Word: clinically
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Britton and escort James Barrett, 74, died instantly. Barrett's 68-year-old wife June suffered an arm wound. Minutes later, police arrested Paul Hill, a local antiabortion extremist who had long called for the blood of clinic personnel...
President Clinton was on television by the end of the day, calling Britton's death a case of "domestic terrorism" and promising federal aid to the local police. Women's groups were angrily demanding greater protection for clinic workers and full-scale investigations into other extremists. Behind the public rage was a great deal of frustration and perhaps even some despair. Pro- choicers began to wonder: What good is constructing an indestructible garment of laws to protect a constitutional right if some extremist simply ignores them all and blows someone's head...
Many abortion-rights supporters had hoped that the 1993 murder of Gunn by antiabortionist Michael Griffin would be unique -- and not only that but a turning point. As the apparent climax to a period of growing violence and obstructionism by hard-core clinic protesters, it became a catalyst for public disgust and government action. Within the next 15 months, two Supreme Court rulings, an act of Congress and dozens of state and local ordinances contributed to the impression that few places on earth could be much safer than an abortion clinic...
...also became a regular protester outside the Pensacola clinic; with eerie prescience, GQ writer Tom Junod portrayed him as the most likely threat to Britton's life. Others too saw him as an explosion waiting to happen. Ron Fitzsimmons, director of the National Coalition of Abortion Providers, who | first met him on Donahue, recalls having an edgy dialogue with Hill while in Pensacola to mark the anniversary of Gunn's death. "I remember I said, 'Paul, you're not going to kill me, are you?' I asked him why he hadn't killed any doctors. He said, 'Well, Ron, that...
...then, apparently, he changed his mind. Around 7 a.m. on Friday, the Pensacola police caught him planting a row of little crosses on the grounds of the Ladies Clinic and demanded that he remove them; he complied. At 7:30, after receiving a distress call about the shooting, they encountered him walking down a highway away from the clinic. He had more than a dozen shotgun shells strapped to his leg, ankle and pocket. He refused to tell them where the gun was, police said. (They found one on the clinic lawn.) But he did say, "I know one thing...