Fire-bombers attack abortion clinics

Press, 5 October 1984, Page 6

Fire-bombers attack abortion clinics

NZPA-AP Atlanta In a Presidential election year marked by an emotional debate on abortion, abortion clinics around the United States are being bombed and set afire in the night. The National Abortion Federation reports 19 attacks or attempted attacks at abortion clinics or pregnancy counselling centres so far this year, compared with four last year and three in 1982.

Several abortion rights activists have blamed prolifers for stirring up an atmosphere of hate, and one predicts “a religious war” if the attacks are not stopped. Leading pro-lifers deny any complicity in the violence and say that it is hurting, not helping, their crusade.

The police say that some of the attacks appear to be connected. On September 7, two clinics in Houston, Texas, were fire bombed. The next day arsonists at-

tempted to set fire to a third.

“In Houston any investigator would say it sounds like the same person” or else quite a coincidence, said David Troy, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms arson investigator. The bureau, he said, had not uncovered any evidence to indicate a national conspiracy. The bureau was investigating attacks in Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, and California, and at the National Abortion Federation’s offices in Washington, Mr Troy said. The bureau had hundreds of agents investigating the attacks, said Mr Troy, special agent in charge of its arson enforcement branch in Washington. Two months ago a man was arrested and charged with four counts of arson over attacks on clinics in Seattle, Washington. Mr Troy said. Other cases were still under investigation, he

said, emphasising that firebombings were very difficult to solve.

Bill Baird, who says that the New York abortion clinic he opened in 1963 was the nation’s first, asserts that pro-choice forces are being duped by electionyear politics.

“They’ve been suckered without realising that this (investigation) is happening two months before the election,” said Mr Baird, an outspoken advocate of abortion rights. Anti-abortion rhetoric had been partly to blame for this year’s attacks.

He said that he blamed the President, Mr Ronald Reagan, the Catholic Archbishop of New York, the Most Rev. John O’Connor, and the Moral Majority leader, the Rev. Jerry Falwell, for “deliberately using the rhetoric of hatred that turns loose emotional cripples to commit the acts of violence that they do.”