ABORTION CLINIC BOMB KILLS 1.Byline: Rick Bragg Rick Bragg (born July 26, 1959 in Piedmont, Alabama) won the Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing in 1996 for his work at The New York Times. He credits his writing ability to the oral storytelling of family and friends in his childhood in the Appalachian foothills of The New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of Times In what is believed to be the first fatal bombing of an abortion clinic An abortion clinic is a medical facility that performs or specializes in abortions. Such clinics may be public medical centers or private medical practices. Planned Parenthood, whose clinics offer abortions as well as other reproductive care and counseling, is the largest in the United States United States, officially United States of America, republic (2005 est. pop. 295,734,000), 3,539,227 sq mi (9,166,598 sq km), North America. The United States is the world's third largest country in population and the fourth largest country in area. , an off-duty police officer was killed and a nurse critically wounded in a blast early Thursday at a clinic on Birmingham's south side. The explosion at the New Woman, All Women Health Care Clinic, long a target of protesters, went off about 7:30 a.m., just as the clinic was opening, said the city's police chief, W. M. Coppage. The bomb, believed to have been a small homemade device planted just outside the front of the clinic, killed Robert D. Sanderson, 35, an eight-year police veteran who was working part-time as a guard at the clinic. The blast also badly injured Emily Lyons, 41, a nurse who was opening the clinic. Lyons, in surgery all day Thursday, was wounded in her face, including one eye, and both legs were seriously injured. Investigators refused to comment on suspects, if any. One prominent abortion protester was taken in for questioning but was released. Coppage said there were no threats or warnings at the clinic, which is within a block of two college dormitories, a day-care center day-care center: see day nursery. , an apartment for parents of critically ill children and some restaurants. ``We deplore de·plore tr.v. de·plored, de·plor·ing, de·plores 1. To feel or express strong disapproval of; condemn: "Somehow we had to master events, not simply deplore them" this despicable incident,'' said Mayor Richard Arrington. If the bomb had gone off just a few minutes later, another employee, Lisa Hermes, might have been one of the casualties. Hermes, a counselor at the clinic, was about a block away, driving to work, when she heard the blast. When she stepped from the car in front of the building, she just said, ``Oh, my God.'' Sanderson and Lyons, who investigators said had been near the bomb, lay in pools of blood and fragments of broken glass. Terry Hermes, who ran to the clinic, said he saw the officer's bomb-mutilated body and called to his wife on the other side of the street: ``Don't come across.'' Although five people have been killed by gunfire at abortion clinics since 1993, Sanderson was apparently the first person to die in the bombing of a clinic, said agents with the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. ``As we have continually said, clinics cannot continue to be bombed and burned without someone getting hurt,'' said Vicki Saporta, executive director of the National Abortion Federation The National Abortion Federation (NAF) is an organization of abortion providers. Though originally a U.S. group, NAF has expanded to include practitioners in Canada and Australia as well as many European countries. , based in Washington, D.C. ``It is with a heavy heart that we have now witnessed the grave truth of those words.'' More than 100 investigators combed the crime scene for pieces of the bomb, which agents of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms refused to describe in any detail. The investigation was slowed because federal, state and local law-enforcement officials feared there might be a second bomb, as there had been in the bombing of an abortion clinic last year in Atlanta. On Jan. 16, 1997, two bombs shook an office building containing Northside Family Planning family planning Use of measures designed to regulate the number and spacing of children within a family, largely to curb population growth and ensure each family’s access to limited resources. Services, a women's clinic that performs abortions. The first bomb blew through an outside wall of the building. As investigators, firefighters and reporters milled around the building about an hour later, a second bomb hidden in a corner of an adjoining parking lot exploded, injuring six people. Investigators said the first bomb, the weaker of the two, was intended to draw people to the scene, and the second bomb was intended to maim maim v. to inflict a serious bodily injury, including mutilation or any harm which limits the victim's ability to function physically. Originally, in English Common Law it meant to cut off or permanently cripple a bodily member like an arm, leg, hand, or foot. or kill. Investigators have said they believe those bombs were linked to the bombing of a lesbian nightclub just a few weeks later, as well as to the blast that killed one person and injured 100 at Centennial Olympic Park Centennial Olympic Park is a 21 acre (85,000 m²) public park located in downtown Atlanta, Georgia, USA that is owned and operated by the Georgia World Congress Center Authority. during the 1996 Summer Olympic Games The Summer Olympic Games or the Games of the Olympiad are an international multi-sport event held every four years, organised by the International Olympic Committee. . Federal agents from Atlanta rushed to Birmingham. ``At this stage of the game, we don't know'' if there is a connection, said Bill King, an ATF ATF Molecular virology Activating transcription factor A cellular protein that stimulates transcription of adenovirus E4 transcription unit, which acts early in infection at any of several 'enhancer' binding sites agent in Atlanta. But other agents said the proximity - Atlanta and Birmingham are only 125 miles apart - was reason enough to suspect a link. There have been 199 attacks, including nonfatal bombings, on abortion clinics since 1982, when the firearms agency first started to track them. Clinic workers in Birmingham had feared some kind of attack as the 25th anniversary of Roe vs. Wade, the landmark Supreme Court decision. More than 500 people demonstrated nonviolently against abortion last week in Birmingham. CAPTION(S): Photo PHOTO Women hug outside an Alabama clinic that was bombed Thursday. Associated Press |
|
||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion