The Act of a Coward

It was a coward who fatally shot two women and wounded five other people at abortion clinics near Boston on Friday. There can be no justification for such violence, not at abortion clinics, not anywhere.

President Clinton condemned what he termed “the meaningless violence� at a Planned Parenthood office and another clinic in Brookline, Mass. “Violence has no place in America. No matter where we stand on the issue of abortion, all Americans must stand together in condemning this tragic and brutal act.� He is right.

Clinton also quoted Ronald Reagan, who, when he was president, opposed abortion but urged “a complete rejection of violence as a means of settling this issue.� Reagan, too, was right.

The National Right to Life Committee, to its credit, also denounced the shootings. Violence against those who perform or seek legal abortions--which are protected by federal law--must be decried in the strongest terms by all people of goodwill.

Despite a tough new law that makes it a federal crime to harm or interfere with those who provide legal abortions, violence is on the rise at abortion clinics. A former minister, Paul Hill, was the first person to be convicted under the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act. He was sentenced to die earlier this year for killing a physician and his unarmed escort outside an abortion clinic in Pensacola, Fla. Using that same new law, the Justice Department has been pursuing civil cases seeking monetary damages from defendants convicted of blockading a clinic in Milwaukee. The Justice Department has also assigned federal marshals to guard several clinics. None had been assigned to the Brookline clinics, however, and some have been removed from the other clinics. That’s an invitation to trouble.

A new Justice Department task force and a federal grand jury are investigating whether there is an organized campaign of shootings, death threats, arson, firebombings and vandalism. No effort should be spared.

Debate is to be expected on an issue as controversial as abortion. But as Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala lamented: “Two women shot dead, in the name of life. Is this how we settle arguments in America?� Certainly not.