Signs from a June 1 George Tiller vigil in Washington, D.C. (Flickr: pdeonarain)

The fatal shooting allegedly by a known white supremacist at the Holocaust Memorial Museum Wednesday in Washington is the second murder apparently motivated by a hateful ideology that’s come to national attention in the last two weeks. James W. von Brunn, the 88-year-old suspect and convicted felon, was well-known for sending mass e-mail messages such as “It’s time to kill all the Jews” and promoting elaborate conspiracy theories on his Website. Similarly, Scott Roeder, the 51-year-old accused of murdering abortion provider Dr. George Tiller in his Wichita, Kans. church, had a long history of ties to a violent right-wing extremist group, had previously threatened another abortion provider, and had just that week vandalized Tiller’s clinic.

Illustration by: Matt Mahurin

Just as federal law specifically penalizes hate crimes, the law also makes it a federal crime to threaten or commit violence against abortion providers, or to vandalize their clinics. Yet as TWI revealed last week, the criminal law was not being enforced. The day after Dr. George Tiller was murdered, TWI obtained data revealing that under the Bush administration, criminal enforcement of the federal law designed to protect abortion providers and clinics had declined by more than 75 percent over the last eight years.

But there’s also a civil component to that federal law, known as the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, or FACE Act. That part of the law allows the attorney general to seek an injunction and compensatory damages for anyone who’s been harmed by any activity that violates the law. And it turns out that the Department of Justice over the last eight years didn’t use that part of the law to protect abortion providers, either.

Under the FACE Act, in addition to criminal charges, the Justice Department can obtain damages and an injunction against anyone who “by force or threat of force or by physical obstruction, intentionally injures, intimidates or interferes with or attempts to injure, intimidate or interfere with” anyone who provides or receives reproductive health services. It also allows the government to prosecute and sue anyone who “intentionally damages or destroys the property” of an abortion clinic, because they are frequently vandalized as part of protesters’ intimidation tactics. The clinic where Dr. Tiller worked, for example, was repeatedly vandalized, including just days before his murder.

Yet despite these broad powers that Congress granted the attorney general in 1994 to prevent and combat violence against abortion clinics and providers, the Bush administration almost never used them. From 2000 until 2008, during the eight years of the Bush administration, the Justice Department filed only one civil case under the FACE Act. From 1994 until 1999, in contrast, in just five years of the Clinton administration, the Department filed 17 civil cases under the FACE Act — in addition to its much heavier load of criminal cases that we’ve reported before.

It’s possible, of course, that the law was so effective in its early years that it deterred all future violations. “I do think that the statute was very effective,” and “for the most part there were fewer complaints coming to us,” said Cathleen Mahoney, vice president and general counsel of the National Abortion Federation and director of the Justice Department’s Task Force on Violence Against Reproductive Health Care Providers until 2006.

But crime statistics provided by the National Abortion Federation show that violence did not stop when the Bush administration came into office. The group reports 3,291 acts of violence against abortion providers in the United States and Canada between 2000 and 2008 – and that’s only the number of incidents they know about. (The total number of incidents in the U.S. alone was not available.) The group warns on its Website that “actual incidents are likely much higher.” That number does not include threats, vandalism and harassment, which are also violations of the FACE Act.

The NAF — the organization that most closely tracks such data in the United States — also reports that between 2000 and 2008 there were at least 17 cases of “extreme” violence against abortion providers in the United States, such as arson, stabbing and bomb attacks. At least 607 letters threatening Anthrax contamination (they did not actually contain anthrax) were sent to abortion providers between 2000 and 2002 alone. During the entire eight years of the Bush administration, the federal government prosecuted only 11 individuals for any acts of violence against abortion clinics or providers.

Former Attorney General John Ashcroft, although opposed by many abortion-rights advocates for his vehement opposition to keeping abortion legal, did prosecute the infamous anti-abortion activist and convicted felon Clayton Lee Waagner for the anthrax threats, which attracted significant public attention because they were sent just after lawmakers and news organizations received letters containing anthrax spores, prompting nationwide fears of deadly biological terror attacks.

Waagner was an easy target: a fugitive who’d escaped from jail in February 2001 while awaiting sentencing on federal weapons charges, he was already on the FBI’s Top Ten Most Wanted List, the U.S. Marshals Service Fifteen Most Wanted List, and the Ten Most Wanted List of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. He was arrested in November 2001 and promptly claimed responsibility for over 550 anthrax threat letters sent to abortion providers in October and November. The letters were signed by the Army of God, an extremist anti-abortion organization that openly advocates violence against specific physicians who provide abortions. Waagner’s supporters in the Army of God, however, were not prosecuted or even sued for civil damages or injunctions under the FACE Act, although the group was responsible for distributing a manual that supplies detailed instructions for attacking abortion clinics, manufacturing bombs and cutting off the hands of abortion doctors, according to SourceWatch. The FBI has characterized the prosecution of Waagner as a “counterterrorism case,” suggesting that the “Army of God” is considered a domestic terrorist organization by federal law enforcement.

Yet despite the prosecution of Waagner in 2001, the Army of God today continues to do much the same thing. The group and its members continue to support and advocate the murder of abortion providers. Its Website, for example, on Wednesday celebrated the Tiller murder in this banner headline: “The lives of innocent babies scheduled to be murdered by George Tiller are spared by the action of American hero Scott Roeder. George Tiller the Babykiller reaped what he sowed and is now in eternal hell.” It commends previous convicted murderers of abortion doctors as “heroes,” and continues to host the “Nuremberg Files,” a notorious list of the names of abortion providers and recipients, with a line through those that have been killed and  names grayed of those who have been murdered. (The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in 2002 found that these constituted threats to the doctors.) As Rachel Maddow recently described the Army of God’s current Website on MSNBC: “You can actually scroll through pages and pages of mug shots and descriptions of bombings and shootings and murders and attempted murders — all praising the perpetrators, and even suggesting ways to get away with the same types of crimes that these people committed but you could do it without getting caught.”

Although such conduct has in the past led to violence, the threats are often not prosecuted by local police. According to Dr. Susan Robinson, who used to perform abortions at the same Wichita clinic as Dr. Tiller did before it was closed: “they allow the anti-abortion protesters to set up dozens of crosses and leave them all day. Dr. Tiller went to the city attorney over the crosses, and complained that people block the clinic driveway,” she told journalist Amy Goodman. “He told me that the city attorney said, ‘I would rather be sued by George Tiller than the anti-abortion folks.’ ”

The federal law was enacted in part to fill in the gaps when local authorities refused or lacked the resources to bring charges. “Often local police won’t enforce the local laws against trespassing,” explained Mahoney, the former federal prosecutor. “It’s politically charged and local police want to stay out of it.” During her tenure at the Department of Justice, Mahoney said it was the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department that was charged with enforcing the FACE Act. That’s the same division that Inspector General reports and Congressional hearings eventually revealed repeatedly made hiring and enforcement decisions based on conservative political ideology rather than merit.

In the one situation in the last eight years that the Bush Justice Department decided did merit a lawsuit, in 2007, the charges were so serious that it’s not clear why the administration filed a civil suit rather than criminal charges. The federal government sought only an injunction – essentially, a court order telling the defendant to stop.

But this was no mere schoolyard-style harassment. According to the legal complaint filed by the Justice Department, John Dunkle, another member of the “Army of God”, had been publishing a monthly Web newsletter “encouraging readers of his publications to use deadly force against specifically identified reproductive health clinic physicians and staff, providing instruction on how to employ deadly force tactics; provoking physical and verbal confrontations with reproductive health clinic physicians, staff and patients at various clinics” and “publishing internet postings containing photographs and the home addresses of reproductive health clinic physicians and staff,” among other things.

The government also claimed that he “threatened a specific female clinic physician until she ceased providing reproductive health services in fear of the Defendants’ threats to her life.”

Those threats included “explicitly encourag[ing] his readers to kill the targeted individual by shooting her in the head”; publishing her name, photo and home address on his Web page and blog; and publishing instructions “regarding the specific means to kill the targeted individual, as well as how to escape detection upon the commission of her murder.” Such postings dated back more than two years, identifying the same person.

There is no question that such threats are criminal under the federal law, say legal experts. “Physical obstruction is not protected, violence is not protected and true threats are not protected,” said Louise Melling, Director of the ACLU’s Reproductive Freedom Project, which has submitted several amicus briefs to courts defending the constitutionality of the federal law. A “true threat” has been defined by the courts has a threat that would reasonably be interpreted by the person hearing it as a serious threat to their safety.

Yet in the case of John Dunkle, whose threats caused a reproductive health provider to quit her profession, the government did not seek criminal penalties or even any monetary damages to compensate the victims and deter future crimes; it simply asked the court to tell him to stop.

Department of Justice spokesman Alejandro Miyar said that department officials decide whether or not to prosecute or seek damages in cases “on a case-by-case basis, and a number of factors are taken into account, including — among others — whether there is an identifiable subject and whether the matter is being pursued by local officials.” He was not aware of whether Dunkle had been prosecuted for related acts under state law, and there was no indication in the documents filed in the federal case that he had been.

Threats against abortion providers appears to have had a serious impact on the availability of the procedure, and particularly on the ability of women to obtain legal later-term abortions, even when the pregnancy threatens the woman’s life. According to the Guttmacher Institute, a nonprofit organization focused on sexual and reproductive health research, only two percent of all abortion providers in the United States currently provide such procedures, which are most heavily targeted by extremist anti-abortion groups. Women most commonly seek such abortions due to abnormalities of the fetus and threats to a woman’s health or life, and in many states they’re only legal if the woman’s health or life is in danger. Dr. Tiller and his clinic were therefore frequent targets of both violent threats and actions, up until the day before his death.

The FACE Act was adopted to prevent and prosecute this sort of violence, in part because Congress concluded that existing state laws and local law enforcement were unable to do the job on their own.

When President Clinton signed the FACE Act in 1994, he said: “We simply cannot – we must not – continue to allow the attacks, the incidents of arson, the campaigns of intimidation upon law-abiding citizens that (have) given rise to this law,” citing the murder of Dr. David Gunn in Florida in 1993, and the shooting of Dr. Tiller in both arms outside his clinic in Wichita that same year.

“No person seeking medical care, no physician providing that care should have to endure harassments or threats or obstruction or intimidation or even murder from vigilantes who take the law into their own hands because they think they know what the law ought to be.”

The statistics on enforcement of the FACE Act by the Justice Department suggest that during the Bush administration, protecting those physicians was no longer a high priority.

Sarah Palin and her son, Trig. (flickr Sparky05)

HERSHEY, Pa. — During Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s last swing through battleground states this week, boisterous supporters cheer almost on cue when she delivers her stump speech.

Few lines get a more deep-felt roar of approval than her signature issue — support for children with disabilities.

Palin’s words strike deeper than just with parents who come to her rallies because one of their children has a disability.

Social conservatives cheer when Palin talks about the value of all children because her words are a subtle but clear signal of her staunch anti-abortion views. She talks about special-needs education in words and phrases generally associated with the anti-abortion movement, effectively reminding anti-abortion voters that she shares and supports their view.

Illustration by: Matt Mahurin

During a stop Sunday in Asheville, N.C., Palin told a raucous audience that she plans on “ushering in that spirit” of prioritizing children if she becomes vice president.

“John [McCain] and I have a vision of America where every innocent life counts,” Palin told a crowd at a high-school football stadium in Roanoke, Va., the next day. “Where everyone has a chance to contribute and every child is cherished. And that’s the spirit I want to bring to Washington, D.C.”

Palin, a mother of five, gave birth to her youngest son, Trig, in April. She knew he would be born with Down syndrome. On the stump, she talks about how, through prayer, she prepared herself for the challenges of welcoming the new member of her family. She tells crowds that when she and her husband, Todd Palin, saw Trig for the first time, he was “perfect” in their eyes — and now they consider him a “blessing.”

The issue of special-needs kids resonates with families eager to have a public figure so ready and able to prioritize programs for their children.

But Palin’s words appeal to many more of her supporters for what they signal. Her personal story is leavened with language regularly used by the anti-abortion movement — including phrases like “spirit” and “culture of life.” It allows her to reach the GOP’s anti-abortion base without actually talking about reproductive health issues.

Palin has spoken about her anti-abortion views publicly. During a debate in the 2006 Alaska gubernatorial campaign, Palin said she would be against abortion even in the event her daughter was raped. She said she only supports abortion in instances where the life of the mother is endangered.

During the presidential campaign, Palin has been more cautious in outlining the specifics of her beliefs.

Advocates on both sides of the abortion-rights debate agree that Palin doesn’t need to be direct. By discussing her plans for special-needs children and touching on her own story, she galvanizes the arm of the GOP base that lists abortion as a top issue. At the same time, she runs less of a risk of alienating pro-abortion rights voters.

“She is able to talk about the life issue without talking about abortion, because everybody knows her personal circumstance,” said Janice Crouse, a political commentator from Concerned Women of America, a conservative nonprofit public-policy group that opposes abortion rights.

“She is able to talk about issues just with her personal life,” Crouse said, “without having to bring up the political kind of rhetoric that people are so tired of. Instead, she talks about it from a personal standpoint, and that makes it very palatable for people.”

Palin’s strategy is not new in the anti-abortion-rights movement.

Caitlin E. Borgmann, a professor at the City University of New York’s Law School who writes the Reproductive Rights Prof blog, says “special code words” and euphemisms have served anti-abortion activists well.

After the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade in 1973, the anti-abortion movement aimed to reduce access to abortion incrementally rather than by an outright ban.

Campaigns targeted seemingly narrow goals, including laws requiring 24-hour waiting periods or parental notification before a woman, or woman under 18, could undergo an abortion.

Anti-abortion voters tend to be more conscious of the broader strategy, while pro-abortion rights voters tend to see such initiatives as discrete measures.

Borgmann said language helps this dichotomy between galvanizing the base and not alienating moderates and liberals.

“The movement and the supporter know it’s part of this larger strategy,” Borgmann said, referring to discrete measures and specific language. Borgmann noted that pro-abortion rights voters tend to be less aware of, or sensitive to, the tactics and wording.

Palin has used some of the most common terminology like “a culture of life” in referring to abortion.

Her comments about special-needs children have a similar feel. Rather than talking broadly about people with special needs, her focus is on children and families. She frames it as a family issue.

In her first major policy speech, Palin focused on how she plans to prioritize funding for special-needs education. She said she would work for the full funding of a federal law that matches state funds for special education.

She couched her policy discussion in a broad discussion of the value of every child’s life.

“Too often, even in our own day, children with special needs have been set apart and excluded,” Palin said during an address in Arlington, Va. “Too often, they are made to feel that there is no place for them in the life of our country, that they don’t count or have nothing to contribute. This attitude is a grave disservice to these beautiful children, to their families and to our country — and I will work to change it.”

Borgmann noted that such phrasing is an example of reaching the base without turning off more moderate or even liberal voters.

It’s an important line for Palin to walk. Even if her crowds hold more extreme views than most voters, she must remember she is being broadcast live on national TV.

A recent ABC News poll shows that 53 percent of likely voters now say the economy is the most important issue, well above any social issue. Only about 6 percent of voters now say abortion, marriage and gun rights are their top issue for the 2008 presidential race, according to a Newsweek poll from last week.

Palin has been careful discussing her anti-abortion views during previous campaigns. In 2006, when running for governor of Alaska, she avoided talking about her anti-abortion views at major events.

The state of Alaska has strong legal protections for abortion rights, including an explicit right to privacy in the state constitution, and the electorate is not largely concerned about the issue.

Clover Simon, head of Planned Parenthood Alaska, said Palin only touches on reproductive rights explicitly at “really targeted events,” where supporters are staunchly anti-abortion.

In her year and a half as governor, before being tapped for the GOP presidential ticket, Palin had not pushed for any policy changes on abortion. Her anti-abortion supporters have said they are hopeful she might still make it a priority, if she returns to Alaska as governor.

In the meantime, to continue reaching out to her base, Palin only needs to hint at her record — and her plans — to let them know her views. Without getting into the specifics of her policies, her supporters know where she stands.

“As governor,” Palin said in a recent speech in Johnstown, Pa., “what I’ve been able to do is kind of manifest my commitment to life.”

Whether or not her attacks on Obama are valid — which they’re not — is one story.

The extent to which her own claims about her “commitment to life” as governor here are accurate proves just as interesting.

There is no doubt she is an outspoken critic of abortion — against it even in incidents of rape and incest.

But Palin may have gone too far in her speech at a rally in Johnstown, Pa., this weekend.

“As governor,” Palin said at the beginning of her speech, “what I’ve been able to do is kind of manifest my commitment to life.”

While Palin ran on a pro-life platform for mayor of Wasilla in 1996, she tapped-danced around abortion when running for governor — generally bringing it up only at supportive venues.

Alaska tends to have a libertarian streak — part of it’s frontier ethos. There is an explicit right to privacy in its constitution. Abortion was legalized in Alaska before the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision. So abortion as an issue doesn’t galvanize a majority of voters.

That may explain why, as governor, Palin hasn’t worked to diminish access to abortion.

“In the short time that [Palin] has been the governor, she hasn’t taken any action,” Clover Simon, the head of Planned Parenthood Alaska, told me.

Simon noted that two abortion-related bills, one on parental notification and the other on late-term, or so-called “partial-birth,” abortion, failed in the state legislature. Palin did not press for a special session on the bills. Nor, according to Planned Parenthood, did she lobby for the bills’ passage.

The only policy that might be tied to Palin’s abortion views dates to her time as mayor in Wasilla, where the morning-after pill may have been the reason her police department billed rape victims for forensic exams.

News reports show that the state of Alaska stepped in and passed legislation making it illegal to charge a rape victim for evidence collection.

Rep. Eric Croft, a Democrat from Anchorage, who no longer serves in the legislature, introduced the bill after the issue came up in a local anti-sexual-assault group’s meetings.

“We kept hearing reports from our in-the-field social workers that clients were getting charged,” Croft said in a recent interview. “We had some talk about — should we get a poster child? Not only is that a shameless use of somebody, it also wasn’t necessary. We decided to just fight on the pure idea of the thing. It became less important why or how much — just shouldn’t.”

Croft noted that Wasilla pushed back throughout the six months it took to get the bill through the legislature. Even after it was signed into law, Wasilla’s police chief cited the cost of the kits as an unreasonable burden on taxpayers.

Estimates at the time were that the kits would cost about $5,000 to $14,000 a year, based on the number of reported sexual assaults in the area. Between 1995 and 2000, the Wasilla Police Dept. says that between five and 18 sexual assaults were reported each year.

“It never made sense to me that it was something worth the fight,” Croft said, “unless it was more about the fact that at the very end of the rape-kit procedure, [the victim is offered] a morning-after pill. If you really believe the hardcore pro-life position…it’s a government-funded abortion.”

Croft added, “I don’t know if for sure that that was the case.”

Palin’s campaign sent an email recently to her local paper responding to questions about her stand on requiring rape victims to pay for their kits.

“The entire notion of making a victim of a crime pay for anything is crazy,” Palin wrote. ” I do not believe, nor have I ever believed, that rape victims should have to pay for an evidence-gathering test.”

Palin may claim she didn’t know about the controversy — but she appointed the police chief, Charlie Fannon, who was quoted as saying that Wasilla rape victims are routinely charged for exams.

“I just don’t want to see any more burden put on the taxpayer,” Fannon told the Frontiersman in 2000.