Opposition and Intimidation: The Abortion Wars and Strategies of Political Harassment

Notes

NOTES Chapter 1 1. I refer to movements and activists (on both sides of the abortion con›ict) in a variety of ways throughout the book. I generally adopt the names used by the respective movements. I try to use neutral names and vary the names (for example, anti-abortion or pro-life) for the purposes of prose. 2. For four years I followed (via observation, frequent visits, and media coverage) the development of a Planned Parenthood facility in Bryan, Texas that began offering abortion services in 1999. The quotes used throughout this book are taken from interviews I conducted with activists, volunteers, employees, and pro-life and pro-choice supporters from local and national organizations. The quotes appear the way they were articulated by the respondents during the interviews; grammar mistakes in the quotes are not edited. I conducted interviews between September 1998 and August 2000; and again during the period of November 2003 through March 2004. During this span of time, the Brazos Valley Coalition for Life changed executive directors. David Bereit became the second executive director of the coalition while I was conducting my research (the coalition currently is led by another director). To protect the individuals involved in this research, many of the names, organizations, and locations have been changed and are noted in the text by generic organizational terms. If a name appears in quotation marks, it indicates a pseudonym for the person being interviewed. However, many individuals wanted me to use their names and organizational af‹liations, which is also noted in the text. 3. The Nature Conservancy is a private, nonpro‹t group that purchases land for conservation purposes and uses market-based approaches to achieve solutions to environmental problems. 4. Other models of political violence have grown out of resource mobilization theory , in particular, the McAdam political process model, which focuses on three variables : the dissident group’s level of organization, the perceived probability of success of collective protest, and the political opportunities available to the group in securing their demands (see McAdam 1982). 175 5. I purposely refer to women’s health care clinics instead of abortion clinics because the former are often targets of anti-abortion protest activity even when the facility does not offer abortion services. Chapter 2 1. This is a simpli‹cation of the multiple issues tied to reproduction. For example, it is nearly impossible to divorce the politics of fertility control—in a historical perspective —from issues of race, class, equality, eugenics, poverty, elitism, health, overpopulation , and infanticide. A thorough historical overview of fertility politics is, however, beyond the scope of this chapter. For more information related to the subject see, for example, Brodie 1994; Donovan 1995; Tone 2001; Luker 1996; Solinger 1998. 2. For a more detailed look at the history of birth control please see Tone 1997, 2001; McCann 1994; Brodie 1994; Douglas 1970. 3. The women’s movement of the 1800s often advocated abstinence as a form of birth control. Unlike the modern women’s movement, these early feminists embraced domesticity, and although they posed a threat to traditional Victorian mores, they did not represent a threat to the family structure (Gordon 1976). 4. The Hippocratic oath refers to one of the earliest medical documents mentioning abortion. The oath was written by Hippocrates, an ancient Greek physician frequently referred to as the “Father of Medicine.” It is estimated that Hippocrates lived sometime between 460 and 377 B.C. The Hippocratic oath states: “The regimen I adopt shall be for the bene‹t of my patients according to my ability and judgment, and not for their hurt or for any wrong. I will give no deadly drug to any, though it be asked of me, and I will counsel such, and especially I will not aid a woman to procure abortion. Whatsoever house I enter, there will I go for the bene‹t of the sick, refraining from all wrong-doing or corruption, and especially from any act of seduction, of male or female, of bond or free. Whatever things I see or hear concerning the life of men, in my attendance on the sick or even apart therefrom, which ought not to be noised abroad, I will keep in silence thereon, counting such things to be as sacred secrets” (Encyclopedia Britannica , 14th ed., s.v. “Medicine, Custom of (Ancient medicine),” 197). Students take the oath when they graduate from medical school. 5. English common law refers to “the body of unwritten law that...