Facing the mobilization of abortion rights activists at clinics, protest injunctions, and buffer zones, anti-abortion extremists largely have abandoned clinic blockade and clinic invasion strategies in favor of more threatening strategies aimed at particular physicians and clinic workers such as death threats, stalking, and home picketing. Chart 5 illustrates the patterns of decline in various types of violence over the past three years, based on our annual surveys.
For the first time, in every category of violence, more clinics in 1995 reported decreases than increases in incidence. Chart 5 reveals reported increases and decreases in specific types of violence in 1995, compared with 1994. Significantly, however, the smallest net decreases occurred in death threats and stalking.
