Setting aside a longstanding reluctance to involve itself in cases of abortion-related violence, the FBI has begun a broad inquiry into accusations that the use of force against women's clinics and their doctors is the work of a conspiracy by anti-abortion militants.
A confidential teletype sent to all 56 FBI field offices on Saturday evening, one day after the fatal shooting of a doctor and his security escort outside an abortion clinic in Pensacola, Fla., said the bureau had information, "volunteered" by abortion rights groups, indicating that about half a dozen anti-abortion militants might be posing "a conspiracy that endeavors to achieve political or social change through activities that involve force or violence."The teletype listed well-known anti-abortion figures including the Rev. David C. Trosch, Michael Bray, C. Roy McMillan, Matthew Trewhella, David Crane and Donald Spitz. All of them signed the "justifiable homicide" declaration, which circulated recently among anti-abortion militants, that supported killing doctors who perform abortions.
In a telephone interview from Mobile, Ala., Trosch, a Roman Catholic priest whom the church has suspended because of his advocacy of lethal force against abortion doctors, denied any conspiracy.
The teletype set off the first full government inquiry of accusations by abortion rights leaders that a campaign of terror is under way at the nation's abortion clinics, a campaign that these advocates say the authorities have failed to deal with.
The inquiry was brought on by pressure from the Justice Department, the FBI's parent, whose senior leaders, including Attorney General Janet Reno, are unequivocal supporters of abortion rights.
On Friday about 5 p.m., less than 10 hours after the killing of Dr. John B. Britton and his security escort, James H. Barrett, outside the Pensacola Ladies Center, Reno spoke with Louis J. Freeh, the FBI director. Freeh then set the investigation in motion, said one law-enforcement official, who maintained that despite misgivings of some FBI officials, the director had been eager to take on this high-profile inquiry important to the Clinton administration.
In a series of intensive discussions that continued into Saturday, federal agents met with representatives of abortions rights groups like the Feminist Majority, the National Organization for Women, Planned Parenthood and the National Abortion Federation.