A Federal Law was Supposed to Curb Disruption and Violence at Abortion Clinics: But Has It?
DENVER- John Dunkle paces along a narrow alley waiting for his cue.
As clinic escorts hoist heavy blue tarps to shield patients from the phalanx of anti-abortion protesters assailing them, Dunkle springs into action.
Megaphone in hand, the spry 72-year-old stakes out the door barking lurid catcalls at women entering the Allentown Women's Center.
By day's end, the retired English teacher will have bolted across that alley at least a dozen times.
Until one day when the scene took a much more sinister turn.
Days after the May 31 execution-style murder of Wichita physician George Tiller by an anti-abortion extremist, Dunkle sidled up to a clinic escort and asked:
Which way would you rather die — by bullet or the slow torturous death of a knife?
Menacing behavior is on the upswing nationwide and is proving to be emblematic of a growing extremism against clinics by militants emboldened by Tiller's death. Currently, federal authorities are investigating more than two dozen cases of suspected violent criminal acts or serious threats, according to law enforcement insiders.
And that trend is prompting officials to question the effectiveness of the federal law created to serve as a deterrent to clinic violence.
Playing cat and mouse
In the years following the landmark 1973 U.S. Supreme Court decision Roe v Wade affirming legal access to abortion services, organized protests grew in number and intensity.
In 1994, after decades of escalating extremism, President Bill Clinton signed the Freedom to Access Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act to provide both civil and criminal remedies to stem clinic violence and blockades.
The law prohibits "certain violent, threatening, obstructive and destructive conduct that is intended to injure, intimidate or interfere with persons seeking to obtain or provide reproductive health services." The new rules also defined federal penalties for clinic property damage and destruction that had been the early aim of radical abortion foes primarily through bombing, arson and vandalism.
The intent of FACE was also to provide needed clarity for local law enforcement agencies on the often murky degrees of separation between constitutionally-protected free speech and public safety threat.
Even as the law was initially vigorously enforced violence-prone abortion opponents have adapted to test its limits.
Dunkle's scrapes with the law offer a telling roadmap.
In 1994, he was arrested along with 20 members of a nomadic extremist group, the Lambs of Christ, for physically blockading a Rochester, N.Y., clinic by chaining themselves to a junked car dropped near the door. It took police and firefighters hours to extract the protesters. The protesters were charged in federal court with a miscellaneous civil rights violation, collectively fined $20,000 and ordered to stay away from the clinic.
Except, the permanent injunction, like others before FACE, did little to thwart the protesters. The Rochester clinic and others in western New York would be the scene of violent and repeated clashes with local police for years to come despite repeated injunctions, unpaid fines and brief jail stints. The mayhem unleashed by extremists also provided cover for increasing violence that resulted in the deaths of four people and wounding of five at clinics in Buffalo, Brookline, Mass., and Pensacola, Fla., in 1994.
Over the next dozen years, Dunkle continued his protests while building connections to one of the most virulent extremist groups, the Army of God, a shadowy network that advocates a paleo-conservative Biblical justification for the murder of abortion providers.
In 2007, Dunkle publicly resurfaced in northeast Pennsylvania and once again came to the attention of federal authorities. The devout Catholic posted on his blog that a Philadelphia-area physician should be shot in the head to prevent her from providing abortion services. He was charged with a FACE Act violation and slapped with a permanent injunction barring him from making death threats or otherwise intimidating clinic patients and staff.
But it seemed to have little effect.
Now, when Dunkle and his megaphone aren't holding fort outside Lehigh Valley women's health centers, he's reveling in the exploits of other ideological extremists.
He operates a website that mimics one operated by the Army of God. On it he features serialized manifestos and unrepentant letters from anti-abortion protesters imprisoned for murders, bombings, arsons and attempted attacks against clinics. A point noted by a U.S. District Court judge in his 2007 injunction ordering federal authorities to periodically monitor Dunkle's site for compliance.
Federal prosecutions don't keep pace
The situation prior to the FACE Act and in the ensuing 16 years following its enforcement points to a grim reality for reproductive health clinics, staff and patients.
Prior to FACE, the National Abortion Federation tallied 1,641 violent incidences and 8,110 disturbances at clinics between 1977-93. The most violent acts — homicide, kidnappings, stalking, arsons, bombings, butyric acid attacks and clinic invasions — are nearly always attributed to anti-abortion extremists directly connected to or inspired by militant Christian organizations.
Since 1994, the Justice Dept. has prosecuted just 19 civil and 45 criminal cases. The prosecutions have overall been very successful — 62 convictions, one pre-trial diversion and one dismissal because the defendant was deemed incompetent to stand trial. Yet, they pale in contrast to the thousands of incidents reported.
Meanwhile, U.S. Attorneys are currently prosecuting four cases and notched another conviction Apr. 28 in New York City involving a blockade of a long-targeted clinic in Manhattan. They will be sentenced June 10.
Bead-holders versus bomb-throwers
Anti-abortion activists may be united in their anger over Roe but they occupy two very distinct camps. Motivated by a sense of personal morality, flocks from mainstream Christian churches and affiliated institutions invoke their constitutionally-protected free speech rights to express their opposition. Largely peaceful, the protesters often recite rosary prayers, sing hymns or try to distribute well-intended but medically inaccurate literature outside the clinic.
The more zealous of the bunch resort to shouting at patients about abortion alternatives — a tactic dubbed "sidewalk counseling" by proponents. In broad terms, the "bead-holders" prefer to legally challenge Roe v. Wade by incrementally restricting abortion services through onerous state and federal laws.
The other end of the protest spectrum is so radicalized that even the most staid law enforcement insiders and religious figures are increasingly describing their actions as domestic terrorism. They are bomb-throwers, literally and figuratively.
A May 1988 RAND Corporation report on domestic terrorism provides one of the earliest mentions of militant anti-abortion groups as threats to national security. The analysis notes that during the early 1980s these groups were among the most active terrorist movements in the United States.
Nearly ideologically-driven "anti-abortion terrorist cells" conducted nearly 50 percent of all domestic terrorist activity in 1984 and 1985. Groups like the Army of God, Lambs of Christ, Missionaries for the Preborn and the various Operation Rescue splinter groups created from internecine power struggles, all espouse the violent rhetoric, paleo-conservative theocracy and hyper-militancy typically used to describe armed anti-federalist militias and racist groups. And, like other terrorist groups, they are highly networked.
Proselytizing with self-published manuals on arson and bomb-making techniques, they fuel their adherents with fiery, convoluted fundamentalist Biblical interpretations.
Throughout the now 22-year-old report RAND specifically names the Army of God as domestic terrorists — the group to which Dunkle and Tiller's murderer Scott Roeder have allied themselves. Further, the analysis found that law enforcement officials frequently dismissed evidence of an armed, organized anti-abortion network that threatens national security.
Today, that's no longer the case.
Over the coming days, RH Reality Check will explore the FACE Act. We'll be asking tough question about its effect as a deterrent to clinic violence and obstruction. State, local and federal law enforcement officers are talking candidly about jurisdictional issues that impede arrests and prosecutions. And we'll assess the rise of militant anti-abortion groups and potential new solutions to ensure public safety.
NEXT: Anatomy of FACE. How a violent anti-abortion protester has terrorized a clinic for more than 30 years — and why he's still there.
This piece, which appeared in RH Reality Check is one of a series of original criminal justice journalism projects around the country produced by 2010 John Jay/H.F. Guggenheim Fellows. They were coordinated with editorial input by Joe Domanick, Associate Director of the John Jay College Center on Media, Crime and Justice. We thank the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation for their generous support of this project.
Photo Via Flicker
What does the future hold in store for domestic violence? October, the National Domestic Violence Awareness Month reminds us to reflect on the changes that have been made and keep striving towards our goals. People want to see an end to the use of violence as a means to control women and children, as a public health epidemic, and as a violation of human rights. Yet, domestic violence continues to plague households and communities across the country.
One in four women experiences intimate partner violence in her lifetime, reports the National Center for Victims of Crime. Women ages 20 to 24 have the highest level of physical violence from an intimate partner. And, it turns out, it starts even younger. About 10% of students nationwide report being physically hurt by a boyfriend or girlfriend in the past 12 months, found the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Fortunately, experts have taken notice, and are taking steps towards controlling domestic violence. For one, we are paying more attention to teen dating violence. A 24-hour National Teen Dating Abuse Helpline was launched in 2007, with the help of sponsor Liz Claiborne, Inc. Research is underway to further our understanding of this field and prevention programs are starting to be implemented in schools.
Second, several areas are being investigated in domestic violence, but two issues stand out. One is coercive control. Coercive control is more than just physical violence, often counted by the number of assaults; it involves ongoing coercion, intimidation, isolation, and control. The emphasis is on violations against the person’s freedoms – what they can and can’t do. Another issue involves strangulation. According to the Office for the Prevention of Domestic Violence, “Strangulation has only recently been identified as one of the most lethal forms of domestic violence.” Strangulation can serve as a potent threat to a victim and is considered a precursor to homicide. Nonetheless, only about 26 states make strangulation a felony; others consider it a misdemeanor.
Lastly, other issues have gained national attention recently, such as domestic violence being used as a “pre-existing condition” in health insurance, the link between domestic violence and pet abuse and domestic violence victims losing their jobs or becoming homeless.
But there is a bright spot on the horizon: On October 1st of this year, President Obama nominated Susan B. Carbon as the Director of the Office of Violence Against Women. Carbon brings a wealth of experience from working in family court, on commissions, and as head of a council. With her knowledge of how battered women fare in family court, it is hoped changes occur that help victims retain custody of their children. Her appointment confirms the Administration’s effort towards helping survivors retain their jobs, health insurance, homes, pets and children. But most important, it provides the hope that the Federal Government will commit the funding and resources necessary to accomplish this huge, but vital, agenda.
Joan Dawson serves as a Secretary and Board Member of Guatemala Human Rights Commission and a Board Member of a domestic violence campaign. She's also active in the Battered Mothers Custody movement.
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Misunderstanding of abuses like trafficking is still widespread, even among liberals, as a new book demonstrates.
After three years of discussion, the United Nations General Assembly last month adopted a resolution to restructure gender institutions in the UN system. The UN Development Fund for Women was merged with the UN Division for the Advancement of Women, the Office of the Special Adviser on Gender Issues, and the International Research and Training Institute for the Advancement of Women.
UN Secretary-General Ban-ki Moon announced the next day that the new single entity will be headed by an undersecretary general, and will promote gender equality and women’s well-being. Noting that “sexist attitudes lead to sexual exploitation,” he declared that its establishment underscored the UN’s commitment to combat violence against women. “There can be no security without women’s security, and we need to shed the silence that shields perpetrators,” he said.
The significance of his announcement was underlined by its setting: a special panel at the UN’s Trusteeship Council Chamber organized by the Vienna-based UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), to mark the publication of Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide, a book by New York Times journalists Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn.
The book’s title comes from the Chinese proverb, “women hold up half the sky,”
And it reads as a collection of life stories of women in the developing world who have been subjected to gender-based violence: beatings, acid burnings, human trafficking, rape (including war rape), female genital mutilation, medical negligence and honor killings.
It is particularly ironic that Kristof and WuDunn preach what our country cannot practice. The United States has yet to ratify three of the most important global treaties related to this issue: 1979 Convention on All Forms of Discrimination Against Women; the 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child; or the 1998 Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.
Although the panel (and the book) dealt with violence against women in general, sexual trafficking was an important sub-theme
Global Failure
And on this subject, the failure to develop an adequate legal response is global. A recent UNODC report shows that half of UN member states have yet to convict a single perpetrator of human trafficking. The lack of political will plus widespread corruption help explain this disturbing statistic. Even where there is legislation, there is a lack of enforcement.
Of course, the success or failure of the struggle against human trafficking is hard to measure with numbers alone. UNODC Executive Director Antonio Maria Costa said at the panel that he was unable to report whether human trafficking had increased or decreased in the last three years. “Anyone providing you with numbers to argue either way is simply shooting from the hip,” he said.
Ironically, the limitation of such “shoot-from-the-hip” responses was underlined by the book itself. Half the Sky is a gory read for newcomers to these issues—and a tedious read to those familiar with them. But as someone who teaches this material to undergraduates, I found it surprisingly annoying.
Kristof and WuDunn have facile explanations for gender-based violence. They ignore men as perpetrators (indeed, they are as invisible in their book as women have been invisible in the past), cite research results when those results support their arguments, and offer simplistic (albeit well-meaning) solutions. At the same time, they ignore the vast body of research on violence against women, and perhaps most importantly, considering the panel’s setting, they ignore relevant international law and UN efforts in this arena.
Much of the book is ethnocentric. There is a chapter about Islam and misogyny, where the authors admit to being “politically incorrect” without realizing they are also ignorant of the nuances that plague the study of world religions and gender. While there is much discussion of the developing world, there is little discussion of the violations of women’s rights in the developed world, including the United States.
And although Kristof argued “detailed examples that judiciously use evidence” are the best mechanism for raising consciousness, the authors appear ignorant of the strides made by other countries, even if such strides fall short of guaranteeing full human rights for women.
India’s Innovative Approaches
India, for example, receives quite a bit of criticism. Yet it enacted a landmark domestic violence law in 2006 and established all-female police units to respond to domestic violence (see Women Police in a Changing Society by John Jay College Professor Mangai Natarajan). The authors’ own employer, The New York Times, last month called attention to some of India’s innovative approaches, such as establishing all-female commuter trains in large cities to protect women from so-called “Eve-teasing” (groping and harassment) on public transport.
Natarajan, director of John Jay´s international criminal justice major, who also attended the panel, observed afterwards that “countries who are making efforts to improve need to be encouraged, not chided. Oftentimes, although they seem behind, they have come a very long way.”
In what was perhaps an indirect critique of the authors’ approach, UNODC Director Costa said that his agency is responsible “for the whole sky, not just half the sky”—thus emphasizing that both men and women are responsible for gender equality. Such points may already have had their desired effect: one of the main messages in the book, “women are not the problem; they are the solution,” now appears on the book’s website with the afterthought “… along with men.”
The authors made no secret that their strategy of avoiding hard numbers and examples that might soften their thesis was central to their notion of developing a “grassroots” movement to broaden the campaign against gender violence, which would contain elements such as microfinance and education programs. WuDunn bluntly told the UN audience, largely made up of NGO representatives, that “psychological and neurological research demonstrates that statistics have a dulling effect on human motivation.” As if to make the point clear, their final chapter is entitled, “What You Can Do: Four Steps You Can Take in the Next Ten Minutes,” followed by an appendix listing organizations that help women worldwide.
In looking for verdicts, I usually ask my students. I gave my seniors a New York Times Magazine excerpt from the book published in August, and assigned them to attend the UN panel event. “Where are their references in APA style?” one student angrily asked, referring to the authors’ selective and sparse use of scholarly evidence. Another argued in her critique that microfinance programs for downtrodden women are only one way towards gender equality. “We must educate boys about the value and respect for human life,” she wrote. “Laws must punish those who do not learn this respect, and we must understand that women did not cause the inequality and thus cannot be the only ones to fix it.”
Kristof and WuDunn are to be congratulated for pushing readers towards action. But their view of the issue still needs much more homework, including an understanding of gender, its intersection with crime and victimization, and the complexities of international norms.
Rosemary Barberet is Associate Professor in the Sociology Department of John Jay College of Criminal Justice (CUNY), and a representative of the International Sociological Association to the United Nations.
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Federal authorities in Nashville were expected to announce today the arrest of a convicted felon in the sale of the gun used to kill famed NFL quarterback Steve McNair. The case was a murder suicide, one of only a few committed by a woman. Based on recent data from 17 states, female homicide-suicides account for only 8.6 percent of the total, criminologist Marieke Liem told Crime & Justice News. The Washington-based Violence Policy Center found in a survey of news reports that about 95 percent of murder-suicides were perpetrated by men in 2007, a proportion that has stayed fairly constant since the center started keeping statistics in 1992. “It’s very unusual for the woman to be a shooter in a murder-suicide,” the center's Kristen Rand told Newsweek.
When women do kill, they’re likely to kill someone they know well, says Northeastern University criminologist Jack Levine, and in cases of murder-suicide, they usually kill just one other person—as opposed to “family annihilators,” men who kill their entire family (or office or church group) before turning the gun on themselves. Both men and women who commit murder-suicide are often motivated by jealousy, says Louis Schlesinger, professor of psychology at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, though often to a pathological or even psychotic degree.
Read full entry »Newsweek.com considers an "unfathomable" crime: What makes seemingly ordinary people murder their families? Last month, Mark Meeks, 51 from Whitehall, Ohio killed his wife and two children after he lost his job. That case came just one week after Ervin and Ana Elizabeth Lupoe of Los Angeles committed suicide after killing their five children. The Lupoes wrote in their suicide note, "Why leave our children in someone else's hands?...We have no job and five children under eight years with no place to go. So here we are."
Known as 'family annihilators,' these people, most always men, have a profound need for control that drives them to destroy their family when they can no longer provide for them financially or when the family has been divided by divorce. With men who commit murder-suicides there tends to be a catalyst such as a financial or personal defeat that they view as catastrophic, while women who kill loved ones are more likely to have a history of mental-health conditions like postpartum psychosis, experts say. The Violence Policy Center in Washington, D.C., estimates there were 1,108 murder-suicides in the United States in 2007, the overwhelming majority of them carried out by men.
Read full entry »Rural Bexar County, Texas, recorded 21 homicides in 2008, nearly double the 11 the year before, reports the San Antonio Express-News. There were two other disturbing trends: The number of female victims rose from one in 2007 to nine, and the number of cases classified as capital murder went from one to eight. Capital cases, the only ones in Texas that can result in the death penalty, include slayings involving young children, multiple victims or a killing that occurs in the commission of another serious crime. Fewer than half of the 2008 slayings in the county resulted in an arrest.
Among the victims last year were a man fatally shot by his uncle; a missing 19-year-old woman whose remains were found in a 55-gallon drum; and an 18-year-old man shot and killed just hours before the new year began.
While the final number of family violence incidents in Bexar County last year isn't yet available, sheriff's officials said that through October, deputies had responded to 1,575 such incidents, only 10 fewer than the 2007 total. The final 2008 tally, officials said, no doubt will surpass the previous year. The upswing in homicides and family violence, Sheriff's Office spokesman Ino Badillo said, “definitely concerns” authorities, especially without additional resources. Leaders at nonprofits and agencies dedicated to fighting domestic violence also are concerned about what they see as a growing violence problem exacerbated by a worsening economy.
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Assistant Professor of Psychology
Saint Louis University
(314) 977.2198
weavert@slu.edu
Expertise: Intimate partner abuse, domestic violence, rape and battered women. Her specialties include analysis of the psychological and physical impact of traumatic events, especially family violence and sexual assault.
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Professor of Criminal Justice
Director, Long Island Women’s Institute
C.W. Post/Long Island University
Brookville, N.Y.
(516) 299-3146 (work) or (631) 455-1039 (cell)
Expertise: Gender and the law, sexual harassment, rape, stalking, domestic violence, women on death row, media issues. She is the author of It's a Crime: Women and Justice.
Read full entry »Office on Violence Against Women
Washington, D.C.
(202) 307-6026
This office says its mission is “raising awareness and supporting training and services responding to incidents of domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault and stalking.” It administers the federal STOP Violence Against Women grants program and a number of other grants whose focuses include native American domestic violence, enforcement of protection orders, rural victims, legal assistance for victims, campus sexual assault and abuse of older women.
Read full entry »Alexandria, Va.
Christine Galbraith, domestic violence coordinator
(800) 424-7827
This organization includes 3,000 elected sheriffs among its membership of 22,000. It has coordinators for a number of areas of special interest in law enforcement, including domestic violence.
Read full entry »Denver
Rita Smith, executive director
(303) 839-1852
Founded 30 years ago, this group is based in Denver, with a public policy center in Washington. It focuses on forming coalitions, supporting community-based shelters for women and children, public education and policy and legislative initiatives. The group publishes an annual directory of shelters and safe homes, available for purchase through its website.
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Washington, D.C.
Liz Joyce, media coordinator
(202) 467-8700
The center offers resources on teen dating violence, violence against women and stalking. It says it can offer the media expert analysis and interviews on those and other areas of intimate partner violence.
Read full entry »San Francisco
Lisa Lederer, media contact
(202) 371-1999
For more than 20 years this group has focused on preventing violence against women and children and supporting its victims. It focuses on public policy and has separate programs on—among other things--violence against children, teens and immigrant women, as well as workplace violence. Its website includes a footnoted fact sheet on the issue.
Read full entry »The National Coalition Against Domestic Violence maintains this state-by-state directory of intimate partner coalitions, including phone, email and website contacts.
Read full entry »This links to a backgrounder on Domestic Violence Courts, an innovation begun in New York in 1996. Some 300 of the specialized courts are now in operation across the nation.
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