Anti-abortion activist released from prison
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Abortion clinics across the country were taking extra precautions yesterday after the anti-abortion activist who shot Wichita, Kan., physician George Tiller in 1993 and committed a string of clinic attacks in several states was released from prison.
Rachelle “Shelley” Shannon, the Oregon woman whose actions once triggered a federal investigation into the possible existence of a national conspiracy of anti-abortion terrorists, had been living in a halfway house in Portland, Ore., since May. She has spent 25 years in custody.
“We’re extremely concerned,” said Katherine Spillar, executive director of the Feminist Majority Foundation. “We’re alerting providers, briefing them and making sure they have enough security precautions in place.
“We know by her own writings and the writings of those who went on to commit violence that this is a woman who inspired three murders.”
Shannon’s release was confirmed yesterday by the U.S. Bureau of Prisons. She will be on supervised release for three years, but the conditions of her release are not public information, the bureau said.
“She’s going on probation,” said the Rev. Donald Spitz, an anti-abortion activist who has remained in regular contact with Shannon. “She said the conditions of release are going to be very strict.”
Spitz, leader of Pro-Life Virginia and sponsor of the Army of God website, which supports those who have committed violence against abortion clinics and doctors, said the fears of abortionrights advocates are unfounded.
“I don’t think she’ll be doing anything violent,” he said. “Of course, no one knows, but I’d be very surprised.”
Shannon, now 62, was sentenced to 11 years in prison for shooting and wounding Tiller and 20 years for six fire-bombings and two acid attacks at abortion clinics in California, Oregon and Nevada.
The former assistant U.S. attorney who prosecuted Shannon also has concerns about her being released.
“She’s completely unrehabilitated and totally incorrigible,” said Stephen Peifer, the lead prosecutor on Shannon’s federal case in Portland in 1995. “She has the same mentality and goals that she had when she was convicted.
“She may do something violent herself,” he said, “but that’s not as likely as her counseling and advising other people to do it. That’s her track record.”
That’s why stringent conditions will be placed on her during her probation period, he said.
News of Shannon’s release has clinic operators on edge. In addition to showing no remorse for her actions, they say, Shannon has been visited in prison by several activists who believe that killing abortion doctors is an act of justifiable homicide.
Clinic supporters also note that Tiller, a regular target of abortion protesters because he was one of a handful of doctors in the country who performed late-term abortions, was shot to death in 2009 by Kansas City-area anti-abortion extremist Scott Roeder, who had admired Shannon and visited her many times in prison.