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CONSPIRACY RHETORIC

The fallout from Gunn's killing has forever changed the political climate in the abortion debate. In May, President Clinton signed the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, which makes it a federal crime to block a patient entering an abortion facility (and provides a life sentence for anyone convicted of murdering an abortionist). In June, the U.S. Supreme Court in Madsen v. Woraen's Health Center upheld the legality of protest-free "buffer zones" around clinics.

After the July shootings, abortion-rights and feminist organizations immediately began talk of a national conspiracy of terrorism. Prompted by a list supplied by Feminist Majority Foundation president Eleanor Smeal, Attorney General Janet Reno ordered federal marshals to begin around-the-clock vigils at a dozen specified clinics.

Abortion-rights proponents also found allies in the secular media. "Just how many more abortion doctors have to die in the USA before militant radicals in the anti-abortion movement get treated like the terrorists they are?" asked an editorial in USA Today. "It's time to combat the obvious peril to the doctors and nurses in these clinics." A congressional ally, Rep. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), suggested the FBI infiltrate the ranks of pro-life groups to look for conspirators.

While Operation Rescue (OR) members have never been convicted of clinic violence, abortion-rights activists like to paint them with the same broad brush as extremists. Rescue movement leaders have used strong words to try to combat the image problem. OR national director Flip Benham even said he would have stepped between the shooter and the victims if he had been at the murder site.

"One does not overcome the horrible murder of little boys and girls waiting to be born by murdering other people," Benham said. "One never has the right to take upon himself the role of judge, jury, and executioner."

For Benham, federal protection at abortion facilities is the ultimate irony. "It is a sad commentary that our federal government would send marshals to protect facilities where innocent children are killed," he said. "The abortion clinic has become the most sacred, protected shrine in our nation."

Copyright 1994 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

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September 12 1994, Vol. 38, No. 10