Date: Sat, 30 Sep 2000 18:41:45 -0500
From: Bill Spornitz <spornitz-AT-pangea.ca>
Subject: This is what they mean by avant-garde, right?


Catholic priest attacks Illinois abortion clinic




The Associated Press

Rockford, Ill. (September 30, 2000 4:49 p.m. EDT 
http://www.nandotimes.com) - A Catholic priest rammed his car into an 
abortion clinic Saturday morning, then chopped at the
building with an ax until the owner fired two shotgun blasts to stop 
him, police said.

The clinic was not open and no one was injured in the attack, which 
came just two days after federal approval of the abortion pill RU-486.

The man drove through a door at the Abortion Access Northern Illinois 
Women's Center around 8:15 a.m. He was swinging an ax when the 
clinic's owner fired a 12-gauge
shotgun twice. The owner did not hit the man.

The Rev. John Earl, 32, was arrested and charged with burglary and 
felony criminal damage to property, said Deputy Police Chief Dominic 
Iasparro. Earl was being held in
lieu of $10,000 bail.

Iasparro would not comment on statements Earl made to police about a 
possible motive.

Abortion providers usually are on alert for violence following 
abortion-related events in the news, such as this week's approval of 
RU-486 by the U.S. Food and Drug
Administration, said Vicki Saporta, executive director of the 
National Abortion Federation.

"We haven't received any specific threats, but anytime abortion is in 
the headlines we issue an alert to our clinics to take precautions 
because there is the potential for
increased violence," she said.

The Rockford clinic is not one of the NAF's 360 member facilities, 
but "it's just kind of common sense that clinics would be on alert," 
she said.

Earl did not reach the clinic offices with the ax, so damage was 
confined to the exterior overhead door he crashed through and 
woodwork in a hallway, Iasparro said.

The clinic houses the office of Dr. Richard Ragsdale. Ragsdale said 
there have been vocal protests outside the clinic during the past 
four or five months, but he said he had
not noticed Earl.

"I'm not surprised that something happened on the heels of the RU-486 
announcement," he said. "But this is a little more violent than we 
were expecting."

Ragsdale said the clinic will open as scheduled Monday.

Ragsdale filed a landmark 1983 lawsuit challenging Illinois abortion 
restrictions, contending that they required doctors performing 
abortions to conduct their practices in
buildings that are, in effect, hospitals. Under a settlement that was 
upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1990, women fewer than 18 weeks 
pregnant may undergo abortions
in clinics, while those beyond that term require full-service 
surgical facilities.

Rockford is located about 85 miles northwest of Chicago.


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