    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1997, Book I)]
    [January 16, 1997]
    [Page 39]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Statement on the Bombing of a Women's Health Clinic in Atlanta, Georgia
    January 16, 1997

        Our thoughts and prayers are with the law enforcement officers and
    other citizens injured this morning and with their families.
        The double bombing at a women's health clinic in Atlanta this
    morning was a vile and malevolent crime. Make no mistake: Anyone who
    brings violence against a woman trying to exercise her constitutional
    rights is committing an act of terror. It is always wrong. And it should
    be punished severely.
        Nobody has a right to use violence in America to advance their own
    convictions over the rights of others. It is precisely because we take
    the constitutional rights and individual liberties of all our people so
    seriously that I fought for and signed new legislation in 1994 to make
    it a Federal crime to interfere with a woman exercising her
    constitutional right to visit a women's health center.
        Federal investigators from the FBI, ATF, the Marshals, and the U.S.
    Attorney are on the ground in Atlanta and working closely with local law
    enforcement. We will pursue this investigation aggressively and
    methodically. We will get to the bottom of this, and we will punish
    those responsible to the fullest extent the law provides.