Who Says This Isn’t Terrorism? : Abortion: Doctor’s murder is proof that women’s civil rights need federal protection.

Wednesday’s killing of a Florida doctor provided clear testimony to what the Supreme Court refused to acknowledge in Bray vs. Alexandria Women’s Health Clinic, which denied women federal protection against extremists preying on abortion clinics. Abortion foes are waging a violent campaign of terrorism against women.

Born of fundamentalist zeal and total disregard for the law, the anti-abortionists’ threat has turned into a bloody reality. Murder, arson, bombings, chemical assault, death threats, burglary--when are people going to stop denying that Randall Terry and his followers are nothing less than calculating terrorists engaged in a conspiracy to prevent women from exercising a fundamental constitutional right?

Terry’s latest call to his troops was to go after doctors who perform abortions. Over the past year, the numerous factions that endorse Terry’s agenda have been disseminating propaganda to their followers through “wanted” posters that reveal doctors’ and their families’ names, phone numbers, addresses and license plate numbers. Can anyone deny that this invites the type of cold-blooded murder the world saw Wednesday in Pensacola, Fla.?

In January, the Supreme Court rejected our pleas to protect women seeking abortions under the 1871 Ku Klux Klan Act, which protected African-Americans from mob violence. Justice Antonin Scalia, who wrote the decision, didn’t believe that Operation Rescue and its followers were waging a war against women.

Congress can no longer deny that we need federal legislation that protects women’s civil rights. Congress must support that legislation before it’s too late and we witness more casualties of the religious right’s war on women.