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The overwhelming majority of anti-abortion activists nationwide, however, have come out strongly and clearly against the clinic bombings. When Washington Mayor Marion Barry said that "the Jerry Falwells of the world ( ought to condemn this type of terrorist activity," Falwell heatedly noted that he had. Said the Moral Majority leader: "The bombings are criminal and terroristic and very damaging to the cause of the unborn." Joseph Scheidler, executive director of the Chicago-based Pro-Life Action League, has been arrested six times for illegal picketing of abortion facilities and has written a book called Closed: Ninety-Nine Ways to Shut Down the Abortion Industry. Yet last week he said of the violence, "We understand why it occurs. Still, I reject it. I don't think it is helpful, or that it will work to change anything. We prefer persuasion."
While falling far short of bombings, the protest activities of antiabortion militants have become increasingly and unquestionably nasty. Patients visiting many of the roughly 800 clinics and 900 doctors' offices where abortions are performed have been harassed by pickets, who push them away from entrances for "sidewalk counseling" that often involves showing them photographs of nearly full-term fetuses. The recorded cries of infants have been sent into clinics from outside. Women seeking abortions have been videotaped, the license plates of cars delivering them have been noted and calls made to their homes. Tires of autos at the clinics have been deflated and car windows smashed. After a San Diego clinic was fire bombed last September, Director Carol Roberts got a note saying, "Death stalks at your job, murderous bitch." Said she: "Every time the phone rings, I go into sheer panic." Some protesters have berated pregnant women within the clinics while pretending to be patients who have changed their minds about an abortion.
"This may not be violence in the strict sense," says Barbara Shaw, information coordinator at Chicago Planned Parenthood, "but it is mental menace that inspires fear, and that certainly is a form of terrorism." A few of the bombings have followed intensive picketing activity; some pro- choice advocates contend that the connection is not coincidental. "People feed on their own charged rhetoric and bloody fetus posters," argues Janet Pelz, Washington State director of the National Abortion Rights Action League. "And that gives rise to the violence we are seeing nationwide."
Pro-life and pro-choice forces are bracing for competing observances on Jan. 22, the twelfth anniversary of the Supreme Court decision, Roe vs. Wade, that struck down most legal restrictions on abortion. The right-to-life movement hopes to draw more than 50,000 for its march up Pennsylvania Avenue. Leaders expect to meet with Reagan in the morning and distribute roses, the symbol of their crusade, to Congressmen in the afternoon. Falwell has called for a "national day of mourning" and is asking his followers to wear black armbands "in remembrance" of all aborted babies. Among the demonstrations planned by pro-choice activists is one in Florida's Broward County, where the local chapter of NOW plans a giant birthday party for the members of the Supreme Court. "We will extend our hope that they will all outlive this Administration," said Amy Greenman, president of the chapter.