While Ashcroft has not met face to face with abortion rights leaders, many of their concerns and requests have been heard by the department. After Dr. George Tiller was shot outside his abortion clinic in Wichita, Kansas, the DOJ granted abortion groups' requests for U.S. Marshall protection for Tiller. When self-avowed antiabortion terrorist Clayton Waagner escaped from a county jail in Clinton, Ill., in February, the FBI responded to requests to offer a federal reward for his capture, and placed Waagner on their Ten Most Wanted list.

Complaints about Ashcroft's silence regarding threats of violence or bioterrorism against abortion providers continue amid the current national anthrax hysteria. Hoping to capitalize on public awareness about the threat of anthrax, advocates say now is the time for a strong rebuke from the attorney general.

"This is the largest single orchestrated anthrax threat against any type of organization. And it seems to us that he sometimes goes out of his way not to mention the fact," says Vicki Saporta, executive director of the National Abortion Federation. "He needs to be very clear and send a very clear message to these anti-choice extremists."

As of Friday, there was no sign that abortion rights defenders would get either the meeting or public statement they seek. Calls by Salon to the Department of Justice went unreturned, but a member of the DOJ press office said the office had not put out any statement regarding the latest anthrax threats to abortion clinics.

Some have criticized abortion rights groups for trying to cash in on the anthrax threat, and for unfairly trying to tar Ashcroft. Responding to a New York Times column by Frank Rich which claimed Ashcroft had "gone so far as to turn away firsthand information about domestic terrorism for political reasons," conservative writer Ross Douthat lashed out in the National Review. "So let's get this straight -- with everything that's going on, Ashcroft is to be faulted because he hasn't tapped into Planned Parenthood's intelligence network?" Douthat writes. "What's next -- a story on the ACLU's underutilized Green Berets?"

But Saporta says her group's concerns are about much more than trying to score political points against Ashcroft. She says the attorney general's continued silence is jeopardizing the safety of abortion workers around the country. "We wanted a public statement before we had the second round of these letters. As we continue to have more rounds of these letters, there could be an increased likelihood that some of them could in fact contain anthrax, and then we're dealing with a very different situation," she says.

In their reactions to the new anthrax scare, abortion rights groups have also included Tom Ridge in the list of people they would like to meet with. Ridge, a pro-choice former governor of Pennsylvania, has a very different approach to and view of abortion than Ashcroft, and groups are optimistic that Ridge may ultimately give them a public meeting, or come out with a strongly worded statement specifically condemning the attacks on abortion clinics and abortion-rights organizations.

"Well, this is the first time we've asked for a meeting with Tom Ridge, and we think it could be more likely that he would meet with us," Saporta said. "Because these anthrax threat letters are part of what's going on nationally, we really do think it is important that we meet with either Tom Ridge or the attorney general or both. Because they have to be as interested as we are in stopping what's happening and apprehending the people who are responsible."

And while leaders of the abortion rights movement are frustrated by the attorney general's refusal to meet with them, they all praise the work law enforcement and the FBI have done on this latest anthrax case.

In a statement Thursday, Feldt said her organization was "pleased with the cooperation we have received from the FBI following the first round of letters we received last month. That cooperation is continuing today," Feldt said. "We are hopeful that the perpetrators will be identified, captured, and prosecuted to the full extent of the law."

Unlike the investigation into the letters that actually contained anthrax -- a case that continues to confound law enforcement and intelligence officials -- Saporta says there are "good leads" concerning the letters received Thursday. "We're hopeful they'll be able to apprehend these individuals. They were signed from the Army of God. They said, 'You didn't take us seriously last time, this time it's real. This is high quality anthrax.' So I mean there are certainly people who are visibly associated with the Army of God, and it's important not only that they're questioned, but that they tell law enforcement officials what they know about who's responsible, because they do know who's responsible for this."

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