Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, August 11, 1994 TAG: 9408110062
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A14 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: FRED BAYLES ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
``They asked me about Paul Hill, and I told them I didn't know anything,'' says the New York City electronics technician-turned-preacher.
Hill is the fervent abortion opponent accused in last month's slayings of Dr. John Bayard Britton and his escort outside a Pensacola, Fla., abortion clinic.
Felisone is among 30 anti-abortion activists who signed a petition Hill had circulated, starkly declaring deadly force justified in defense of the unborn.
Not surprisingly, the signers are now the targets of an FBI inquiry, a congressional hearing set for next week and the vilification of abortion foes and supporters alike. Yet they remain steadfast and mostly unrepentant.
``My feelings haven't changed one bit,'' said Donald Spitz, a longtime abortion opponent in Chesapeake, Va.
``I believe if an abortionist walking into the abortion mill to kill babies is killed by force, it's justifiable homicide,'' Spitz said in a telephone interview. ``The anti-abortion groups who condemn Hill are cowards who are condemning the babies.''
The statement Hill passed around and mailed out over several months said, in part, ``We proclaim that whatever force is legitimate to defend the life of a born child is legitimate to defend the life of an unborn child.''
It further stated that the first shooting death of an abortionist, that of Dr. David Gunn in March 1993, also in Pensacola, was ``justifiable provided it was carried out for the purpose of defending the lives of unborn children.''
But Spitz and others who put their names to the statement insist they themselves are no threat.
``I've been telling people it's a statement of belief rather than an endorsement,'' said Michael Dodds, a Wichita, Kan., activist. ``I would never consider doing anything like that myself.''
The reassurances are scant comfort to the pro-choice movement. Its members recall Hill used very similar language in recent months as he made the rounds of television talk shows and print interviews to promote his view that killing doctors who abort fetuses is justifiable.
Hill debated his position at an April meeting of anti-abortion groups in Chicago - and by some accounts split the conference into two camps, for and against violence.
``There's a clear and present threat to many doctors. People who say they believe in lethal force are roaming around,'' said Eleanor Smeal, president of the Feminist Majority Foundation, which trains abortion clinic workers how to deal with protesters.
Smeal and other pro-choice activists are demanding action against the ``justifiable homicide'' adherents. FBI agents have visited the petition signers, and federal marshals were dispatched to protect clinics specifically in towns where the signers live.
Rep. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., has scheduled a hearing before the House subcommittee on crime and criminal justice next week.
``The Justice Department should investigate anti-abortion groups that advocate violence in the same manner that they investigated the Ku Klux Klan in the 1960s,'' Schumer said. ``If there is collusion between these groups to instill terror and do violent acts, they should be prosecuted.''
Those who signed Hill's petition stoutly insist there is no conspiracy. They say Hill intended the statement as a fund-raising instrument in support of Michael Griffin, charged and later convicted in Gunn's murder.
Many of the signers interviewed by The Associated Press this week say they've never met Hill.
``He got my number from someone,'' said Dodds, who was jailed 40 days in 1991 as one of the leaders of six weeks of protests outside Wichita abortion clinics.
``He was looking for strategically placed leaders in the pro-life movement. I said, `Hey, `I'll make the sacrifice.'''
Most of the names are anti-abortion activists well-known in their local communities, whose past activities range from publishing anti-abortion tracts to assaults on clinics.
by CNB