Welcome to my world....

Unsung heros

by Laura Flanders

ANTHRAX SCARES HAVE THRUST the United States into new consciousness, we're told. Suddenly, regular Americans are fearing for their lives not only when they fly, or travel, or rise high in an elevator. We're worrying at home, at the office, wherever we open the mail.

On ABC's 20/20 on October 17th, Barbara Walters invited the mayor of Belfast to share his experience. "We're speaking to someone who is familiar with what we're going through," Walters said. But Belfast has no experience of assault by anthrax. Cincinnati has.

Two days before that 20/20 show, I received the following account from Debi Jackson, director of Cincinnati Women's Services. "February 18, 1999, will be forever etched in my memory," Jackson writes. "I came to my clinic, Cincinnati Women's Services, on that morning expressly to counsel a patient who was unable to talk to me at any other time. I had a few minutes free before I was leaving to enjoy the rest of my day off. I chose to take that time to open the mail. The last piece that I opened was a business-size manila-colored envelope with a return address label from a medical instrument company with which I was unfamiliar. When I opened the envelope and saw the paper smudged with a brown powdery substance with a crudely drawn skull and cross-bones, I felt a shiver run down my spine. Above the skull was typed 'anthrax' and below was typed 'have a nice death.' I asked one of my staff to close the door to my office so no one but me would be exposed."

You don't have to go to Northern Ireland to find people familiar with daily terror. Abortion providers have lived with it for decades. In the week of October 15th alone, ninety Planned Parenthood clinics in thirteen states received anthrax threats, and many papers quipped that women's clinics were the most prepared to handle suspicious packages; the least rattled, the most informed. When it comes to looking for experts, however, major media have gone elsewhere.

The National Abortion Federation (the professional association of abortion providers in the United States and Canada) released a press statement October 15th. "This type of threat is unfortunately not new to abortion providers," the federation's director, Vicki Saporta, said. "Those who are opposed to a woman's right to choose have not hesitated to resort to bio-terrorist threats and attacks to advance their personal agenda."

In response to anthrax threats received at more than eighty clinics between late 1998 and 2000, NAF developed a brochure, "Anthrax: Bio-terrorism Against Reproductive Health Care Clinics." The manual has been distributed to abortion providers around the country, as well as to law enforcement officials, including the ATF and FBI.

A smart US attorney general would commission a special print run of those brochures for national distribution -- and pay NAF a grateful sum for having such useful materials to hand. Caring broadcasters would interview Saporta. A friendly American who, with others, has figured out how to protect her constituency from anthrax would be a more reassuring figure to see on national TV than the mayor of a far-off town associated in the US mind (sadly) only with thirty years of unending terrorism and war.

What about our anti-choice US attorney general would make him loath to distribute the NAF's materials to a frightened nation, or even to tell the people that such safety manuals exist? What is it about our national media that make them reluctant to cast women's rights defenders as anti-terror heroes on a par with "HazMat" teams and firefighters?

In 1999, Debi Jackson in Cincinnati was the first person in the city's history to receive an anthrax threat. Her office was shut down for two days, after which she and her staff returned to work.

Want to see model Americans who refuse to let terror stop them? Who maintain their beliefs, their values, and keep on doing what they know is right no matter what? Meet Debi Jackson and the staff of Cincinnati Women's Services. Meet Vicki Saporta and the North American organizations that comprise the National Abortion Federation.

Reprinted with permission from the San Francisco Chronicle, October 23, 2001. (c) 2001 San Francisco Chronicle.

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