Anthrax, since 1998, has been ignored
- Laura Flanders

Anthrax scares have thrust the United States into new consciousness, we're told. Suddenly, regular Americans fear for their lives not only when they fly, or travel or rise high in an elevator. We're worrying at home, at the office, wherever we open the mail . . . the threat comes incognito in that most familiar, low-tech wrapping: an envelope.

Debi Jackson, director of Cincinnati Women's Services, relates:

"February 18, 1999, will be forever etched in my memory," Jackson writes. "I came to my clinic, Cincinnati Women's Services, on that morning expressly to counsel a patient who was unable to talk to me at any other time. I had a few minutes free before I was leaving to enjoy the rest of my day off. I chose to take that time to open the mail.

"We had recently changed our protocols for opening the mail when clinics across the country began receiving letters threatening Anthrax contamination in September of 1998. Now, I was the only person authorized to open the mail so none of my staff people would risk possible exposure. This particular morning I looked through the mail for anything suspicious, such as no return address. Everything looked normal - in fact, I joked with my staff that it looked like junk mail day!

"The last piece I opened was a business-sized manila-colored envelope with a return address label from a medical instrument company with which I was unfamiliar (this is a daily occurrence at a medical facility where we receive sales pitches from medical instrument suppliers on a daily basis). When I opened the envelope and saw the paper smudged with a brown powdery substance with a crudely drawn skull and crossbones I felt a shiver run down my spine.

"Above the skull was typed 'Anthrax' and below was typed 'Have a nice death.' I asked one of my staff to close the door to my office so no one but myself would be exposed."

You don't have to go to Northern Ireland to find people familiar with daily terror. Abortion providers have lived with it for decades. Yet even after 90 Planned Parenthood clinics in 13 states received anthrax threats on Monday, U.S. media seem determined to ignore the abortion-providers' experience here at home. Many papers quipped that women's clinics were the most prepared to handle suspicious packages; the least rattled, the most informed. But ever since, media have studiously ignored them. Why?

Four days ago, the National Abortion Federation (the professional association of abortion providers in the United States and Canada) released a press statement. "This type of threat is unfortunately not new to abortion providers," said the federation's director, Vicki Saporta. "Those who are opposed to a woman's right to choose have not hesitated to resort to bio-terrorist threats and attacks to advance their personal agenda. "

In response to anthrax threats received at more than eighty clinics from late 1998 to 2000, NAF developed a brochure, "Anthrax: Bioterrorism Against Reproductive Health Care Clinics." The brochure has been distributed to abortion providers around the country, as well as to law enforcement officials, including the ATF and FBI.

A smart attorney general might commission a special print run of those brochures for national distribution -- and pay NAF a grateful sum for having such useful materials so presciently prepared. Why should not the NAF's materials be distributed to a frightened nation, or even the people be told that such safety-manuals exist?

In 1999, Debi Jackson in Cincinnati was the first person in the city's history to receive an anthrax threat. It took FBI and local police a while to figure out a correct response procedure. Her office was shut down for two days, but eventually she and her staff returned to work, serving their women clients. Want to see model Americans who refuse to let terror stop them? Who maintain their beliefs, their values, and keep on doing what they know is right no matter what? Meet Debi Jackson and the staff of Cincinnati Women's Services. Meet Vicki Saporta and the Canadian and U.S. organizations that comprise the NAF.

Reporters and talk show hosts don't have to go elsewhere; American anti-terror heroes are right here, working right now in every state in the country. They are everywhere, in fact, excepting in our newspapers and on our TVs and radios. Why?