Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, January 7, 1995 TAG: 9501090052
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: FRED BAYLES ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
As last week's deadly rampage at two Massachusetts abortion clinics transfixed the country, Susan Hill was in Jackson, Miss., supervising construction of a new clinic that will terminate pregnancies.
The opening of the comprehensive women's health center in Jackson, scene of protests last year against Mississippi's sole abortion doctor, is a victory for abortion advocates.
But it is a limited victory: The Jackson center may be the only new clinic offering abortions to be built this year.
``People are afraid to provide services,'' said Hill, president of the National Women's Health Organization, operator of nine women's clinics in eight states. ``It's crazy that, in 1995, under a pro-choice president, there's only one clinic opening in this country.''
Despite Bill Clinton's inauguration two years ago and a flurry of laws and court decisions that rein in anti-abortion protesters, the ranks of abortion providers are shrinking. The losses suggest that abortion supporters are winning battles but may be losing the war.
Some 200 sites that provided abortion, mostly in smaller rural and public hospitals, have halted the procedure in the last four years under threat of violence, financial woes and political opposition.
As hospitals end such services, the number of medical residency programs training doctors in abortion has dropped by half. Fewer doctors are able, or willing, to replace veteran abortion doctors as they retire.
``There are fewer people who are crusaders or willing to be crusaders,'' said Dr. Philip Darney, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of California, San Francisco, who has surveyed abortion training programs.
The militant anti-abortion movement has raised costs for those trying to keep services running. Hill estimates her organization has spent $1 million in security and legal fees since the early 1980s.
``It's been a state of siege for 10 to 12 years. The metropolitan areas are just realizing it now themselves,'' she said.
It is to these metropolitan areas women must now turn for abortions. Eighty-four percent of the nation's counties have no abortion services.
With abortion concentrated in the larger cities, it is easier for anti-abortion protesters to marshal their forces and narrow their targets.
``Have they injured us? Yes,'' said Eleanor Smeal, president of the Feminist Majority Foundation, which runs security programs for abortion clinics. ``What they are doing is making it tougher on poorer, younger women who don't have means of transportation.''
While abortion advocates aren't prepared to admit defeat, the anti-abortion movement is eager to claim victory.
``There is no doubt the pro-life side is winning,'' said Paul deParrie, editor of Life Advocate magazine in Portland, Ore. ``The outlying communities have stopped doing abortions, and it allows us to concentrate on the hard-core abortion mills in the cities.''
The nation's abortion numbers have been dropping steadily. The Alan Guttmacher Institute, a nonprofit corporation that studies reproductive issues, says 1.5 million abortions were performed in 1992 - 80,000 fewer than 1990 and the lowest figure since 1979.
``It's definitely the effect of the rescue movement. We've stopped over 500 abortions here by talking to women going into the clinics,'' said Joseph Scheidler, executive director of the Chicago-based Pro-Life Action League.
But Guttmacher spokeswoman Susan Tew said other factors, including a declining fertility rate and advances in family planning like the Norplant contraceptive, have contributed to the decline.
``What we don't know is if more unplanned conceptions are being carried to term or are we looking at better contraceptive use,'' she said.
It is an uncontested fact that the number of places women can go for abortions has decreased:
A 1988 survey found 2,582 establishments offered abortion. In 1992, the number was 2,380, an 8 percent decrease and twice the rate of decline from the previous four years.
Hospitals accounted for most of the decrease. Restrictions on public funding for abortion drove the procedures out of public hospitals; private hospitals acknowledge that pressure from anti-abortion groups helped push them into ending the service.
The number of clinics offering abortion increased by 4 percent over those four years but was confined to metropolitan areas; one-third fewer rural counties have abortion providers now as compared to the late 1970s.
There are indications the trend may be slowing. The American Board of Obstetrics and Gynecology is drafting new guidelines requiring more abortion training. Darney also notes a new activism among female medical students.
``I don't see these young women being intimidated by the pro-lifers,'' he said.
A case in point is Dr. Susan Wicklund, who runs the Mountain Country Women's Clinic in Boze-man, Mont. The 40-year-old general practitioner left a lucrative practice to take over the clinic from a retiring physician two years ago.
Since then, she has received death threats, including bullets marked with her name. One man wrote more than 60 letters describing how he would cut off her arms and legs. Security costs and indigent patients keep her income at a fraction of what it was before.
``It's a real difficult job until I get in the clinic and with the patients,'' she said.
``If we could find any way of preventing unwanted pregnancies and our clinics weren't necessary, I'd be ecstatic,'' she said.
by CNB