By Tom Burghardt
SAN FRANCISCO — Four California women's health centres were attacked in the first half of February. The latest in a series of arson attacks occurred on February 15 when a fire was started at the Planned Parenthood facility in San Luis Obispo.
The fire, according to San Luis Obispo arson investigators, was started under the facility. Though it took fire officials only 15 minutes to extinguish the blaze, preliminary damage estimates were set at more than $50,000.
The attack follows closely on the heels of a string of similar arson incidents in central California.
On February 1, a three alarm blaze gutted the Modesto Planned Parenthood facility along with other businesses. Arson investigators have confirmed that the fire was deliberately set. Though the women's health facility provides counselling and family planning services, it does not perform abortions. The centre, however, has been a frequent target of anti-abortion picketers. Damage to the clinic and surrounding businesses has been estimated at more than $800,000.
On February 9, a Family Planning Associates medical clinic was attacked. According to reports, a highway flare and a tire were lit and hurled at the back door of the clinic. On February 10, a similar device was used in an attempt to burn down the Women's Medical Group clinic, in Santa Barbara. Damage to these two facilities, however, was minor.
The attack on the San Luis Obispo Planned Parenthood is the latest of a series of violent incidents at California women's clinics. The arson attack was initiated on the same day that alleged anti-abortion terrorist John Salvi appeared in court in Massachusetts. Salvi, charged with the murder of two clinic workers and the wounding of five other individuals in Brookline, Massachusetts, on December 29, entered a plea of not guilty.
At least two of the California clinics attacked this month were targets of Operation Rescue of California's "Summer of Missions '94" caravan last July. The clinic in San Luis Obispo was visited by more than 60 members of Operation Rescue and Missionaries to the Preborn.
In Modesto, 14 members of Operation Rescue of California, including group director Jeff White, and Joseph Foreman, co-founder of Missionaries to the Preborn, appeared in court on January 30 on charges stemming from a violent incident in Modesto last July during the caravan.
On February 1, the Modesto Planned Parenthood was gutted by the arson attack. Anti-abortion activists deny any responsibility.
Currently, Operation Rescue of California and Missionaries to the Preborn are at the mid-way point of a month-long harassment campaign against abortion providers. Anti-abortion activists are targeting physicians and clinic staff members at their offices and homes.
Tactics used by the groups include issuing "wanted posters" of physicians, mailing "information" to neighbours informing them that doctors who perform abortion live in their neighbourhoods. Such tactics are designed to intimidate their "targets", to force them to stop providing abortion and other reproductive health services to women.
The current arson attacks follow a similar campaign last October and November at clinic facilities in Chico, Redding and San Raphael. [From Bay Area Coalition for Our Reproductive Rights.]