BAKERSFIELD — Abortion is not a word you want to use lightly here.
"Termination of pregnancy" sounds so much more discreet. And by using the euphemism, you gain those essential extra seconds--while the listener digests your meaning--to arm yourself for battle.
Until 3:20 a.m. on Sept. 20, Bakersfield seemed like any other small city with a lively abortion debate--a friendly place where you didn't have to watch your words, or your back.
But over the years, without most people noticing, the debate became an argument and then a war--its first shot fired on that fateful Monday when a figure emerged in the pre-dawn chill, poured gasoline along the perimeter of the only place in town that provided elective abortions, and burned it to the ground.
The $1.4 million fire at Family Planning Associates was so fierce it twisted steel beams into molten pretzels and demolished eight other businesses--all empty for the night--including one that provides home health care to the terminally ill. So far, no arrests have been made.
Today, three weeks after the fire, Bakersfield is silent on the subject and the issues that surround it--a clammed-up city, filled with people eager to discuss potential tragedies created by the blaze, but afraid of repercussions if they do. To the outsider, it seems to be a city at war with itself.
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In hindsight, it is clear that Bakersfield was a hot spot waiting to ignite. Eight years ago the local newspaper, the Bakersfield Californian, began to chronicle anti-abortion events: small prayer vigils at churches, which grew into big prayer marches on city streets, which escalated into noisy demonstrations on major arteries, which expanded into targeting and picketing of private homes and businesses where occupants were thought to be involved in some aspect of providing elective abortions.
Nurses, doctors and clinic administrators had to face the pickets when they fetched the morning paper or left their offices for lunch. Embarrassing? Of course. What must the neighbors think? But this is America, they told one another, and we uphold free speech. Except for the few who complained of harassment to the city attorney, most seem to have borne the burden with good will.
In April, the letters and questionnaires started to arrive at certain obstetricians' offices, inquiring whether the doctor performs abortions or refers patients to clinics that perform them.
Dr. Tracy Flanagan, 36, an ob/gyn physician then in private practice, received such a letter and was outraged at the implied intimidation and threat. She refused to answer, and received a second letter, which gave her a deadline and warned: "If we do not receive a response from you, we will consider this to be an indication that you perform abortions."
It also said she would be "outed"--a tactic that involves publishing names of doctors who allegedly perform abortions and picketing at those doctors' homes and offices. In a small city like this, with about 50 ob/gyns for a population of 200,000, such publicity could ruin a practice.
Flanagan, who has since left Bakersfield to become an assistant professor of obstetrics/gynecology at University of California, San Francisco, says she was frightened both for herself and her family. "Some colleagues said I shouldn't answer. Others said I should take a public stand (to protest the letter-writers' methods). But Dr. (David) Gunn had already been shot in Florida, and it was unclear to me just how far these people would go. So I sent a letter saying I did not perform abortions, which was correct at the time.
"You have to understand Bakersfield," Flanagan said. "It's a born-again-Christian kind of town in which there's a lot of sympathy" for the anti-abortion movement.
What some in the community also say is that Bakersfield is small and cohesive enough so that if you're not with the majority on any given issue, you could be considered against them. And if you're against them, there's nowhere to hide from the array of indignities to which you might be subjected in such a seemingly idyllic town with so much conflict roiling below its surface.
In fact, none of the physicians who performed abortions at the Family Planning Associates clinic even lived in Bakersfield, Flanagan said. They flew into town each day for their appointments, then flew out. Why was this necessary? "No local doctor could do that work and live in that town," she said.
As a waitress in a midtown coffee shop explained: "Bakersfield doesn't believe in abortion. I know women who have had abortions here who say it isn't right for others to have them--but in their case it just had to be done."
The undercurrent of conflict may have been evident, said Fire Marshal Larry Toler, in charge of investigating the arson. "But there was never any violence, no overt hostility to indicate something like this (fire) might happen. We didn't have the slightest hint of what would come."
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