1995 and After: Anti-Abortion Group Begins ‘Deadly Dozen’ Campaign Targeting Abortion Providers

The American Coalition of Life Activists (ACLA), an organization of anti-abortion advocates who called the 1993 murder of an abortion doctor “justifiable” (see March 10, 1993 and July 1993), launches a campaign it calls the “Deadly Dozen.” The ACLA releases Old West-style “unwanted” posters of 13 prominent abortion providers. Many of the posters include the providers’ work and home addresses. The targeted doctors say they are very aware that similar posters created by other anti-abortion organizations had preceded the murders of three of their colleagues, and call the campaign a “hit list.” The FBI offers protection to the 13 providers, and many of them begin wearing bulletproof vests and taking other security precautions. After the ACLA is named in a lawsuit to prevent it from publishing the material (see 1996), ACLA leaders give some of the “Deadly Dozen” data to Neal Horsley of Carrollton, Georgia, who posts the material on his “Nuremberg Files” Web site (see January 1997). The Web site names doctors and abortion rights supporters and calls for them to be tried for “crimes against humanity.” In later years, when an abortion provider is murdered, their name will appear on the site with a line through it. Horsley uses gray tape for the names of abortion providers or staff who have been wounded. The entire Web site is designed to look as if it is dripping in blood. [Ms. Magazine, 12/2002]