OpenForum – a blog by the Health and Human Rights community

Media coverage of Dr. George Tiller’s murder may have lessened since his fatal shooting on May 31^st, but the severe restrictions placed on women’s access to abortion services continue. A new report from the Center for Reproductive Rights describes the “unacceptable obstacles” that abortion providers face in providing reproductive rights, using testimony from both providers and women seeking abortions throughout the country. The reasons cited for limited access to abortion services include a shortage of providers due to the social and financial costs of performing abortions, intimidation and harassment of providers and women seeking abortions, and legal restrictions such as mandatory waiting periods and prohibitions on federal funds.

Constant harassment and intimidation at abortion clinics continue to limit the ability of abortion providers to do their jobs and of women to obtain abortions in a safe and respectful space. Laws such as the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act (FACE) are meant to stop the often violent harassment that anti-abortion protesters use outside of abortion clinics. However, local and federal law enforcement can be lax in investigating threats: the report notes that the police often do not understand the provisions of FACE, or are unwilling to interfere with what they perceive as “the expected cost of providing abortion.”

Increasingly, anti-abortion groups are using litigation as a strategy to further harass abortion providers and burden law enforcement and the judicial system. For example, an anti-abortion group in Allentown, Pennsylvania sued the city after their protesters were arrested for “trespass, impeding access, racist and sexual taunting, and residential picketing” outside of a women’s clinic. The city eventually settled after a lengthy case, paying $10,000 to each of the 13 protestors. Experiences such as these have made law enforcement officials reluctant to interfere with protests outside clinics for fear of the legal repercussions. In this case, the Allentown City Solicitor told the clinic director that the city could no longer respond to any complaints at the clinic “unless there is a threat to life or person,” effectively admitting to the city’s almost complete inability to enforce the law with regards to abortion protestors.

As seen with Dr. Tiller’s murder, which occurred while he was attending church with his family, this type of violent persecution is not restricted to the healthcare facilities where abortions are performed. Many abortion providers must take certain precautions, such as holding unlisted phone numbers, listing property in a spouse’s name, and wearing bulletproof vests while traveling to and from work. Anti-abortion protestors also use the internet to further harass both providers and women seeking abortions – a group in Texas used car registry information to send out a mass email identifying by name women who entered a Planned Parenthood clinic.

The many dangers involved in providing abortions take their toll on doctors, staff, and the women themselves. Physicians in particular are driven away from performing abortions due to the significant financial expense required to secure their clinic and workers, the social stigma they and their families face, and the risk of physical harm. The number of abortion providers is shrinking, and is likely to only get worse in the future as abortion providers age and retire — the majority of current providers are over 50 years old. Few medical students are given the opportunity to observe or learn how to provide abortions, as most doctors today never saw an abortion performed during medical school, and half of OB-GYN training programs fail to provide routine instruction in abortions. This shortage means that despite the fact that one in three American women will have an abortion in her lifetime, nearly a quarter of women seeking abortions have to travel 50 miles or more to find a clinic.

Even more disturbing, it has become close to impossible to find doctors who will perform abortions after a woman is 24 weeks into pregnancy. Following Dr. Tiller’s murder, Warren Hern is one of only a few doctors to openly acknowledge that he provides late-term abortions. In a recent article, he describes the precautions, including bulletproof glass and protection from US marshals, that he and his staff members must take to protect themselves and the women they provide abortions for. Dr. Tern describes the anti-abortion movement as “a violent terrorist movement, [with] a fascist ideology,” that publicly deplores acts of violence while continuing to push for “cold-blooded, brutal political assassination[s]” such as that of Dr. Tiller.

Despite the danger, Dr. Hern continues to provide abortions at his clinic because he sees it as the most important work he can do in medicine. However, the unrelenting harassment of anti-abortion protestors threatens the reproductive rights of women seeking abortions and the safety of medical professionals that provide them. Violations of these rights by anti-abortion groups must be taken more seriously by law enforcement and local and federal government. Otherwise, acts of violence against abortion providers such as Dr. Tiller will only continue.