The pressure on the President had been building for months. Despite a score of bombings and torchings of abortion clinics across the U.S. last year, Ronald Reagan, a firm foe of abortion, had remained silent. FBI Director William Webster had claimed that the violence was not the result of a conspiracy and thus did not constitute a form of political terrorism that his agency could investigate. Pro-choice leaders contended that the federal silence was encouraging the violence. Asked Judy Goldsmith, president of the National Organization for Women: "Where is the great advocate of law-and- order?" Then came three bombings on Christmas Day in Pensacola, Fla., and one early New Year's morning in Washington, D.C. Goldsmith dashed off a telegram to the President, urging him to condemn "the terrorist acts in the same strong terms you condemn the attacks of international terrorists upon American citizens."
In the wake of these attacks--making 15 in the past four months--the President last week finally removed any doubt about how he viewed the abortion bombings. "I will do all in my power to assure that the guilty are brought to justice," he said. "I condemn, in the strongest terms, those individuals who perpetrate these and all such violent, anarchist activities." He ordered Attorney General William French Smith to make sure that federal agencies work cooperatively to investigate and prosecute the crimes.
One focus of controversy has been the FBI's reluctance to label the bombings as terrorist acts and take charge of the cases. In fact, the bombings at abortion clinics have been investigated actively and effectively by the Treasury Department's Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, which has legal jurisdiction in federal cases involving explosives. It has thrown fully 500 of its 1,200 agents at the abortion-clinic incidents. The FBI has backed BATF with help on fingerprints and psychological profiles of likely suspects. Declared Webster last week: "If someone wants to call this a terrorist act in a semantical term, I'm not going to quarrel with it. I have offered the full resources of the FBI."
The federal presence has not stemmed the antiabortion violence. There were three bomb or arson attacks on abortion facilities in 1982, two in 1983, but 24 last year. Still, the BATF agents, working with local police, have an impressive record. Nearly half of all the crimes are considered "solved," meaning that there have been either arrests or convictions. In sentencing the bombers or arsonists, judges have ignored pleas that the acts were motivated by religion or politics and harmed only property. (No one has been injured in any of the attacks.) The sentences have been stiff.