SheKos: No One Acts Alone

Today, we gratefully welcome back Aji's "Sage and Sweetgrass" column after several weeks' hiatus! Be sure to read to the end and to greet her in the comments.

Scott Roeder and the Anti-Choice Conspiracy

by LeanneB, SheKos editor

This week, Ms. Magazine ran an article by Amanda Robb that explores, and ultimately shatters, the stubborn assertion by militant anti-choicers that murderer Scott Roeder and others who choose to resort to homicide to stop abortion are "lone wolves" who act alone, without support and encouragement. Robb has uncovered intersecting connections that clearly reveal a network of like-minded abortion-haters who are convinced that violence is justified by their cause.

Article reprinted from the Spring 2010 issue of Ms., available on newsstands now. To have this issue delivered straight to your door, join the Ms. community

Robb's article is well worth reading in full, which I highly recommend you do. While she admits that she conducted dozens of interviews with Roeder, he is not the focus of her piece. Instead, her purpose is to provide the reader with a blueprint of some of the scattered and disparate figures who make up the movement and then to connect the dots between them. The idea is to clear away some of the murk in order to see the ways that these people have interacted, and how they are connected and influencing each other even if they haven't directly met.

It is the oldest, possibly most dangerous abortion story out there.

   

August 13, 1994, The Washington Post: "Many anti-abortion leaders have... denounced Paul Hill [who killed abortion provider Dr. John Britton and his security escort James Barrett]...as a lone, sick extremist."

   

October 26, 1998, The Independent (London): "A doctor defiant [is] shot dead for his beliefs by a lone abortion terrorist [referring to James Kopp, who killed Amherst, N.Y., abortion provider Dr. Barnett Slepian]."

But for loners, these guys have a lot of friends. A lot of the same ones, in fact.

Over the past six months, I have interviewed Scott Roeder more than a dozen times, met several times with his supporters at the Sedgwick County Courthouse in Wichita where he was tried and convicted, and permissibly recorded numerous three-way telephone conversations Roeder had me place to his friends. Using information gleaned from these sources, along with public records, it is possible to piece together the close, long-term and ongoing relationship between Roeder and other anti-abortion extremists who advocate murder and violent attacks on abortion providers.

Robb goes on to briefly recount Roeder's beginnings in the anti-government and anti-choice circles, tracing whom he met and when, examining who mentored or influenced those people, and exploring the acts and writings of all these people. Roeder was more than willing to be open and candid about his evolution to cold-blooded murderer, steadfastly maintaining that his conviction that his heinous crime was 100% justified.

Particularly chilling, to me, was how intensely interested Roeder was, even early in his involvement with abortion protesting, in the idea that violence against abortion clinics and providers was justifiable. It sounds as though Roeder broached the topic every time he got anywhere near someone prominent in the anti-choice movement.

When Scott Roeder arrived at Regina Dinwiddie’s house with Eugene Frye in 1994 or 1995 to meet Michael Bray, he was nearly giddy, by his own recollection to me:

   

Roeder: I think it was right after Paul Hill...I got to meet [Bray] and I heard that he’d been on 60 Minutes. ...I just kept asking Mike [Bray] questions because I was so fascinated with him, you know...As a matter of fact, Gene [Frye] had to tell me to quit asking him    questions.

   Amanda Robb: [But] did you guys discuss justifiable homicide? If it was justifiable to shoot a doctor?

   Roeder: Oh yeah, yeah. We definitely discussed that, and like I say, Michael [Bray], he’s been outspoken, and he’s always said, as long as I’ve known him, he’s always said it’s been justified to do that.

Roeder first stalked Tiller at his Wichita church, Reformation Lutheran, in 2002, the year Operation Rescue moved there. Operation Rescue had already begun demonstrating at the church, and on the group’s website Newman had announced plans to gather at Tiller’s clinic, church and home.

Also that year, Roeder says he went to lunch with [Operation Rescue President Troy] Newman and asked him about using violence to stop abortion.

   

Robb: What did you say to him?    Roeder: Oh, something like if an abortionist—I don’t even know if it was specifically Tiller...was shot, would it be justified? ... And [Newman] said, "If it were, it wouldn’t upset me."

Robb goes on to trace all of Roeder's admitted connections to each other and to other people in the movement who have either preached violence as justifiable or have served prison sentences for having done so, or both. She even presents a graphic representation of the interconnections.

Her conclusion is that all of this evidence more than meets the usual standards for declaring Roeder (and many others convicted of violence against abortion clinics and providers) to be part of a conspiracy to commit domestic terrorism.

The government does not have to prove that conspirators have entered into any formal agreement. Because they are trying to hide what they are doing, criminal conspirators rarely do such things as draw up contracts. Nor does the government have to show that the members of the conspiracy state between themselves what their object or purpose or methods are. Because they are clandestine, criminal conspirators rarely discuss their plans in a straightforward way. The government only has to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the members of a conspiracy, in some implied way, came to mutually understand they would attempt to accomplish a common and unlawful plan.

Given the broad latitude in proving conspiracy, you’d think the same legal theory could have been used in prosecuting slayings of abortion doctors. Yet to date, only the individual murderers of abortion providers have been charged and prosecuted. No charges have been brought against any individuals for conspiracy to commit those murders.

Again, I urge you to read Robb's entire article to fully appreciate the depth of her information and her well-drawn conclusions.

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THIS WEEK IN WOMEN'S HISTORY: Peace, Music, Love, and a Presidency

      by joedemocrat, SheKos contributor

• This week in 1647, the first recorded execution of a "witch," Achsah Young (also known as Alice Young and Alse Young), took place in Hartford, Conn. She was hanged. Her daughter, also Alice Young, was accused of witchcraft three decades later. Witchcraft was a capital crime in Connecticut until 1750.
• This week in 1888, Clara Barton founded the American Red Cross. During the Civil War, she worked extensively with wounded Union soldiers. She was initially involved in sending supplies, then in providing nursing care, and finally President Abe Lincoln put her in charge of locating missing Union soldiers. These duties gained her the audience and respect necessary to start the American Red Cross.
• This week in 1929, Beverly Sills was born. She was a famous American opera singer who performed from the 1950's through the 1970s. In 1971, Time Magazine called her "America's Queen of Opera." She retired from opera music in 1980, and following her retirement she became active in working to prevent birth defects. One of her best known performances was Lucia di Lammermoor featured below:
• This week in 1935, noted Hull House founder, peace activist, and Nobel Peace Prize winner Jane Adaams passed away. In 1885, she traveled to Europe with a friend and they visited a settlement house, Toynbee Hall, in London. This gave her the inspiration to set up a similar house in Chicago. In 1889, she started her own settlement house in Chicago named "Hull House." Hull House would eventually host around 2,000 people each week. The house had a night school for adults, kindergarten classes, an art gallery, public kitchen, library, music school, book bindery, and many other activities. She was also a peace activist, and opposed the U.S getting involved in World War I. Politically, she campaigned for Theodore Roosevelt's 1912 Presidential campaign on the Progressive Party. In 1931, she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
• This week in 1944, Mary Robinson was born. She was the first female President of Ireland in office from 1990 to 1997. She was also appointed by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan to serve as the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights from 1997 to 2002. She brought respect back to the Presidency in Ireland, and she is widely respected for her work on human rights.

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 WOMEN AND WORK: Art

      by pat of butter in a sea of grits, SheKos contributor

Salon had an article recently about a documentary about five women artists, Who Does She Think She Is? (This film will be showing in Alexandria, VA, on June 4 and in Columbus, OH on July 1.) The filmmaker, Pamela Boll, is interviewed in the Salon piece.

The fact is, when women's work is next to a man's, it is automatically assumed that it won't increase in value. We need to shake up the art world. Ask artists to keep going. Maybe create more cooperative art places. Artists should definitely put their work on the Internet, which can be a more democratic place. We need to keep persisting and paying attention -- I came of age in the late '70s and even then there was a women's column and a man's column for jobs. It's only been a very short time that we've been on a path to honor both sexes.

The article points out that even in recent years, female artists in a variety of media tend to be less successful than male artists.

Let's be blunt: while about half of trained artists in the U.S. are female, women make up two percent of the artists featured at the National Gallery of Art and seven percent at the National Portrait Gallery. Think the dissonance merely reflects history? At the Hirshhorn Museum, which specializes in contemporary art, women are five percent of featured artists. The pattern is paralleled in other art forms as well -- consider the eleven female winners of the Nobel Prize for Literature over the last 100-plus years.

According to this list of the artists who were searched most often in September 2009, only two of the top 30 (Georgia O'Keefe and Frida Kahlo) were women. (No, Joan Miro was not a woman ;))

Music may be a slightly more democratic art form, at least as far as sales go. Wikipedia has a list of Billboard chart achievements and there are a surprising (to me, anyway) number of women among the top sellers, including Mariah Carey and Whitney Houston (most weeks at #1), Leann Rimes (most weeks in the top 10 or Hot 100), number-1 debuts (the above plus Celine Dion, Lauryn Hill, Carrie Underwood, Britney Spears), Kelly Clarkson (biggest jump to #1), Aretha Franklin (most Hot 100 entries), and Madonna (most top 40 hits). Likewise, the list of best selling musicians includes a significant number of women (or groups that include women, like ABBA). Is the fact that music is an art form with a far broader fan base than the visual arts tend to have a reason for this disparity in success?

Why are men so much more successful? Well, for one thing, they may have more freedom to devote to their art careers, just like men in the working world do. Women artists so rarely have a wife who will clean the house, cook and care for the children while they are busy working on their art. Whether the changes in the workforce of the past few decades will result in greater success by women artists remains to be seen, but as Pamela Boll states, museums shouldn't relegate women's art to special shows once every few years; women artists need to be part of the exhibits on a daily basis.

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 IN CASE YOU MISSED IT

      by Oke, SheKos contributor

• In Birth control restrictions reduce women to resources, barrettbrown writes about Pathfinders International, a charitable organization dedicated to working for women's reproductive rights worldwide.  This group works in 25 countries to provide birth control information and materials, and helps build local organizations providing women's healthcare.  Consider making a donation.
• In Anti-Choice Woman-Hating Goes Mainstream, RH Reality Check diaries about inroads made by the anti-choice movement--including statements by the Diocese of Phoenix (saying that it may be appropriate for a woman to die when she has an abortion) and the now infamous Oklahoma anti-abortion law.  The diarist argues that there is a strong anti-woman statement in these laws, as well as a strong mean-spiritedness.
• In I am a catholic, patsm tells us about the Independent Catholic movement, and the "Holy Angels Catholic Community", both groups which are accepting of gays and supportive of a deeper relationship with the "Woman God".  An intriguing diary with questions at the end for the reader.

And from outside the Orange:

• "Sex and the City 2": Materialistic, Misogynistic, Borderline Racist -- How Did a Great Show Get Ruined?

  I'm not asking for much. I just don't want to be sick in my mouth. I don't want to leave the cinema feeling like I've paid £7.50 to be mocked, patronized and kicked in the face. I don't want to be filled with despair at Hollywood's increasing inability to conceive of women in comedic films as anything other than self-obsessed babies with breasts. And I don't, most of all, want to spend two hours watching dreams and memories from my youth being trampled into humiliating self-parody. Is that too much to ask?

• UK airs first-ever TV ad for abortion services

  The ad says:

  If you're late for your period, you could be pregnant. If you're pregnant and not sure what to do, Marie Stopes International can help.

  Despite the simple, uncontroversial language and late night airing, anti-choice folks are still up in arms about it.....

• Holding Hypocrite Congressman Souder's Feet to the Fire on Dangerous Abstinence Education

  Yesterday, news broke that Rep. Mark Souder (R-IN) is resigning in the wake of an affair with a female aide.  A "family values" conservative who’s sold himself as a proponent of "traditional marriage," Souder repeatedly advocated federal funding for abstinence-only-until-marriage programs even after the programs were exposed as ineffectual and harmful to young people.

  Shortly after the news of his resignation broke, a video surfaced of Souder being interviewed by the staffer with whom he was reportedly having an affair. In it, he attacks a 2008 hearing, chaired by Rep. Henry Waxman, on the efficacy of abstinence programs...

• Pedophilia is Fine, but Hold the Abortion

  In another story from Arizona, but one that’s attracting less attention than that state’s check your documents anti-immigration law, a nun in Phoenix has been ex-communicated after approving a live-saving abortion. Sister Margaret McBride was excommunicated for approving an abortion without which, doctors say, both the woman and her 11-week-old fetus would have died. According to Thomas Olmsted, the Bishop of Phoenix, approving an abortion is an excommunicating offense -period.

• Feminism vs Abortion

  So I found this article at the Washington Post. Colleen Campbell is arguing the existence and validation of pro-life - or anti-abortion - feminists. The organization she cites is Feminists for Life , who believe "women deserve better choices" and that "no woman should be forced to choose between sacrificing her education and career plans and sacrificing her child."

  I feel so torn on this. For about a minute and half. And then I remember what would happen if I got pregnant. I would get an abortion. Just as fast as my little feet could carry me to a Planned Parenthood. But not because I don't want a child to get in the way of my career plans - though that is applicable to me, it's not the whole story. I would get an abortion because I don't want kids. I have of course reinforced this plan of mine by the vigorous - you could say militant - use and monitoring of my birth control, but if something happened, I would get an abortion. And I believe that is a right that I am entitled to.

◆◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆◇  SAGE AND SWEETGRASS: Crisis at Pine Ridge

      by Aji, SheKos contributor  

Apologies to all for my recent absence. A laptop meltdown is inconvenient anytime, but especially so when one is 300 miles from home. Spirit willing, though, I'm back and you're stuck with me.

Today I'm going to do something a bit different: I'm going to ask for your help. As many of you know, I'm part of the Native American Netroots team, founded and led by Kossack navajo. Many of you participated in our diaries on the long-term winter weather emergency that hit several South Dakota reservations, and donated generously of your money, supplies, time, and support. We need your help again. Some background information follows; at the end, what you can do to help.

Pine Ridge - Some Numbers

During the winter, we focused on three South Dakota reservations where the weather and its effects were most severe: Cheyenne River, Pine Ridge, and Rosebud. For purposes of today's edition, I'm going to focus on Pine Ridge, but all three reservations - and many more throughout the nation - are in similar straits.

At Pine Ridge (like many other reservations), it is not unusual to find women as heads of household. Moreover, they're often housing and caring for multiple generations: children, grandchildren, sometimes great-grandchildren, as well as elderly parents or grandparents. Frequently, they take in uncles, aunts, nieces, nephews, and distant cousins who are in need. Large numbers of women are de facto guardians of and primary caregivers for their grandchildren. None of this is particularly surprising, given that the average household income is less than $3,800 a year.

Yes, you read that right: The average household income on the Pine Ridge Reservation is less than three thousand, eight hundred dollars annually.

Further complicating the situation are the inhumane living conditions on many reservations. I've seen statistics estimating the life expectancy of the average man at Pine Ridge between age 43 and age 48 - equivalent to that of the average Somali male. At a life expectancy of 52, Pine Ridge women don't fare much better. The reservation's unemployment rate exceeds 80%; its poverty rate is one of the worst in the nation; both chronic illness, such as diabetes, and acute illnesses, such as certain forms of cancer, appear at rates between 100% and 800% higher than in the nation as a whole; and the adolescent suicide rate is 150% higher than in the general U.S. population. Alcoholism and methamphetamine addiction long ago reached epidemic proportions.

Against this backdrop, it's similarly no surprise that housing has become an emergent issue. Then-tribal president John Yellow Bird Steele testified in 2007 before the Senate Indian Affairs Committee:

On our reservation, there are hundreds of families who live in overcrowded situations. It is not at all unusual to find a single family home occupied by two elders, their married daughter and her husband, one or two families of married grandchildren and three or four great grandchildren. This results in 10 or 12 people living in a house that is built to house a maximum of four. Now, you don’t see this situation reflected in the surveys of our housing entity, the Oglala Sioux Lakota Housing, and in HUD reports, because the adults in this family know that this type of overcrowded situation may violate HUD guidelines and could be grounds for eviction, so they have become very skilled at moving people into hiding whenever our reservation Housing personnel conduct surveys.

Because we lack adequate affordable housing, many newly married couples find themselves living with their parents or other relatives, simply because they have no other place to go. Because we have no nursing home on our reservation, large number of families also have one or more elders living with them, often with serious health problems, and it is not uncommon for our children to share a bedroom and sometimes a bed with one or more of their siblings.

Housing in Indian Country Nationally

These problems are hardly confined to Pine Ridge. Reservations nationwide suffer from similar problems. According to the National American Indian Housing Council [NAIHC]:

* An estimated 200,000 housing units are needed immediately in Indian country.

* Homeless: Approximately 90,000 Native families are homeless or under-housed.

For those with housing, NAIHC reports that conditions are often substandard, and to a far greater degree than in the general U.S. population:

* In tribal areas, 14.7% of homes are overcrowded, compared to 5.7% of homes of the general U.S. population. (Census Bureau, 2000)

* Lack of Plumbing: On Native American lands, 11.7% of residents lack complete plumbing facilities, compared to 1.2% of the general U.S. population. (Census Bureau, 2000)

* Lack of Telephone Service: 16.9%, compared to 2.4%. (Census Bureau, 2000)

* Lack of Kitchen Facilities: 11%, compared to 1% (Government Accounting Office, 2005)

* Lack of Utility Gas: 72%, compared to 49% (Government Accounting Office, 2005)

Keep in mind that none of these statistics accounts for the homes damaged by this past winter's ice storms and extreme temperatures. Many of the extant homes have been badly damaged, some beyond repair: pipes broken and burst; roofing torn off; walls destroyed by water damage and high winds. We also learned that a significant percentage of the existing homes on some of the South Dakota reservations are contaminated with extremely toxic "black mold," which is a major health risk. Experts say that there is little that can be done to remediate a black mold infestation; apparently the only economically efficient solution is to tear down, eradicate any sources in the area, and rebuild. On an initial review, it does not appear that federal tribal homelessness and "underhousing" statistics include these contaminated homes, so the housing need is likely to be much greater than official figures suggest.

In areas like Pine Ridge, it's virtually impossible for folks to obtain housing through conventional means. Again, according to NAIHC:

Mortgage Financing

* The Native American homeownership rate is estimated to be as low as 33%, lowest among all ethnic groups and less than half the rate for the general U.S. population. ("Homeownership in Indian Country," The Enterprise Institute, 2004)

* HUD Section 184 Indian Housing Loan Guarantee Program: Created in 1992, the program provides 100% reimbursement to private lenders in case of default. It has facilitated 2,647 loans amounting to almost $277 million; more than 280 individual financial institutions, a number of which have multiple branches, have become participants in Section 184; 27 of them are new in FY 2005. Of the 2,647 loans, 1,628 were fee simple, 119 on individual allotments and 900 on tribal trust. From 2004-2005 production increased: 2004- 619 loans for over $62 million; 2005- 634 loans for almost $77 million. (HUD as Nov. 7, 2005)

* Fannie Mae Invests in Indian Country: Over the most recent five years, Fannie Mae provided $640 million for more than 7,100 families on tribal lands. From year to year their investment grew exponentially, from $30.2 million in 1999 to $290 million in 2003. (Fannie Mae as of October 2004)

* Denial Rates for Conventional Home Purchase Loans In 2002 In 2003 Native American 23 % 23 % White 12 % 11.6 % Hispanic 18 % 18.4 % Black 26 % 24.3 % Asian 10 % 11.4 %

* Number of Conventional/Government-Backed Home Purchase Loans Made to Americans In 2002 In 2003 % change Native American 18,752 17,850 -4.8 % White 3,341,732 3,717,880 11.3 % Hispanic 449,893 528,529 17.5 % Black 291,491 334,658 14.8 % Asian 206,909 240,407 16.2 %

(All loan data from: Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council for institutions covered by the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act, August 2004)

* A review of Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) data revealed a 39-percent increase in housing loans to American Indians and Alaskan Natives between 1997 and 2001. ("Overcoming Challenges and Seizing Opportunities in Indian Country," speech by Governor Mark W. Olson, 2002)

If a 39% increase during Bill Clinton's second term has improved rates to a merely abysmal state, imagine what the numbers would have been under a Dole Administration - and then imagine how much they've undoubtedly worsened with eight years of Bush. (The 4.8$ drop in financing from 2002 to 2003 alone is no doubt indicative.)

Now it's late spring, the weather is (mostly) warm, and it's easy to forget just what a dangerous situation our sisters and brothers on those rezes faced over the winter. Unfortunately, little has changed; in a few short months, we'll be back facing the same dangers, unless we act now. Below, The housing situation in our Native communities is truly desperate - perhaps for no one more so than the women, who often disproportionately bear the burden of caring for multiple generations in extreme conditions.

Please: Search your hearts, your minds, your rolodexes. If you know of experts in these areas, or are an expert yourself, please consider joining the NAN team to help us find ways to aid the rebuilding process. You can e-mail me at Ajijaakwe [at] gmail [dot] com, or navajo at the e-mail address in her profile. And watch for a separate diary from me in the next week or so, which will list tribal organizations working to improve the housing situation on these three reservations and opportunities to donate money, supplies, and volunteer labor to these groups.

Miigwech.