THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, September 1, 1994 TAG: 9409010556
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B4 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MATTHEW BOWERS, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 61 lines
The tactics of fear and intimidation that played a role in the resignation of a Norfolk abortion doctor are causing many other doctors across the country to balk.
Fewer doctors are willing to offer the service, many of those who do are older and retiring, and fewer medical schools offer comprehensive training in abortion.
Currently, 84 percent of counties nationwide have no abortion providers, and 94 percent of rural counties have none. Some states have just one.
``Certainly, it's not easy finding physicians, and it's becoming more and more difficult to find them,'' said Gina Shaw, a spokeswoman for the National Abortion Federation in Washington.
``They're looking at this violence and assessing it in regards to themselves and their families. Which is understandable.''
Shaw's organization in 1990 helped begin the Access Initiative, an abortion-mentoring program aimed at teaching medical students. Though the program received a ``positive response,'' results won't be known until the medical-school classes start graduating.
In Melbourne, Fla., the Aware Woman Center for Choice clinic has seen 12 of its doctors quit in the past five years due to intense anti-abortion protests, said Director Patricia Baird-Windle. Federal marshals now protect the facility, which recently was able to hire a new physician.
``They say: `We are going to make your life a living hell and there's no place for you to hide,' '' Baird-Windle said of the protesters. ``And they follow up on their threats. Now you tell me who's the criminal.
``We've lost some of the best doctors in the country from this clinic.''
Protesters followed one of her doctors 160 miles to his home. The children of other doctors have been followed to school. Someone called one doctor's 82-year-old mother and said he had died in a traffic accident, and two weeks later called him and similarly said his son had been injured.
``It is a campaign that includes very shabby trickery,'' Baird-Windle said.
She called the doctors who stay ``heroic.''
``They do it because they know it provides an overwhelming societal need,'' she said. ``They see each individual woman as having a need.''
She has taken her doctors to the clinic in disguises and hidden under blankets in the backs of cars. She has used four cars as diversions to allow doctors to leave in peace. Doctors routinely wear bulletproof vests and carry guns, as do some staff members.
Baird-Windle carries a taser gun, used to immobilize an attacker.
``This is a version of an armed camp,'' she said.
David Crane, a Hampton Roads anti-abortion leader, argued that his groups' protest tactics don't constitute harassment. He acknowledged that Hillcrest doctors may disagree.
``For instance, we don't say they do abortions poorly. We say they do abortions,'' he said. ``If it was something that was a proud profession, they should thank us for free advertising.'' MEMO: Staff writer Denise Watson contributed to this report. by CNB