Where Surgical Scrubs Come With Bulletproof Vests

NYTimes ^ | March 16, 2003 | MATTHEW PURDY

[RJCogburn]

BUFFALO

OUTSIDE the city's only abortion clinic, there is plenty of talk about killing, but none of it concerns James C. Kopp and Barnett A. Slepian, the doctor Mr. Kopp admits he killed.

If you bring up the killing of Dr. Slepian, protesters with color posters of aborted fetuses and "Abortion Kills" signs say they condemn all killing. But one protester, Phil Eckert, remarked on Friday, "I'm not surprised because violence begets violence."

But what did the killing of Dr. Slepian beget? Mr. Kopp's trial in the 1998 slaying of Dr. Slepian begins tomorrow. Mr. Kopp, 48, admits firing through a kitchen window, but insists he meant only to wound Dr. Slepian, a gynecologist, to stop abortions. The bad-aim defense is not a likely winner. The nonjury trial should be brief. Then the killing of Dr. Slepian will be closed.

It is already receding into history. Asked about the killing of Dr. Slepian, a woman leaving the Buffalo GYN Womenservices clinic on Thursday said, "I don't know what you're talking about."

The hard-edged standoff over abortion here has become almost too normal to notice.

In the locked foyer of the clinic where Dr. Slepian worked, signs instruct visitors to look into a security camera, spell their names and "state your business." Doctors wear bulletproof vests. Guards monitor daily protests. On Saturdays, big days for protests and abortions, escorts lead patients into the clinic.

Lines painted on the sidewalk keep protesters the court-ordered 15 feet from the clinic door. Some protesters, frustrated that patients avoid them by parking behind the clinic, are trying to buy a house and property bordering the rear lot.

One group, the Last Call Ministries, plans to resume "house calls" — praying and heckling at the homes of abortion doctors — which had stopped after Dr. Slepian's death. "It's to call them to account," said the group's leader, the Rev. Robert L. Behn.

It's also an echo of the era preceding Dr. Slepian's killing.

Opposition to abortion runs deep in this heavily Roman Catholic city. A prominent sign in former Mayor James D. Griffin's office said, "Abortion is Murder." Some took offense, but he was elected four times.

That sentiment was converted to activism in the late 1980's, in part by two brothers, Rob and Paul Schenck, both evangelical ministers. Protesters began blockading clinics and picketing doctors' homes. In 1992, thousands descended on Buffalo for a two-week effort to shut area clinics.

ONE participant, apparently, was Jim Kopp, a traveling protester on the militant end of the anti-abortion spectrum, who took the nickname Atomic Dog.

The Schencks moved to Washington, but protests continued in Buffalo, even as the number of abortions fell everywhere. Dr. Slepian became a constant target.

And the doctor responded. "He said what was on his mind," said Marilynn Buckham, the administrator of Womenservices. Once, when loud protesters gathered outside his house on Hanukkah, he broke the window on a protester's van with a baseball bat.

Weekly house calls continued for years, but protesters stopped visiting Dr. Slepian's house months before he was killed, after he met with Mr. Behn.

Apparently, Jim Kopp, a suspect in abortion doctor shootings elsewhere, never got the message that Dr. Slepian's home was not fair game.

The killing of Dr. Slepian, 52, shocked Buffalo, but peaceful protests resumed immediately. "We were due to be at the clinic the next day," said Judith Gorman of Buffalo's Catholic Diocese, "and we were there saying the rosary."

There is support for abortion rights here, even among Catholics. Still, last year, the Buffalo City Council endorsed a private proposal for a 700-foot arch on Lake Erie to honor Mary and "make reparation for the grave sin of worldwide abortion."

The Womenservices waiting room is jammed, drawing patients from across Pennsylvania and into Ohio. Ms. Buckham, who helped start Buffalo's first clinic in 1972, said street protests were no longer as much a threat to abortion rights as the courts and Congress. "A war on women," she calls it.

Not that she can take her eye off the street. Last fall, three out-of-towners were arrested after faking an appointment and lying down in the clinic to support Mr. Kopp.

And Mr. Behn again vows to protest at doctors' homes. He knows names and some addresses. He denounces Dr. Slepian's killing, but his conscience is clear, and it will be if anything happens to another doctor.

"I'm a little bit concerned," he said. "But they choose the profession. They knew the dangers. I wouldn't feel responsible if someone were to do something."

[toddst]

"I'm a little bit concerned," he said. "But they choose the (abortion) profession. They knew the dangers. I wouldn't feel responsible if someone were to do something."

Let the body armor remind them every day that they are in the killing business. Maybe they'll decide to go into true medicine, heal people instead of killing babies.

[Marianne]

. . .Marilynn Buckham, the administrator of Womenservices. . .
. . .Ms. Buckham, who helped start Buffalo's first clinic in 1972, . . .
Ms. Buckham is a graduate of a local Catholic High School.

Thanks for posting.

[Marianne]

. . .Marilynn Buckham, the administrator of Womenservices. . .
. . .Ms. Buckham, who helped start Buffalo's first clinic in 1972, . . .
Ms. Buckham is a graduate of a local Catholic High School.

Thanks for posting.