Abortion Providers

AURORA, Ill. -- Dr. Aleksander Jakubowski, frequent target for increasingly violent attacks by anti-abortion demonstrators, takes a surprisingly mild view of the protesters who often clamor outside his office.The 53-year-old physician came to the United States as a Cold War refugee in 1968. And because he can remember the absence of freedom in the then-Communist bloc, he doesn't become deeply perturbed by the demonstrations."When you look out the window and see people protesting peacefully, you say, 'I'm in America,' " he said.

Dr. Barnett Slepian, an obstetrician with a practice in suburban Buffalo, N.Y., returned home from synagogue Friday night with his wife, Lynn, and greeted his four sons. Then he stepped into his kitchen, where a sniper's bullet crashed through a back window and struck him in the chest, police said.He fell to the floor, calling for help, but he died within two hours.Slepian was one of a handful of doctors who provide abortions in the Buffalo area.Law enforcement officials said yesterday that his slaying was the most deadly example of what they described as an annual pattern of anti-abortion violence in Canada and western New York.

If federal Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr. is confirmed to the U.S. Supreme Court, opponents of abortion have high hopes that he will help craft decisions that outlaw or significantly limit the procedure. But even if the court eventually rules that the Constitution does not protect a woman's right to an abortion, the procedure will likely remain readily available in Maryland. Most legal scholars agree that if the court overturns Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 abortion decision, each state would have the authority to decide whether the procedure is legal.

After years of substantial declines, the number of abortions performed in the United States increased very slightly in 1996, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.There were 1,221,585 abortions reported to the CDC in 1996, a 0.9 percent increase from the 1,210,883 reported in 1995 -- but still 15 percent below the 1,429,577 peak reported in 1990.The abortion ratio also rose slightly, to 314 from 311 for every 1,000 live births, in part because the number of live births was a little lower.

THOUGHT much about the abortion issue lately? Probably not. And that's the idea.An eerie quiet has come over many of the usually clamorous sources of abortion opposition. From Christian Coalition guru Pat Robertson to hyper-right commentators like Cal Thomas to the pack of Republican presidential runners wheezing ever farther behind Texas Gov. George W. Bush, the issue is being downplayed. If they are asked, then, yes, they are still for criminalizing abortion once again, but the old fire has been banked, or seems to have been.

INDIANAPOLIS -- Taking direct aim at Roe v. Wade, lawmakers from several states are proposing broad restrictions on abortion, with the goal of forcing the U.S. Supreme Court to revisit the landmark ruling issued 33 years ago today. A bill under consideration in Indiana would ban all abortions, except when continuing the pregnancy would put the woman's life or physical health in danger of "substantial permanent impairment." Similar legislation is pending in Ohio, Georgia and Tennessee. The bills conflict with the Supreme Court's 1973 rulings establishing abortion as a constitutional right.

The Kansas attorney general cannot have unfettered access to the records of 90 patients who had abortions at two clinics, the state Supreme Court ruled yesterday, ending a case that had sparked a national outcry over patient privacy. Attorney General Phill Kline, an outspoken abortion foe, subpoenaed the records last February as part of an investigation into possible violations of Kansas law, which forbids abortions after 22 weeks unless the mother's life is at risk. Kline was also investigating whether minors who had abortions were abused.

Anti-abortion activists have stepped up their Internet attack on doctors and women's clinics, this time with Maryland as their first target.Under a heading that simulates dripping blood, creators of "The Nuremberg Trials" Web site list 27 "Alleged Maryland Abortionists," with addresses, telephone numbers, names of family members and in most cases a photograph.Visitors to the Web site can click on a button labeled "submit evidence" to type in additional personal information about the doctors.

PENSACOLA, Fla. -- Paul J. Hill, the former Presbyterian minister and abortion protester, has been convicted on federal charges of killing two people and wounding a third in an attempt to thwart legal abortions at a clinic here.Yesterday's verdict, by a jury of six men and six women, came in the first case brought to trial under a four-month-old federal law enacted to combat increasing violence against clinics and abortion providers around the country.The jury deliberated a little more than two hours after Hill, representing himself, had mounted virtually no defense.

Susan Hill is looking for a doctor to replace David Gunn at the Columbus, Ga., abortion clinic where he had worked until he was killed earlier this month.She has been telephoning every family practitioner between Columbus and Atlanta, including a few who have retired. So far, only one doctor has said he might be interested -- if he can convince his wife that he won't be killed. But that does not surprise Ms. Hill, who oversees eight clinics, including the one in Columbus.For her, and other abortion-rights advocates, the shooting of Dr. Gunn March 10 outside a clinic in Pensacola, Fla., has only underscored what they see as a crisis in women's health care: the increasing difficulty of finding doctors who will perform abortions.