Abortion is Murder, 9-11, January 2, 2012

Formerly Stop the Killing of Young People (skyp) and soon, perhaps, Stop Killing Preemies

January 2, 2012 Vol. 9 No. 11
PO Box 7424, Reading, PA 19603
Phone – 484-706-4375
Email – johndunk@ptd.net
Web – skyp1.blogspot.com
Circulation – 327
John Dunkle, Editor

Abortion is Murder, a weak, pathetic response to baby murder, is sent out at least once a month. If the gestapo hasn’t jailed you for defending the innocent realistically, you either have to tell me you want it or go to the website. Faxes and emails are free but snail-mail is free only for PFCs, $100 for others.
Because I believe we should examine every legitimate means, including force, in our attempt to protect those being tortured to death, I want to hear from people who’ve been forceful and from those who defend them.. I’d also like to hear from those prolifers and pro-deathers who call force violence.

Prisoners for Christ:

1. Evans, Paul Ross 83230-180, USP McCreary, P.O. Box 3000, Pine Knot, KY 42635
2. Gibbons, Linda, Vanier WDC, 655 Martin St., P.O. Box 1040, Milton, ON, Canada L9T 5E6
3. Griffin, Michael 310249, 5914 Jeff Ates Rd., Milton, FL 32583-0000
4. Jordi, Stephen 70309-004, FCI P.O. Box 33, Terre Haute IN 47802 6/30
5. Knight, Peter James, P.O. Box 376, Laverton, Victoria, Australia
6. Kopp, James 11761-055, USP Canaan, P.O. Box 300, 3057 Easton Tpk., Waymart, PA 18472
7. Little, David SJRCC, 930 Old Black River Road, Saint John, NB E2J 4T3
8. Moose, Justin 27494-057 FCI Talladega, P.O. Box 1000, Talladega, AL 35160
9. Richardson, Alonzo Lee 12898-021, FCI Pollock P.O. Box 4050, Pollock, LA 71467
10. Roeder, Scott P. 65192, PO Box 2, Lansing Kansas 66043
11. Ross, Michael, Custer County Jail, 1010 Main St., Miles City, Montana 59301
12. Rudolph, Eric 18282-058 US Pen. Max, Box 8500, Florence CO 81226-8500
13. Shannon, Rachelle 59755-065, FCI Waseca, Unit A, P.O. Box 1731, Waseca, MN 56093 3/31
14. Waagner, Clayton Lee 17258-039, United States Penitentiary, P.O. Box 1000, Lewisburg PA 17837

Even though it’s a shameful sin to abandon defenseless victims to their attackers, it’s a far worse sin when you attempt to pass the blame for that sin onto God by claiming that’s what he wanted you to do. And that’s precisely what so many people have done with their rejection of God’s clear and sensible instructions to defend the defenseless, and with their pretenses and fake excuses for rejecting those instructions. Pride is a terrible thing when it leads you to deny your own sin and instead say that God sinned.
Peter James Knight
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The Voice of Choice project has wound down. It was fun while it lasted. Todd Stave thanked me for emailing this on December 1:

Hey Todd, I was counting on you. That's why I thanked you for asking your killers' helpers to stay in touch. But the second bombardment proves to be less than half as successful as the first, and the first, as I told you, was a big disappointment.
What's next? Forget that visiting me stuff. You and I both know it'll never happen. Why should it? Your killers, and you, their helpers, have everything you want now. Visiting an enemy is a desperate measure. That's why I do it. I'd love to see some of you folks, but I am absolutely certain that will be my third big disappointment.
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Listen to this! I sent my January newsletter to all those who emailed me to say stop visiting the homes of the killers. Evidently, though, they don’t like it when someone sends them unsolicited email; so, they run to mommy:

Dear Mr. Dunk:

PenTeleData has received a report from America Online (AOL) concerning an e-mail message you recently sent to an AOL user:
Please keep the following information in mind when emailing AOL customers:
AOL has high level spam filters on their mail servers –emails sent to multiple AOL users can be tagged as spam:
Messages with a high number of recipients can be tagged as spam (AOL and others)
Forwarding messages or Responding to All (messages with lots of headers in them) can cause an email to be tagged as spam
People receiving messages can hit their spam button and tag the message as spam – this puts your email address into their blocked senders list and future messages to the sender may not be viewed
Please remember the PenTeleData email policy when sending email
The spam report was generated by the recipient of the email you sent, not PenTeleData
PenTeleData recommends that you contact any individual you know who uses an AOL e-mail address (via means other than email, if possible) in order to determine if they wish to continue to receive your e-mail messages. Failure to resolve this issue could result in more reports tracing back to your account.
If you have questions regarding this notice, please contact us at 800-281-3564 (press 2, then 1).
Thank you for your business and continued support.

Sincerely,
Joann

PenTeleData Customer Service
custserv@corp.ptd.net www.ptd.net

Phone 800-281-3564 – Hours: 24 hrs. a day, 7 days a week
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The Voice of Choice campaign is now defunct. I can’t remember when I’ve so much fun, and me 76! The fun came from the emails. They piled in and I responded (in parentheses). Here are a typical three:

Thanks for copying me John. (?)
Your language is amazing! (Thanks)
Did you finish school? (Yes)
Just for YOUR information, I absolutely and 100% will never stop in MY quest to stop morons like you who DO NOT follow the law. (Just for MINE?)
Our law states abortions are LEGAL and JUST. Get over it. ("JUST" my foot.)
I will do ANYTHING in my power to help ANY WOMAN NO MATTER HER AGE to get an abortion through any regular, licensed doctor that performs them. (Doctors don't perform abortions, serial killers do.)
How many UNWANTED adopted children do you have? (none)
How many with horrible disfiguring birth defects? (none)
Pretty sure I know the answer to that one. (Hope so, I just told you.)
Until there is not ONE single unwanted, unabused, unneglected child on this planet, I will NEVER stop my quest. (And your quest is to kill people?)
How about you John? What have you done for any child ever? (My boss, Jesus, said not even to tell yourself what good you do – so, I can’t answer.)
You are fighting a useless battle but HEY, keep on battling. (Thanks)
Stupid people do every single day, and look where that gets them. (I know.)
An attorney friend once told me, "You have nothing to fear if you are right and the law is on your side." (That's what Hitler said! Your friend wasn't Hitler was he?)
Guess what John? I am right and the law is on my side. (No, you're wrong.)
You think Howard Stern is fragile and has no impact?? Really? (Yes, really)
Take him on. I dare you. Why don't you find out just how fragile he is? (So, Howie is your hero! Figures.)
If you can get him to agree to your stance, I will leave you in peace. (I wouldn't want that! I like you!. I'm going to transfer this baby to my newsletter.)
But since you are the fragile coward here, I know you won't dare bother him. (He on TV? I don't look good on TV. Too old and ugly.)
You just keep on showing everyone how incredibly bold you are. (It's easy.)
Tell me John, what change have YOU impacted so far? (See above.)
Is the law teetering on the edge of changing in YOUR favor? (yes)
What change have YOU made? (See above.)
How long have you been at this? (Since July 1, 1970. I lived in New York then and NY had just passed a law saying killing young people was all right. A mill opened immediately two miles away. I was the second one there.)
Isn’t' it getting old? (No, horrors don't get old. They increase in intensity till they explode. However, I myself am getting old.)
I'm just curious how much effort you put into NOTHING. (?)

In Number 2 I had just told “vrott” I’d gotten him into a tizzy.

Tizzy ??? Is that even a word ? (Hope not, then I invented it.)
And no, you have no effect on my emotional state. (ha ha)
Your pathetic attempts to insult me are a joke. No.effect. (ha, ha, ha)
the superior trip is a I.find.comical. .And again, I find it very interesting you seem to never have anything to say in response to certain things I say but love to comment on the most insignificant with meaningless comments. (Should I rewrite this one for you, vrott?)
You really believe that imaginary guy is gonna do something ? (sure)
Of course you do. Well why hasn't he ? (Did we already go over this?)
If this is such a travesty, what's he waiting for ? Must be that mysterious ways thing, right ? (You're getting there.)
The world is filled with chaos and injustice , but yet your savior does nothing. (He creates beings in his own image and likeness. Therefore, he gives them free will, lets them do what they want to do. Some, like you and Satan, do bad.)
Religion is the cause of more deaths in this world than all other causes of death combined. (back asswards)
By the way, big surprise u don't believe in evolution. (Well, I don't know. I just wanted to get you into a tizzy.)
It's a proven scientific fact. (The theory of evolution is a fact?)
Religion is.an evil thing created by man . (wrong)
I've personally had extensive religious training and realized the truth behind it. (I shoulda been your teacher. Well, it's not too late.)
That's one.major difference between u and I , I'm a self thinker. (between you and me)
Your a.blind follower who is unable to determine right and wrong.on your own. You need a.book of.lies to.tell u how to think. Maybe you should.climb a mountain and have a.conversation with " the big guy " funny how.he only talks to. Certain individuals in private. Just for .moment, try to ponder the fact that its all bs. Just humor the idea.that your religion is based on lies. How would u feel about the life your living based on lies from the power hungry and lunatics ? I'm guessing your unable to ask that question. Really looking forward to.the day our paths cross. I, unlike you am not a coward. (I really could not get through this last stuff, vrott, with all the bad punctuation, misspellings, grammar errors. You'll have to let me rewrite it.)

Peace and love (you too)

Many of the emails I received, though, were literate, like this one:

Dear Sir: I'm sure you believe that there will be no repercussions from your continued harassment of abortion providers. (I do not harass anyone. I try to get serial killers to stop killing.)
Unfortunately, you are incorrect. (No, you are.)
Your impolite behavior means you will be the recipient of e-mails and phone calls and letters and eventually protests in front of your home, unless your bad behavior ends. (I love the emails and the letters -- so far only five letters; I have to erase the phone calls -- pay per minute; and none of you will ever show up in front of my home, even though I invite you. I serve hot coffee in winter and iced tea in summer.)
Those of us who were brought up with proper manners aren't going away. (You've almost disappeared already!)
We *will* continue to contact you until you learn how to act like a proper grownup. (Promises, promises, all I ever get are promises.)
You are welcome to your opinions, but your behavior is worse than my children on a bad night with too much sugar. (Hey, that's not bad Mara! Want to write for my newsletter?)
Grow up or prepare to get a taste of your own medicine. (See? I knew you'd realize I am dispensing medicine.)
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I believe my new prolife discovery, Al, wrote the following:

No legislature, no court has ever ruled that a preborn human child does not have the right to defend herself. The right to self-defense is inherent in living things. They all do it, from amoeba to blue whale, from microbe to sequoia.
If one has a right to defend oneself, another individual has a legal right (and a moral duty) to do what is reasonably necessary to assist the victim to defend herself. The defender has a right to use the same degree of defensive action that the victim possesses, appropriate to the position of the defender.
Judge Bell denied P.J. Hill the right to present his theory of his defense. Hill may not have understood the legal ins and outs of his position but he certainly understood the principle.
There were at least four licensed attorneys, two licensed in Florida and two from out of state, who volunteered to assist Hill in his defense. Bell denied Hill his choice of counsel, none of whom were public defenders (the state would not have had to pay them). His excuse was that as the case involved the death penalty, out-of-state attorneys would not be familiar with the unique complications of due process in Florida. But what of the two Florida licensed attorneys? Bell refused to allow them to assist Hill either, instead assigning two do-nothing bumps-on-a-log Public Defenders to pretend to defend Hill.
Finally, Bell's excuse, which he stated in open court, was that if Hill's proposed defense prevailed, it would result in "anarchy in the streets."
Deterring anarchy (people doing as they please without regard for the law) is not within the purview of the courts. Anarchy is what we have police, sheriffs and the military to suppress. The court is to ensure that the law is followed in the court and that due process (rules of court procedure) is followed scrupulously. This ensures that the rights of both the accused and of the people are upheld.
Bell bears chief responsibility for the corruption of the criminal justice system of Florida and the murder by the state of Hill. No officer of the state would have laid a hand on Hill to harm him if Bell had dismissed the charges or acquitted him. The Marshals would have taken custody of him and taken him to the federal prison to serve out his sentence for using a weapon to defend innocent children from being molested and murdered. Hill would be free by now (15 years I think)
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Here’s an excerpt from “The Kathy Chronicles”:

The killers’ helpers from Voice of Choice tracked me down. For two weeks they sent me letters, called my cell, emailed my email, and said they would visit me at 204 S. 4th St.. They don’t like it that I visit killers’ homes with the A KILLER LIVES HERE sign. But I enjoy the action, look forward to the arguments, and love to tease their leader, Todd Stave.
Now, though, they’ve found my wife, Margaret – and she don’t like it one bit!
To understand how they found her, we have to go back about ten years, long before I began recording all this nonsense I call “The Kathy Chronicles.” I also have to tell you that my bank account, address, email, and phone number are different from Margaret’s. I separated myself from her that way back in the ‘80s when I heard about Operation Rescue and realized its dangers.
Ten years ago Kathy and I talked frequently. She knew all this and when she got mad at me for something, she “outed” me to the FBI (p. 3, second column, top).
Now she’s “outed” me again, this time to Voice of Choice, and Margaret is getting all the phone calls and threats.
She’s a tricky little lady, this Kathy Kuhn’s. I’ll give her that!

One of those I emailed the above to responded:

Her, . . . I am so sorry to hear that your wife is now being targeted from voice of choice and even sadder to hear that KK may have initiated it?? Is that true?? OMG. Are you kidding me? She contacted VOC?? Whose side is she on????

Me, I'm only 90% sure that it was Kathy but who else could it be? Few others knew of my "protection," and no others had “outed” me before.
Margaret will not even look at her.
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More for Todd Stave:

Yo, Todd, can't you keep this thing [the Voice of Choice blog] up to date? How 'bout if I do it for you under a cognomen.
That switch in phone numbers from 404-706-4375 to 610-796-0627 bombed. I think I got two dozen. What do you expect? You can't get enough people to call one number so you give 'em two? You can't get anybody to visit one address so you give 'em another?
Dang, Todd, my advice is to get out of the killing business and try accounting.
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Hello John, At present, John, I am attempting to get someone here in Australia to set up a web site in my name. One essay I intend to post calls for the use of some graphic images.
I have a small number of photographs here, all in pamphlets, but apart from one they are not what I am after. The one I have which is useful is a photograph of a dismembered baby that is distinguishable by the fact that there is what appears to be a tape measure at the bottom of the photo.
The basic diagram on the reverse side of this paper gives an idea of what I’m after. They do not have to be in the same relative proportions (height to width wise), or even of the same size shown, but photos two and three should be roughly similar to each other. I don’t want a very flat photograph on the side of the page and a narrow tall one on the other.
A typical daily kill factor for the average abortionist is around fifteen. So, in photo number 1 I am looking for an image of at least several aborted babies. Before I was imprisoned I did see one photo which depicted a large size plastic rubbish bag with a couple of aborted babies visible at the top (black and white photos).A photo such as that would also be satisfactory for this purpose.
Photo number two – anything you can find that you think might be suitable.
Photo number three is of course a photograph of an abortionist. It does not have to be Tiller, and it’s probably better if it’s one that has not been taken care of yet. If of someone else, mention his last name.
If you manage to find anything suitable, then it would be best to send it as soon as possible. There has been talk of transforming me to Barwon again before too long, and just occasionally they do tell the truth. Barwon is where I have had trouble finding officials who will issue my mail to me.
Farewell, Peter

I’m looking, Peter. If any of you can help, help.
Under photo #1, Peter will write, “Just another’s days work at the office for your local abortionist”; under #2, “Verdict – guilty, Sentence – Death”; and under #3, “Abortionist Tiller; Verdict – Innocent; “Awarded medal of valour and issued government approved license to murder.”
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Here’s the Pat Richards’ essay I choose this month from the several he posts at abortion.ws:

Sitting in my office one day at the National Coalition of Abortion Providers, I took a call from the administrator of the Cincinnati Women’s Services clinic. She was very upset and through the sobbing I could hear her say things like “pungent smell…the clinic will be closed for days…they made us take our clothes off to scrub us down…”
It was the first time I had heard about butyric acid and it was the beginning of yet another tactic in the campaign of terrorism against abortion clinics. When the administrator regained her composure, she told me how when she approached the clinic that morning she could smell something from the parking lot that smelled “like one of those high school chemistry experiments.” The smell got worse as she got closer and when she opened the door, it was like a “wave” hit her. Other staff followed her in and, despite the horrific smell, they started calling the police and their patients.
Unfortunately, the local police had no idea what to do but when officials from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms arrived, they immediately diagnosed the problem.
They ordered everyone out of the building, set up make-shift outdoor showers and ordered all the staff to take off their clothes to get scrubbed down. They then started the multi-day clean up of the building, which ultimately cost the owners a lot of money because they had no insurance for such an incident.
Butyric acid is a clear, colorless liquid with an unpleasant, rancid, vomit-like odor. Anti-abortion extremists began using it as a weapon against abortion facilities in early 1992. The goal, of course, was to disrupt services, close the clinic, and harass patients and staff. Depending on the amount used, the butyric acid could cause thousands of dollars of damage, requiring clinics to replace carpeting, furniture, and conduct extensive cleanup of the facility. Even after the cleanup, the smell remained months after the incident.
Over the years, there were about 100 butyric acid attacks throughout the United States and Canada, causing in excess of $1 million in damages. From May to July 1998, nineteen abortion clinics in Florida, Louisiana, and Texas were hit with butyric acid, which the perpetrator simply injected through the keyhole of the clinic’s front door with a syringe. Clinic staff and patients were sent to hospitals with respiratory problems and nausea.
The problem in those days was that the federal government had no jurisdiction to prosecute those who were involved in these attacks, so they had to rely on state and local officials whose inquiries were limited because the investigators could not cross state lines to pursue links among the crimes. And, candidly, many local officials just didn’t give a darn if the local abortion clinic had some problems.
Finally, however, after passage of the FACE Act, federal grand juries in Oregon and Eastern California returned indictments in 30 cases against Rachelle “Shelly” Shannon, who is now sitting in a jail in Kansas on state charges for the attempted murder of Wichita physician George Tiller in 1993. In 1995, she was sentenced to 20 more years by Federal District Court Judge James Redden who, when sentencing her, called her a “terrorist.” The sentence was set to begin only after Shannon’s 10-year incarceration for shooting Tiller is completed.
History often repeats itself, so I believe it’s important to remind (or, in many cases, inform) those who are reading this blog of the days when the violence was rampant, when clinics and their workers were under regular attack by domestic terrorists. So, on a regular basis I will continue to share and document the stories of those horrible days.
We cannot forget the past. And we must remain vigilant.

One reason I look forward to Pat’s stuff is it often hits home; I have my own butyric acid story. Years ago, when I lived on Long Island, a friend received by mistake two or three mayonnaise jars filled with the stuff. One had cracked and the package stunk to high heaven. He called me, screaming. I wrapped everything in several plastic bags, and headed for Jones Beach, deserted in January. I parked near a trash receptacle and opened the trunk. The stink gagged me. and I heard a growing hum. I looked up to see so many gulls they blackened the sky and scared me to death. I escaped alive, obviously.
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National Right to Life distributed its annual money appeal. Neal Horsley and Brad-Marcy Riegg are not pleased:

I've finally understood why God allows organizations like the National Right To Life to exist and Operation Rescue and the myriad other Christian Pro-life organizations that suck millions of dollars out of the Body of Christ each year but do nothing to stop the government that has legalized the slaughter of unborn babies. As the NRTF ad below proves, God wants to use those orgs to show everybody on earth exactly what the word "delusion" means in its 2 Thess. 2 context. Neal

Indeed- The first step toward healing and sanity is admitting one's faults and shortcomings. It will be necessary for the 'pro-life movement' to admit that it has hardly stemmed the bloodshed at all (still thousands per day are surgically torn asunder) before there can be healing and sanity in this land.
Lord, please help us to admit our lack of success, rather than to boast of our trivialities, as though they were great, godly deeds. And, then, help us to conquer the deceptions and deceivers that have led to the killing of these innocent ones. Brad-Marcy

Yes, we have hardly stemmed the bloodshed at all, and to broadcast, even to remember, our few successes should be an embarrassment.
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Stacey and Hutch’s adventures continue. Call me if you think you’ve figured it out.

Red Zone II

Be Still And Know That I Am God

Earlier S&H had their first encounter with the Red Zone (bar closing until first garbage truck, small towns) and they quailed at the thought. But with time they learned to function in the Red Zone with sufficient confidence. The key to it was trust in God . . . and lots of prayer.
Tagging switches is either a righteous thing to do, or it is not. And you shouldn’t be doing it. Long after the first blush of success had passed, S&H would still occasionally entertain legitimate doubts about what they were doing.
Occasionally, fellow exchange union workers would grumble that the tagging was souring relationships with management.
Most workers did not take that position and instead were grateful for the tagging because it was a 24/7 witness to all passersby about what was happening inside that exchange. Most people, ignorant and lazy, never thought about it enough to realize any equipment or human aid was necessary to connect their telephone to any other specific one.
Most workers believed that the few workers who complained about the tagging were, at minimum, simply cowards, or too lazy to get out of bed, or, worse, secret toadies to management.
But the tag loyal workers did not want to make a big deal about it. Let all flowers bloom, and keep picketing, and don’t criticize another man’s servant, was their attitude.
S&H quickly found out that to be really, really in the Red Zone in a small town was a scary thing. They realize that there was a name for people who do not respect the Red zone – “arrested.”
But as time went on, they realized that the reason that they had never been arrested was not due to cleverness, or discipline, or careful study of target neighborhoods, or the “doughnut” practice (put a doughnut centered on your hometown on a national map, and never tag inside the “doughnut”) or anyone of a hundred other Bourne Identity tricks of the trade.
The reason they’d never been arrested is that during those times of seeming inevitable near misses, God had worked a “little” miracle to keep them alive.

Guardian Angels Working Overtime

When these little miracles happened, it was almost as scary as the Red zone itself.
One time S&H were standing in the middle of a large parking lot, just about at the beginning of the red Zone. They were studying a switch, and watching any comings and goings as they did so, as part of a pre-con. In other words they were doing everything “right” rather than just rushing up to tag.
When you do that, you always run the risk that you miss the little old lady who stays up all night and watchers . . . anything from behind a curtain. You miss the fact that the exchange is in the same block as a police substation, or across the street from a bank with an all-night security guard, or a hotel with an all-night desk. All of these, please God, are detectable, but re-con is best.
So, anyway, here were S&H “minding their own business,” standing in a parking lot, and two city cops came roaring up on them, on motorbikes, out of the blue (or the black).
In the seconds that it took to happen, visions of their children passed through their eyes – we’re gonna get busted. (tbc)
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I had to cut Jimbo short above because I just found something I thought I’d lost, “The New Abortion Providers.” The fellow who sent it to me said it will be the most important article for “Abortion is Murder” in ten years!

The New Abortion Providers

On a clear and mild March day in 1993, the Operation Rescue leader Randall Terry spoke at a rally in southern Florida against abortion. "We've found the weak link is the doctor," he told the crowd. "We're going to expose them. We're going to humiliate them." A few days later, Dr. David Gunn, an abortion provider, was shot and killed outside his clinic in Pensacola, Fla., about 500 miles away. It was the first of eight such murders, the extreme edge of what has become an anti-abortion strategy of confrontation.
Terry Understood that focusing on abortion providers was possible because they had become increasingly isolated from mainstream medicine. That was not what physicians themselves anticipated after the Supreme Court's 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade. An open letter signed by 100 professors of obstetrics and gynecology predicted that free-standing clinics would be unnecessary if half of the 20,000 obstetricians in the country would do abortions for their patients, and if hospitals would handle "their proportionate share." OB-GYNs at the time emphasized that abortion was a surgical procedure and fell under their purview.
But then most of the OB-GYNs left the stage. After Roe, the shadow of the greedy, butchering "abortionist" continued to hover, and many doctors didn't want to stand in it. As mainstream medicine backed away, feminist activists stepped in. They set up stand-alone clinics to care for women in their moments of crisis. In many ways, the clinics were a rebel-sister success story. Instead of a sterile and expensive hospital operating room, patients could go to a low-cost clinic with pastel walls and sympathetic staff members. At a Planned Parenthood I visited recently in Rochester, while women were having abortions, they could look at photos of a Caribbean beach, taped above them on the ceiling.
But the clinics also truly came to stand alone. In 1973, hospitals made up 80 percent of the country's abortion facilities. By 1981, however, clinics outnumbered hospitals, and 15 years later, 90 percent of the abortions in the U.S. were performed at clinics. The American Medical Association did not maintain standards of care for the procedure. Hospitals didn't shelter them in their wings. Being a pro-choice, doctor came to mean referring your patients to a clinic rather than doing abortions in your own office.
This was never the feminist plan. "The clinics' founders didn't intend them to become virtually the only settings for abortion services in many communities," says Carole Joffe, a sociologist and author of a history of the era, "Doctors of Conscience," and a new book, "Dispatches From the Abortion Wars." When the clinics became the only place in town to have an abortion, they became an easy mark for extremists. As Joffe told me, "The violence was possible because the relationship of medicine to abortion was already tenuous.'' The medical profession reinforced the outsider status of the clinics by not speaking out strongly after the first attacks. As abortion moved to the margins of medical practice, it also disappeared from residency programs that produced new doctors. In 1995, the number of OB-GYN residencies offering abortion training fell to a low of 12 percent.
"Under pressure and stigma, more doctors shun abortion," wrote David Grimes, a leading researcher and abortion provider of 38 years, in a widely cited 1992 medical journal article called "Clinicians Who Provide Abortions: The Thinning Ranks." In a 1992 survey of QB-GYNs, 59 percent of those age 65 and older said that they performed abortions, compared with 28 percent of those age 50 and younger. The National Abortion Federation started warning about "the graying of the abortion provider.'' In the decade after Roe the number of sites providing abortion across the country almost doubled from about 1,500 to more than 2,900 according to the Gutmacher Institute. But by 2000 the number shrank back to about 1,800 – a decline of 37 percent from 1982.

There’s another side of the story, however – a deliberate and concerted counteroffensive that has gone largely unremarked. Over the last decade, abortion-rights advocates have quietly worked to reverse the marginalization encouraged by activists like Randall Terry. Abortion rights proponents are fighting back on precisely the same turf that Terry demarcated: the place of abortion within mainstream medicine. The abortion-rights campaign, led by physicians themselves, is trying to recast doctors, changing them from a weak link of abortion to a strong one. Its leaders have built residency programs and fellowships at university hospitals, with the hope that, eventually, more and more doctors will use their training to bring abortion into their practices. The bold idea at the heart of this effort to integrate abortion so that it’s a seamless part of health care for women – embraced rather than shunned. (tbc)