Victoria used to be home to about a dozen doctors who perform abortions. That number has since dropped by half, with a similar trend occurring across the country. Victoria physician Mary Conley is concerned. After devoting her entire medical career to providing women with access to safe abortions, she wonders if there will be someone to take her place when she retires.

Chronic underfunding of the health care system is partially responsible. Every week, another GP walks away from their practice because they can’t pay the overhead. Family doctors who have managed to stay afloat lack financial incentive to perform abortions. Abortion is considered a minor surgical procedure, and the fees for abortions have been cut by 17 to 27 per cent.

But perhaps the most significant reason for the decline in abortion services is the anti-abortion terror campaign. Every year, Conley trains young physicians who come to her wanting to know how to perform abortions. But when she asks them if they will make abortion part of their practice, they almost invariably say no. And the reason is always the same: it is too dangerous.

Since abortion was made legal and unrestricted in Canada in 1988, anti-abortion violence has skyrocketed. Clinics have been bombed and doctors have been attacked. In 1992 the Toronto Morgentaler clinic was firebombed, and in 1996 the Edmonton Morgentaler clinic suffered a butyric acid attack. In 1995 and 1997, Dr. Hugh Short of Hamilton and Dr. Jack Fainman of Winnipeg were both shot in their homes. In 1994 Dr. Garson Romalis of Vancouver was shot and seriously wounded at his home, and just last year he was stabbed in the back as he was entering his medical office. He survived the attack.

The government has taken steps to ensure the safety of doctors who make abortion part of their medical practice. After the shooting of Dr. Romalis, the government hired private investigators to counsel all physicians who perform abortions on how to avoid a similar attack.

Conley remembers the eerie visit. “They debriefed me at home for six hours, describing in detail all the possible ways in which I could be attacked and what strategies I could use to stay safe. Take a different route home from work every day, they said. Always have someone else pull the blinds or curtains shut before you enter a room. Get a dog.”

In 1995 the B.C. government made it illegal to protest in front of abortion clinics, doctors’ offices or doctors’ homes. When a court struck down the Access to Abortion Services Act in 1996, the B.C. Court of Appeals restored the Act to full force, stating that in certain circumstances it is legitimate to restrict freedom of speech when individuals’ lives are at risk.

A vigorous police effort was made in 1997 to find the individual or individuals responsible for the attacks on physicians. Given the similarity of the attacks, police suspected a single individual was responsible. Their prime suspect, notorious anti-abortionist James Kopp, was arrested in France in March 2001. Doctors like Conley hoped for a cessation of violent attacks against abortion providers. But the intimidation continues. Last year, a man was arrested hiding in the bushes in front of a Victoria medical office with a camera, a dreaded instrument to any physician performing a controversial procedure. These pictures are circulated among anti-abortionists, identifying the doctor as a target. Conley has also had her picture taken at public talks, where she is regularly heckled. And she frequently receives hate mail from anti-abortion groups.

“To this day I can’t bring myself to enter a room with an uncovered window,” says Conley. She also installed a bulletproof window at her Victoria office.

The fear of attack is enough to frighten most young doctors away from formally associating themselves with abortion. In this sense, the terror campaign of certain anti-abortionists is working. As a result, a crisis of severely restricted access to abortion is looming on the horizon.