2 Blasts Hit Atlanta Abortion Clinic; 6 Injured

ATLANTA — Atlanta police stood guard outside city abortion clinics Thursday night after two explosions earlier in the day rocked a suburban building that housed a clinic, injuring six people.

The second blast caused all the injuries, sustained by law enforcement, rescue workers and a television cameraman who had gathered after the first explosion 45 minutes earlier. None of the injuries were life-threatening.

While it appeared likely the abortion clinic was the target, authorities would not rule out the possibility of other motives. Still, President Clinton and others condemned the bombing as an act of abortion-related violence.

Calling the bombing “a vile and malevolent act,” Clinton said, “make no mistake: Anyone who brings violence against a woman trying to exercise her constitutional rights is committing an act of terror.”

No one claimed responsibility for the explosions.

Immediately after the first explosion, Mayor Bill Campbell dispatched police officers to guard all nine abortion clinics in the city. “The first [explosion] was a political statement,” he told reporters. “The second was clearly designed to maim and hurt those who were coming to assist. We’re dealing with a warped mind here, and we must take all of the necessary precautions.”

The explosions in nearby Sandy Springs, Ga., were an eerie evocation of last summer’s Centennial Olympic Park bombing in Atlanta, which killed one person and injured more than 100 others. That bombing, like the second one Thursday morning, also took place with a crowd gathered nearby and television cameras present.

Noting that a task force composed of federal, state and local law enforcement officials was already in place to investigate the Olympic bombing, U.S. Atty. Kent Alexander said: “This is probably about the worst place you could set off a bomb in this country at this time. We’re ready to pursue this professionally and expertly.”

He said it is too early to tell if Thursday’s explosions are connected to the Olympic bombing or perhaps to some other non-abortion-related target. “There are a number of offices housed in that particular office building,” said Alexander. But abortion-rights activists wasted little time labeling the blasts as another salvo in the violent battle over abortion. “It’s appalling,” said Nancy Booth, spokeswoman for a midtown Atlanta clinic.

A spokesman for the National Right to Life Committee, an organization opposed to abortion, also decried the bombing, adding that such violence hurts the cause of those opposed to legalized abortions.

In what appeared to be a bizarre coincidence, the Atlanta bombings took place as three abortion-rights groups convened a press conference in Washington to denounce continuing violence at abortion clinics nationwide.

The first blast occurred at 9:30 a.m. EST at the back of the clinic, away from the only two employees there at the time. It had not yet been determined if the first bomb exploded inside the clinic, which is on the first floor, or just outside the building. The second blast went off near a trash bin in the parking lot.

The first blast “was a very, very loud explosion,” said Debra Gattone, who works at a dental office on the second floor of the five-story building. “We just took off running.”

The explosion brought down part of the first-floor ceiling. The blast shook buildings across the street and could be heard at least 2 miles away.

Law enforcement agents and reporters were near a dumpster, where the second blast occurred. Two nearby cars were destroyed in the explosion.

The injured--including an investigator from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, two FBI agents, a firefighter, an ambulance worker and a television cameraman--were taken to area hospitals. Two people remained hospitalized Thursday night.

Authorities declined to discuss the components of the bomb or whether they contained shrapnel. Agents would continue collecting evidence at least through Friday, Alexander said. Fragments of the bomb would then undergo forensic testing.

Television cameras captured the panic that ensued as spectators, already shaken by the first blast, began running and ducking for cover. Billows of gray smoke blanketed the area. Police evacuated the immediate area and began a meticulous search for other bombs after the second explosion.

The same clinic, in a different location and under different ownership, was firebombed in 1984, the last year that abortion-related violence occurred in Atlanta. Three local clinics were firebombed that year.

Nationally, abortion providers in 1996 saw fewer incidents of violence than in recent years. Those defending abortion rights attributed the decline to a new law, the 1994 Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, which carries a punishment of up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine for those who impede access by clients or medical personnel.

But while arson dropped from 13 incidents in 1995 to three in 1996 and death threats from 41 to 13 in the same period, bombings inched upward from one in 1995 to two in 1996. All of those numbers, said abortion-rights advocates, demonstrate that danger levels remain unacceptably high for those who work at and seek abortions at clinics. Last year, about one-third of U.S. clinics were affected by violence or the threat of it, the groups concluded.

“It would be a terrible mistake to assume that the reign of terror is over,” said Vicki Saporta, executive director of the National Abortion Federation, as aides interrupted the news conference with the word of the explosions in Atlanta. The anniversary of the Supreme Court’s Roe vs. Wade decision, which in 1973 established a woman’s right to receive abortions, is observed next week.

Unlike 1993-’94, when five people were killed at clinics in Florida and Massachusetts, there were no murders in 1996. In the one serious assault reported last year, a doctor was stabbed 15 times outside his clinic in New Orleans in December.

Harrison reported from Atlanta and Healy from Washington.