Historical Dictionary of Terrorism Third Edition

30 • ANTIABORTION TERRORISMwhich have sought to pressure state and national politicians to takesteps to curtail and even outlaw abortion in all but the most extremecircumstances. Other tactics have included protests and sit-ins atabortion clinics, while another, extreme wing of the antiabortionmovement has embarked on several forms of violence meant to intimidateabortion providers and to scare away their clients. Such actsof violence have included vandalism, arsons, bombings, assaults,and assassinations and may be regarded as entrepreneurial formsof single-issue terrorism.During the 1980s and 1990s, the federal government used variouslaws and court rulings to stop antiabortion protestors from blockingaccess to clinics and from engaging in blatant intimidation of clientsand clinic workers. Such laws include the Racketeer InfluencedCorrupt Organization (RICO) Act, originally passed to outlawinterstate operations of organized crime, as well as the Freedom ofAccess to Clinic Entrances Act (FACE), passed in late 1994, whichlimited the scope of protest activities near clinics. Some extremists inthe antiabortion movement reacted by deciding to engage in violentactivities aimed not only at the clinics and clinic workers but also insome cases at police and firefighters who have arrived at clinics torespond to their bombings and arsons.On 10 March 1993, Dr. David Gunn was shot to death outsidehis Pensacola, Florida, clinic by Michael Griffin, a Christian fundamentalistwho was later convicted of murder and sentenced to lifeimprisonment. On 20 August 1993, Dr. George R. Tiller, owner ofa Wichita, Kansas, clinic that had been the object of unruly protestsin 1991, was shot by Rachelle Shannon, an antiabortion protestor.Shannon was later convicted for firebombing six clinics in California,Nevada, and Oregon. Tiller was not seriously injured in this attack,but on 29 July 1994, Paul Hill, a former Presbyterian minister,shot to death Dr. John B. Britton along with his bodyguard, also at aclinic in Pensacola. Hill, who was the first person to be tried underthe FACE Act for this killing, was found guilty of murder and sentencedto death. Hill was executed on 3 September 2001. In August1994 federal marshals were sent to guard a dozen clinics, includingthe Pensacola clinic, which had immediately hired a new doctor toreplace the one slain by Hill.On 3 August 1994 the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) beganan investigation of the extreme antiabortion movement that included