ABORTION: KEEP THE STATE OUT

As an advocate of abortion rights, I have long been angered and frustrated by groups, like Operation Rescue, that seek to physically hinder those women forced to make the painful personal decision to terminate their pregnancies. At the same time, I am not celebrating the passage of the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrance bill and many of the other tactics by my fellow supporters of reproductive freedom.

As one who has committed acts of nonviolent civil disobedience in opposition to racism, militarism and environmental desecration, I appreciate the moral and political commitment of those willing to engage in blockades, sit-ins and other pacific actions for principles they believe, despite my reservations over the chosen targets of antiabortion groups.

In fact, even though the leadership of the antiabortion movement is overwhelmingly right-wing, many of those arrested outside abortion clinics are committed pacifists who have been arrested with me for other causes.

As a result, I take issue with the recently passed law that appears to link conscientious, nonviolent protests to the violence, harassment and terrorism of some extremist sectors of the antiabortion movement. To do so is as unfair as the accusations of those who sought to lump the entire anti-Vietnam War movement with its most violent and radical elements.

In addition, it is troubling that Congress has devised a law targeted at a movement with a particular political goal rather than relying on existing laws against trespassing or disorderly conduct. One wonders how supporters of this legislation would have reacted if a bill were passed offering such special protection of nuclear power plants from similar peaceful protests.

More dangerous, however, has been the government's use of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act against antiabortion protesters. This established a dangerous precedent by using RICO, a statute designed to fight organized crime, against a political movement. As a result of these successful efforts, groups ranging from Act-Up to Greenpeace could now be accused of racketeering for conspiring to illegally disrupt activities they oppose.

This intolerance by abortion rights activists is also in evidence against political figures who support placing some restrictions on abortion. For example, Pennsylvania Gov. Robert Casey was denied the right to appear before the 1992 Democratic Convention solely because he supported placing some restrictions on abortion. However, the Democrats did provide a Republican operative in his opponent's campaign the very forum denied to the popular liberal Democratic governor of the country's fourth-largest state, solely because she was pro-choice.

Not long afterward, when Gov. Casey attempted to address a forum in New York sponsored by the liberal Village Voice, abortion rights hecklers prevented him from even speaking.

Throughout the country, antiabortion groups -- even those who identify with the left, like Feminists for Life and the Seamless Garment Network -- have regularly had their billboards defaced, meetings disrupted, tables overturned and other acts of harassment and intimidation by abortion rights advocates.

Some years ago, I was on the staff of a national disarmament group. Our policy was that any group that supported our goals could join the coalition, even if it included communist groups that supported the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan or Jewish groups that supported the Israeli invasion of Lebanon. However, when an antiabortion peace group, Pro-Lifers for Survival, tried to become a member, it was forced to withdraw its application.

My parents, who are pro-life liberals, have their car covered with bumper stickers advocating causes ranging from saving whales to ending nuclear power to promoting disarmament to supporting Palestinian statehood. Yet it is only their antiabortion stickers that get routinely torn off.

Those of us who wish to defend women's right to abortion will be far more effective if we are able to acknowledge the deep-felt moral concerns of our opponents. We must try to convince the antiabortion movement that state interference in such a private decision is dangerous. In fact, we must be able to communicate the important reality that in a world where there are so few alternatives available for women, abortion must remain a legal option, even as a terrible last resort.

However, the use of legislation along with the denial of free speech rights in order to silence those who disagree with us is both morally wrong and ultimately self-defeating.

The writer is a visiting professor of politics and government at the University of Puget Sound.

Articles appear as they were originally printed in The Washington Post and may not include subsequent corrections.