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June 2004

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Blue Mountain Clinic, Montana

By Raquel Castellanos
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O n a brisk Missoula morning last September, anti-choice extremists showed up at Blue Mountain Clinic to harass and heckle women accessing abortion services. After an almost ten year absence of picketing at the clinic, they have persisted for over six months without missing a week. Opened in 1977, the clinic was the first provider of abortion services for women in Montana. Founded by a group of feminist activists (including Judy Smith who was instrumental in filing the Roe v. Wade case in Texas), Blue Mountain Clinic has been at the forefront of the pro-choice debate in Montana for over 27 years. 

In March 1993, an arsonist opposed to the clinic’s delivery of abortion services burned the clinic to the ground. Richard Andrews, a Washington state resident, was sentenced in 1998 to seven years for torching seven abortion clinics in four western states, including Blue Mountain Clinic. When Andrews was stopped in Vancouver, Washington in June 1996, state troopers found a butane torch, a road flare, gasoline containers, plastic pipe, and a Bible in the trunk of his car. Police believed he was en route to a clinic in Portland, Oregon. Andrews was the leader of a Wenatchee, Washington group called Christian Coalition for Public Policy and was also affiliated with the national anti-abortion group Operation Rescue. 

Prior to the arson fire, the clinic experienced constant harassment from anti-choice picketers. From the mid-1980s until the arson in 1993, the clinic was bombarded with weekly protesting. In 1991, Operation Rescue organized the largest, most aggressive protest against Blue Mountain Clinic. Between 75 to 100 anti-choice fanatics blockaded the clinic’s front and back entrances. Several clinic staff were trampled as protestors rushed the doors. When escorts assisted women trying to get in, the large crowd would rush the doors in an effort to get into the clinic. Local police made over 50 arrests that day and required a large school bus to haul away all those arrested. 

As a result of the arson fire, an outpouring of support from the community rallied to rebuild Blue Mountain Clinic. Raising over $700,000 through donations, a state-of-the-art medical facility was built—with safety features that could meet the growing needs of clients and provide a safe space for reproductive choice. 

With the arrest of Richard Andrews in 1996, protesting activities at the new clinic, which opened in September 1995, have been virtually nonexistent. However, the constant harassment of doctors and clinics that took place during the early and mid 1990s took its toll on access to reproductive health care in Montana. Physicians throughout the state were personally harassed. One physician in Bozeman, Montana, whose picture was featured on an anti-choice billboard in her community, depicting her as a “murderer,” ultimately left the state. 

Montana is the fifth largest state in land mass. Between 1992 and 1996, the number of abortion providers there fell from 12 to 4. Women now come to Missoula from all over the state, often driving five or more hours to access services. Many also come from as far away as Idaho, eastern Washington, and Wyoming. Before abortions became legal in Canada, Canadian women were seen weekly at Blue Mountain Clinic. 

In September 2003, a person with well-known ties to Operation Rescue, Marilyn Hatch, set up camp at the clinic picketing and harassing patients and staff. With a long history of anti-choice activism, Hatch had three previous arrests, all from 1994, when she was apparently traveling throughout the country on her “mission” to obstruct clinic access. In March 1994, she was arrested during an Operation Rescue blockade of a clinic entrance in Birmingham, Alabama. In May of that year, she was arrested for obstructing the entrance to the Planned Parenthood in Waco, Texas. In June, she was arrested for violating FACE (the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act) when she and four others chained themselves to old cars in front of a clinic in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. During that year, Hatch was on the payroll full time for Operation Rescue. 

In her currently resurrected career of clinic harassment, Hatch’s strategies to harass, confuse, and intimidate patients has become more aggressive. During her first weeks at the clinic, she began by telling patients that she was “here to help them” by providing counseling. (“Sidewalk counseling” is currently in vogue with anti-choice protestors throughout the country.) As those techniques failed to draw any free “counseling” takers, she changed her tactics and began shouting misinformation at women and their partners as they entered the clinic. Clutching her bible, she would yell, “Ask about the breast cancer link.” (The National Institute of Health reported in March 2003 that there is no medical evidence linking breast cancer to abortion.) She would often shout at the partners, “Be a man, don’t kill your baby” or, “This will damage you for life, you won’t be able to have babies again.” 

Hatch also targets clinic staff. Her tactics include photographing staff and their license plates and trying to befriend staff by telling them, “You can get a better job” or leaving business cards for “abortion workers,” urging them to report employers for discrimination and payroll fraud. In one instance, Hatch singled me out as the director of the clinic and threatened to tell my neighbors that I kill babies. 

After nearly ten years without this type of activity, why now? According to the National Abortion Federation’s website, in their analysis of trends they found, “There were 10,241 incidents of picketing reported in 2002. This is the highest number of picketing incidents ever reported to NAF. Reports from clinics across the country make clear that the numbers of picketers, their aggressiveness, and their intensity has also increased. Picketing and other forms of harassment continue to occur and with greater intensity than in the past, according to reports from abortion clinics. The practice of photographing women entering and leaving clinics and posting their images on websites has increased. Also posted on anti-choice websites are pictures of clinic staff and the license plates and cars of abortion providers. We expect this type of harassment to increase in the coming year.” 

While NAF officials are finalizing their analysis for 2003, the numbers for last year indicate the continued growing trend: “The total number of incidents of disruption increased from 10,543 in 2002 to 11,880 in 2003, its highest level ever.” 

Public discourse on abortion has become more heated during George Bush Jr.’s presidency. One of his first actions after taking office in 2001 was to reinstate the global gag rule on abortion. The gag rule prohibits family planning organizations that receive U.S. funds from using their own funds to counsel about or refer for abortion or to lobby their own government for a change in abortion laws. 

Bush’s nomination of nine conservative judges to federal circuit courts has also reignited the abortion debate, as most of the nominees either refused to answer questions about their positions on abortion or were blatantly and vocally anti-choice. Circuit court judges are often nominated to the Supreme Court and with President Bush’s public statements in favor of the repeal of Roe v. Wade , national organizations such as NAF, Planned Parenthood, and the National Organization of Women pressured Democrats to filibuster the nominations of these extremist judges. 

Bush’s policies to withhold the $34 million that Congress had traditionally appropriated for the United Nations’ International Family Planning Program (UNFPA), has damaged the U.S.’s standing internationally. The fund provides the largest internationally funded source of population assistance to developing countries, providing reproductive and maternal health services to millions of men and women in more than 150 countries. The Fund’s programs help impoverished and underserved women throughout the world. Bush’s withdrawal of support was based on the funds’ work to promote contraceptive education and access to safe abortion services. 

With Bush on their side, extreme right pundits have set the climate for renewed aggression aimed at abortion clinics, physicians, and families looking to access their safe and legal right to reproductive health care.  

Raquel Castellanos is executive director  of the Blue Mountain Clinic. 
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