Fighting Within Bounds

This Friday, the 26th annual March for Life will take place in Washington, D.C. Thousands of anti-abortion protesters will gather on the Mall to advocate the revocation of Roe v. Wade and the adoption of a "human life amendment to the Constitution." But even as long-standing peaceful demonstrations and anti-abortion legislation attempts continue, a disturbing minority of anti-abortion activists are shifting the real battle against Roe from philosophical opposition towards pursuits of violence against abortion providers.

Shortly after Dr. Barnett Slepian, an abortion doctor in Buffalo, N.Y., was killed by a sniper's bullet, his name appeared on an anti-abortion Web site called "The Nuremberg Files" with a black line through it. The Web site, whose sponsors include the American Coalition of Life Advocates, collects and displays detailed information--including photographs, home addresses, names of family members and license plate numbers--about doctors who provide abortions as their primary service. The site's list is updated with black lines for doctors who have been slain and gray lettering for those who have been wounded.

The site also encourages supporters to collect and submit further information, ostensibly to be used at some future point when abortion may be outlawed and providers will be put on trial. To abortion-rights advocates, however, the pages, with their bloody graphics and ominous content, read like a detailed hit list, designed to terrorize doctors and keep them from providing the legal service of abortion.

Planned Parenthood has filed a civil suit against those involved with "The Nuremberg Files" in Portland, Ore., alleging that the site encourages violence against abortion providers and thereby infringes upon the 1994 Federal Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act. The case is the first of its kind both because it tests the boundaries of the 1994 Act with the question of whether words on a Web site can have the same deterring factor as physically blocking clinic entrances and because it questions the First Amendment rights of the Internet, asking whether the site is a purely political vehicle or whether it crosses the Supreme Court's standard of protected speech by inciting imminent and lawless action.

Though the content of The Nuremberg Files is certainly disturbing and deeply offensive to those of us who support a woman's right to choose as well as to the majority of those who are anti-abortion, nowhere does there seem to be the threat of imminent lawless action. Not only is the Internet inherently weak as a provocative medium, but the Web site does not explicitly call for violence against abortion doctors. Furthermore, the site can be viewed as an informational political vehicle, since it also urges voters to begin letter-writing campaigns against abortion. Much as we might prefer that the site be taken down, it would curtail the First Amendment to force the site's owners to do so.

However, regardless of the Oregon federal court's decision, it is clear that the longer violence against abortion providers goes relatively unchecked, the harder it will become for women to have access to a safe and legal abortion. According to the National Abortion Federation, 84 percent of America's counties have no abortion clinics. Many of the doctors cited on The Nuremberg Files list have bravely said they will continue to do their jobs in the face of possible attacks, but they need help.

The federal and state governments have a responsibility to do more than just uphold the ideas of Roe and defend against antiabortion legislation--they must take tangible steps to strengthen the 1994 Act and protect both clinics and providers as much as possible. While free speech, however hateful, cannot be silenced, a strong show of physical protection on the part of the government can go a long way to protecting abortion rights. For example, here in Massachusetts, a bill to create a 25-foot buffer zone at clinic entrances and driveways, which has already passed the Senate, should immediately be passed in the House. Additionally, The Nuremberg Files ought to remind abortion supporters that they need to be as vocal and active as their anti-abortion counterparts.