who provide abortions. The campaign shows clearly the moral bankruptcy of the 'pro-life' movement, and especially it's leadership - some of whom are determined to cash in on terrorism, and the rest of whom are keeping
The first letter was mailed to 144 health care workers in February. It asked those receiving it to name any doctors they were aware of who provide abortions. It also asked for the names of physicians who do not perform abortions, but simply refer women to doctors who do! The letter stated that the information would be widely publicised, but that informants would remain anonymous. It was signed by Kelowna Right To Life, an affiliate of
Life," "moles who use a variety of methods to collect information about
Crutcher's methods have included mailing out a bogus 'pro-choice' questionnaire to hundreds of US providers. The supposedly anonymous return envelopes had been coded with ultraviolet-sensitive ink, so that each reply could be matched to the specific doctor who replied.
In one incident in 1995, three of Crutcher's employees were arrested at a clinic in New Jersey. Two presented themselves as a pregnant young woman and her aunt. They were wired with a body-pack video camera, while a third LDI staffer taped the counselling session they were in via radio microphone
LDI has issued calls for supporters to send it home addresses and phone numbers of providers, photos and vehicle licence plate numbers, leading to serious address and picture is not a matter of minor harassment. At least one well-publicised anti-abortion web site in the US compiles this information on the internet. Presumably some of that data comes from Life Dynamics.
What we are seeing here is a tacit division of labour, where the mainstream anti-abortion groups continue denounce the shootings, on paper, while adapting their tactics to profit from the fear and terror engendered by the
Significantly, both of the mainstream anti-choice organisations in BC have publicly endorsed the letters, and members of both groups have been those involved in sending them out. What's even more revealing is that none of the mainstream anti-abortion groups have condemned this intimidation. Most notably, the Catholic church has mainthe BC Pro-Life Society. concerns by providers that LDI is covertly tained complete silence on the letters, at
Soon after, a nearly identical letter surfaced in Vancouver. It was signed by prominent local "anti" Sissy von Dehn, supposedly on behalf of a group of pro-life nurses' Von Dehn is actually an accoun tant for a cleaning contractor and has not practised as an nurse for nearly 30 years. Since then, at least four more letters have been detected, some mailed from Texas in the USA and Amsterdam in the
It now seems that the first two letters were copied word-for-word from originals supplied by a Texas anti-abortion group, Life Dynamics Inc., headed by Mark Crutcher. According to one prominent American "anti," 'one of the places where LD excels is in developing a sophisticated and innovative intelligence-gathering operation, using a combination of ordinary pro-lifers, infiltrators, covert actions, working with the pro-murder wing of the anti-abortion movement. These fears are magnified by the close links LDI appears to have with the American Coalition of Life Activists (ACLA), most of whose leaders have publicly called for the murder of doctors and clinic staff. In May 1995, Crutcher gave a half-day seminar to a national conference of ACLA in Wichita, Kansas.
On November 8, 1994, Dr. Garson Romalis was shot in Vancouver. Since then, two other Canadian physicians have been wounded in similar assassination attempts. No one has been arrested. Psychological terrorism, like these letters, has its greatest impact when there is real terrorism in the air. These letters have to be seen as a conscious and systematic attempt to terrorise BC providers into ceasing to perform abortions. When three least one of which was mailed out by a prominent Catholic. This can only be understood as the church's cynical endorsement, through silence, of a defeated movement whose leadership is sinking further and further into ruthless and morally degenerate tactics.
The letters are a clever tactic. They are genuinely intimidating, as intended. They carry a threat, but of an implied rather than explicit nature. This means that the writers will probably continue to escape criminal charges
This represents a real challenge to the pro-choice community. We need to put the silent supporters of this campaign on the spot. Everywhere. At every opportunity. Either they condemn this campaign of intimidation, or shoulder the responsibility for it. [WO] * 1. Paul DeParrie, The New Bad Kid On The Block', Life Advocate, December 1994)
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