Florida Murder Brings New Challenges for Prolifers

The prolife movement continues to confront the fallout from the shooting last month of an abortionist in front of a Pensacola clinic. Antiabortion demonstrator Michael Griffin has been charged with the murder of David Gunn, a doctor who performed abortions at a new abortion clinic.

On Capitol Hill, Gunn’s murder has been the catalyst for swift action on three major pieces of abortion legislation: the Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA), which would create a federal statutory right to abortion; the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, which would make it a federal crime to obstruct access to abortion clinics; and the reauthorization of federal funds for family-planning clinics that counsel for abortion. President Clinton has also advocated overturning the Hyde Amendment, which prohibits the use of federal funds in performing abortions.

Within weeks of the murder, each of the bills had been advanced by key congressional panels, with the clinic funding bill already clearing the full House of Representatives. Ironically, in the case of FOCA, just a week before the shooting the bill was reportedly stalled amid proabortion and congressional bickering. Marcy Wilder of the National Abortion Rights Action League says, “I think the murder highlighted the need [for abortion legislation] for the entire country [including] Congress.”

Susan Smith, public-policy director for the National Right to Life Committee, accuses the abortion-rights movement of “shamelessly exploiting” Gunn’s murder to further its own interests. “Using this tragic act of violence to promote FOCA is another attempt by proabortion leaders to deflect attention from the radical effects of the bill.”

She admits, however, that the murder has complicated her job of leading opposition to abortion legislation. “Responsible prolife citizens have to be unequivocal in their condemnation of this act of violence, as well as the violence against unborn children.” Indeed, the entire antiabortion public-relations arena has taken a major hit as a result of the murder. Columnists and talk-show hosts have been making much of the incident. University of Texas journalism professor Marvin Olasky says, “The proabortion propagandists have been hard at work.”

Still, many prolifers acknowledge that some in their own movement have done little to help the situation. While virtually all major national prolife groups denounced the murder, some individuals appeared publicly to offer some justification for it. In a statement to the media, Don Treshman, director of Rescue America, called Gunn’s death “unfortunate,” but added that “the fact is that a number of mothers would have been put at risk today, and over a dozen babies would have died at his hands.”

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Such statements—coupled with the fact that the murder occurred during a rescue-style protest—are prompting some in the prolife movement to call for a re-examination of the whole rescue strategy, which has never been fully embraced by the prolife community. Prison Fellowship founder Charles Colson told United Press International that while he believes in the value of “peaceful, nonviolent civil disobedience” on the abortion issue, he also believes that the rescue movement “sometimes goes too far.”

Operation Rescue National (OR) spokesman Patrick Mahoney says his group has been unfairly tied to the murder and to acts of “graffiti, arson, and bombing, all of which we denounce.”

“If we were the dangerous group that everyone says we are, if our rhetoric and our actions would lead to this kind of senseless killing on the part of Michael Griffin, why did it take 20 years to happen?” Mahoney says OR will not be deterred, either by the negative press or by proposed legislation aimed at stopping rescue protests.

It is still too soon to assess the impact the murder will ultimately have on efforts against abortion. Olasky divides those efforts into three sectors: the political/judicial, the direct action, and the compassion services, which include crisis pregnancy centers and adoption ministries. He says the first two face strong challenges in the near future, while the third wing will likely feel the least fallout from the murder. According to Olasky’s research, in the nineteenth century, “it was the compassion services sector of the movement that succeeded in drastically reducing the numbers of abortions, in fact, cutting the number to half.”

By Kim A. Lawton in Washington, D.C.

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