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"From the racial murder of James Byrd Jr. in Jasper, Texas, to the murder of Matthew Shepard in Laramie, Wyo., to the assassination of Dr. Slepian," said Leslie Feinberg, a female transgender activist in a military-style haircut speaking at a pro-choice rally that drew over 200 people to a downtown park Saturday. "When it comes to who's going to stop this violence, I quote from the African-American poet June Jordan, 'We are the ones who we've been waiting for.’"

Robert Behn, 61, a local organizer for Operation Save America, agreed that homosexuality was as much an issue as abortion to his followers.

"It's all on the agenda," he said softly, as pro- and anti-choice partisans shouted at each other outside the federal courthouse. "It's a symptom of the same problem." Protesters seem highly upset about books with pictures of nude children, particularly three books by San Francisco-based artist Jock Sturges, and plan to picket local Barnes and Noble stores.

Hospitals that perform abortions will also be targeted.

Both sides agree that the anti-abortion movement has been successful in influencing the reduction of procedures performed in hospitals. More than 50 percent of the medical schools that used to teach abortion no longer offer instruction in it, according to one estimate. In Birmingham, Ala., where an off-duty policeman was killed and a nurse gravely wounded in an abortion clinic bombing last year, only one clinic remains open, according David Lackey, the director of Operation Rescue there.

Likewise, the murder of Slepian continues to plague his former clinic, which has suffered from high staff turnover.

Participation in this week's protest will likely be a shadow of the turnout in 1992, when thousands showed up in a deliberately militant attempt to close the clinics. More reporters and television news crews than protesters showed up at Operation Rescue's news conference Sunday, suggesting that less than a couple hundred demonstrators will be taking to the streets in the cold rain forecast. More people showed up for Saturday night’s drag show than are expected to demonstrate this week.

But a strong cadre of abortion opponents will show up nonetheless. Tom and Linda McGlade, both 47, drove 24 hours straight from Bradenton, Fla., with their seven children to join the protest. “America has rejected God. Our leaders are stupid. We’re losing wisdom and we’ve thrown Jesus out of the schools,” Tom said as he unpacked in his hotel room. He said abortion should be “recriminalized.”

“Children are the gifts of God,” his wife interrupted softly. “People’s hearts need to be changed.” Her husband added, “Abortion isn’t a women’s issue, it’s a man’s issue.”

Asked for a vision of what they’d like America to be, Linda said: “Husbands loving wives, wives loving husbands, husbands loving children. We’re not anti-abortion people, we’re just Christians.”

Harsh new federal penalities on violations of clinic access laws may not only be dampening the spirits of potential protesters, but influencing the more militant wings of the anti-abortion movement to change tactics.

Operation Rescue's Benham repeatedly declined to denounce the growing phenomenon of murder, arson and bombing against doctors and clinics. As long as abortions are performed, he said, there would be violent efforts to stop it.

"The conditions of peace," he said, " are to stop shedding the blood of innocents. When you reap blood in the womb, you reap blood in the streets."

salon.com | April 19, 1999

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