The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

INTRO

ROBERT MacNEIL: Good evening. Here are the news headlines on this Christmas Day. In his Christmas message the Pope criticized what he called the cynical society of consumerism. Three abortion clinics in Pensacola, Florida, were bombed early today. Vietnamese troops backed by artillery and armor launched a heavy offensive against Cambodian forces near the Thai border. Secretary of State Shultz told Israel the U.S. will give no more economic aide until Israelis lower their standard of living. Jim Lehrer is off tonight; Judy Woodruff's in Washington. Judy?

JUDY WOODRUFF: After our news summary tonight our focus segments begin with a question about whether there's been too much publicity about the recent artificial heart implant operation. The president of the American Medical Association and a leading medical reporter are here to debate it. Renewed violence against the nation's abortion clinics prompts our second focus on the stepped-up anti-abortion campaign in this country. A continuing dispute over blue laws has merchant fighting merchant in Texas, and we look in on that with two lawyers right in the thick of the fight. And finally, Charles Krause sends us a report this Christmas Day on how the Church in El Salvador is trying to keep that country on the road to peace.News Summary

MacNEIL: Pope John Paul II delivered his Christmas message to the world today and voiced his sympathy with people afflicted with famine, drought, terrorism and violence. He also criticized what he called the cynical society of consumerism. "Many rich people," the Pope said, "are frighteningly poor in heart." Then the Pope bestowed the traditional blessing on 100,000 people in St. Peter's Square.

In Bethlehem the Christian Arabs of the West Bank heard another kind of message on Christmas Eve. Prime Minister Shimon Peres of Israel visited the town to convey his personal greetings for the season.

SHIMON PERES, Prime Minister of Israel: On your holiday a special greeting from the Jewish people living in Zion. A greeting of peace for all those who seek peace. Let's make the Middle East open religiously, safely for every believer, for every religion at every place. Let us pray that peace, mutual respect, coexistence and understanding will prevail among all of us. I would like to wish you a happy New Year and a merry Christmas.

MacNEIL: Today Prime Minister Peres confirmed reports that he had received a message from Washington saying it would not advance economic aide to Israel until the Israelis take major steps to solve their economic problems. The message came from Secretary of State George Shultz, and Israeli officials said it indicated that the major steps mean a lower standard of living for the Israeli people. One Israeli cabinet minister responded that Israel does not need moral preaching from the United States. Judy?

WOODRUFF: In El Salvador, fortunately, with the exception of one brief skirmish, the truce called there in the fighting between rebel forces and government troops is holding. Later in the program we'll have a report on the role the Catholic Church is playing in trying to bring peace to that country.

In Italy, meanwhile, a top government official said today that Sunday's bombing of an express passenger train that killed 16 people was probably part of a terrorist conspiracy with ties outside Italy. The comments came from Defense Minister Giovanni Spadolini. A variety of terrorist groups have claimed responsibility for the blast, but the police are focusing on neo-fascist right-wing groups. They are looking for one or more men who were seen getting off the express train in Florence, less than an hour before the time bomb exploded.

Christmas Day was interrupted by a different kind of violence in the Persian Gulf. Iranian war planes attacked an Indian supertanker, leaving one crewman injured and setting the ship afire. It was Iran's first major counterattack since Iraq increased the numer of its air raids on shipping in the Gulf. Late in the day the fire was reported to be under control.

And there was more violence around the world today. In Cambodia Vietnamese troops launched an offensive against at least four Cambodian resistance camps along the Thai-Cambodian border. The attack sent 63,000 civilians fleeing in panic across the frontier into Thailand. According to Thai military officers and international relief officials, some sources said casualties among the Cambodians were heavy, but this could not be confirmed because it was difficult to reach the sites of the fighting.

MacNEIL: In Pensacola, Florida, there were bomb explosions early today in three separate abortion clinics. There were no injuries, but one facility was destroyed. The explosions occurred within a 15-minute period before dawn and no one claimed responsibility. They brought to at least 23 the number of bomb and arson attacks on abortion facilities in the United States this year. Later in this program we have a documentary report on the violence against abortion facilities.

In Louisville, Kentucky, William Schroeder began his second month with the artificial heart. His family joined him at the hospital today for a quiet dinner and a Christmas mass. Schroeder is still having hazy periods following three small strokes two weeks ago, and is being treated for depression. His wife Margaret said today the family was just taking it day by day.

One final piece of medical news today from Boston. A new study reports that healthier lifestyle, including lower cholesterol and fewer cigarettes, has done more to lower the rate of heart disease than advances in medical treatment. Dr. Lee Goldman, who directed the study, said, "The major message to the average American is that you can do more for your risk of dying from heart disease than your doctor can do for you."

WOODRUFF: It's been a grim Christmas Day in Waukegan, Illinois, where eight people died this morning in a fire at a senior citizens' residence. The fire itself was confined to the first floor of the nine-story building, but all the victims lived on upper stories and died of smoke inhalation. Officials said the blaze was caused by an electrical failure. They said the death toll would have been higher if a number of the building's residents had not been away visiting their families for Christmas.

Our last item in the news summary is word that cloudy weather forced scientists to delay an experiment they had planned for today to create an artificial comet. Researchers from Europe and the United States had planned to have a West German satellite release a cloud of barium vapor 70,000 miles over the Pacific Ocean today, but bad weather in the western United States, where the scientists were planning to observe the colorful vapor trail, or artificial comet, caused them to delay the experiment until Thursday at the earliest. Heart Beat Hype?

MacNEIL: For our first focus section tonight we return to the story of artificial heart patient William Schroeder. As we've heard, his family feels their greatest Christmas gift is that he's still alive and able to celebrate with them as he recovers from his heart implant and the three small strokes he suffered two weeks ago. One aspect of all this that Schroeder himself seems to have adjusted to easily is his new celebrity status and to the glare of publicity since his operation a month ago today. But some question whether all this press attention has been healthy, or even really necessary, and tonight we look further at that question.

DOCTOR [December 9, 1984]: Have you seen many of the news accounts of your recovery, and if you have, or even read about them, have they ben important to you in the recovery process?

WILLIAM SCHROEDER, artificial heart patient: Yeah, I've seen a lot of them, and I hope that this is just the beginning.

MacNEIL [voice-over]: Like Barney Clark before him, Bill Schroeder was thrust from obscurity into the public eye simply because he decided to try a risky new operation that he hoped would save his life. Since then some of the most personal details of his medical condition have been on the front pages of newspapers and on the evening news. For several weeks Louisville's Humana Hospital, where the operation took place, held daily briefings to answer press questions about Schroeder's condition.

Dr. ALLAN LANSING, Humana Hospital spokesman: The question is, what sedative are weusing and is there any danger from keeping him sedated for an additional day?

MacNEIL [voice-over]: Even his wife Margaret and their six children held a news conference after they were besieged with requests for interviews. At one point Schroeder himself was asked if he was bothered by all the publicity.

Mr. SCHROEDER [December 9th]: No. I don't care if they released every bit of the information they got on me. I don't care if they come out and tell the public that, you know, I had this, I had that and what had you. That doesn't bother me. All I wanted to do was, number one, to get myself healthy; number two, I wanted to be able to help other people. And if I can succeed in any of those two, I'll feel like my mission's been accomplished.

MacNEIL: Even so, a newsletter published recently by the American Medical Association condemned what it called the circus-like atmosphere surrounding Schroeder's operation. The president of the AMA, Dr. Joseph Boyle, has taken up the cause, and he joins us tonight from Los Angeles. Dr. Boyle, what do you object to in the way the publicity for Mr. Schroeder has been handled?

JOSEPH BOYLE: During the past several years there have been a number of advances in medical science which have served to enhance the lives of many people. We certainly applaud Mr. Schroeder and his courage and wish him well today, on Christmas, and for a long future. At the same time, not infrequently, the first reports that anyone receives of these kinds of medical advances has been in the public press. The American Medical Association believes that people who are undergoing medical or surgical treatment, investigative or not, deserve exactly the same consideration. We believe that it's particularly important when people are involved in performing experimental surgery that those patients receive the same compassion and consideration as does everyone else.

MacNEIL: Has Mr. Schroeder --

Dr. BOYLE: We believe that everything that needs to be one for them should be in the patient's welfare, not in the welfare of anyone else.

MacNEIL: Well, what in the publicity that has attended this and the coverage in the press, what has been contrary to Mr. Schroeder's welfare?

Dr. BOYLE: We believe that there is an importance to the private and personal nature of medical care and surgical procedures being performed on people. We believe that their best interests are served when surgery is performed in a quiet, calm, objective fashion and the results are evaluated in the same way. We do not believe that it serves the best interests of the patient to have clinical decisions being made in time to meet the deadline for the evening news. We do not believe that the invasion of a person's privacy is necessary for the public to be adequately informed as to what is going on in medical achievement.

MacNEIL: Even though Mr. Schroeder signed, as we've been told, a very extensive permission form consenting to this kind of publicity?

Dr. BOYLE: I'm quite certain that Mr. Schroeder did sign such a consent form. I believe also that at the same time he was not in an equal bargaining position. I don't believe that he could be adequately informed as to what the nature of the kind of public display would be. I noted one press report in which Mr. Schroeder was being interviewed. The reporter noted that while the sign on the door said that there should only be two people in the room at one time visiting him, that there were in fact 18 people there. Now, if that's contrary to good patient care, if that is good patient care for other patients in the hospital, it would seem to me somewhat incrongruous that Mr. Schroeder would be subjected to this kind of display. Nor do I believe that he or his family or anyone else could possibly have realized the intensity of this kind of exposure and the nature of the kind of inquisition that he and his family and friends would be subject to.

MacNEIL: Are you blaming the press in this case, or the Humana Heart Institute?

Dr. BOYLE: The American Medical Association believes that it is important that people have adequate information to know what's going on in scientific achievement. We at the same time do not believe that it should -- that there should be any sensationalism or that there ought to be activities undertaken simply to promote the interests of the individual performing the service or the institution. We believe that today, given the nature of both the electronic and printed media, that one could expect that they would respond with a very intense program to try and obtain as much information as they could in the most sensational fashion possible in order to make it entertaining and exciting for the American public. So I don't believe that one needs to point the finger at anyone. What we really need to do is to say, is it not more important that we get back to the fundamental values involved in medical practice? And that is for doctors and hospitals and other institutions serving patients to have the patients' welfare in mind first. See to it that we are taking good care of people and then report the results in an objective fashion when it is in a less sensational way.

MacNEIL: What would have been an ideal way to handle this from your point of view?

Dr. BOYLE: There have been any number of advances in the past in which surgical procedures have been performed. It became known to the press that such a procedure was being performed. The objective nature of what had been done was reported without all of the personal details involved, without daily television crews photographing patients and friends and others. As a matter of fact, the first permanently implanted cardiac device was put in a patient's heart some 13 1/2 years ago, at which time ultimately the press did become aware of the fact that, yes, an artificial heart device had been implanted and, yes, the patient was doing well and, yes, this is how the device works without ever getting into the kind of Roman circus that we have observed with Barney Clark and Baby Fae and now with Mr. Schroeder.

MacNEIL: Just to put it very simply, what harm has been caused by this Roman circus, as you call it?

Dr. BOYLE: You know, I'm not really sure that anyone will ever know what kind of harm has been performed. I do know how doctors behave and how they think when they are under stress and trying to take care of critically ill people, particularly when they are plowing new ground in medical progress. It requires a lot of quiet, careful thought in which you plan and work out each detail as you go along without any part of your mind being distracted towards anything else. So I don't really know in what way anyone's welfare may have been compromised. I do know that for the average person -- and I may say I have received some mail even from a high school student in Hawaii who said that they believe that the patient's privacy should be the primary consideration and that we should be taking care of people first and not engaging in media stunts for somebody else's entertainment.

MacNEIL: Well, thank you. We'll come back. Judy?

WOODRUFF: One reporter who's provided some of the most extensive coverage of the Schroeder case is Lawrence Altman of the New York Times. Mr. Altman has been covering health issues for the past 15 years and is himself a trained medical doctor. Two years ago he reported from Utah on the very first artificial heart implant in Dr. Barney Clark. And just a few months ago he was in Loma Linda, California, where a little girl known as Baby Fae received the heart of a baboon. Tonight he joins us from Louisville.

Mr. Altman, you have written dozens of stories on the Schroeder case. You've spent virtually the past month, I guess with a little time off, in Louisville. Why does this case deserve as much publicity as it's been getting?

LAWRENCE ALTMAN: Because I think there are several aspects. Number one, we are involved in human experimentation, and I think it's educational. I think medical advances have to be made through human experimentation, and by reporting what is going on in an experiment that has potential significance to the entire world, because heart disease is the number-one killer, this is an experiment that, if it succeeds, -- and no one knows at this point, it may be an astonishing success and it may be a devastating failure. We are educating the public as to what human experimentation is all about. There is a roller-coaster nature to it, and physicians as a whole dislike the word experiment. They're always trying to find euphemisms -- trials, studies. But the word experiment conjures up the idea of Nazi experimentation, and they were the rost experiments that we know of in history, but there's also a good side to human experimentation, and if we are to make any advances, they are going to come through trials and experiments made on humans.

WOODRUFF: But what do you say to Dr. Boyle's point, the point made by the AMA that what the doctors at Humana need to be focusing on is the patient himself in a quiet, concentrated atmosphere and not distracted by all the press and the media attention?

Dr. ALTMAN: I'm not aware that Dr. DeVries, who is the head of the term taking care of Mr. Schroeder, has been distracted. Dr. Lansing, who has conducted the briefs -- Dr. DeVries has said repeatedly that he's welcomed Dr. Lansing taking over that function for him so that he could concentrate on taking care of Mr. Schroeder with other members on the term. If you're watching television or reading newspapers, you're concentrating on maybe two or three individuals on the term. But the team consists of dozens of people who are involved in that care, and they are making rounds and taking care of that patient throughout the day.

WOODRUFF: But I think Mr. Boyle's point was that it's almost inevitable when you have daily newspaper deadlines such as yours and evening television deadlines, that sometimes decisions may be made or may be forced because of the pressure of news.

Dr. ALTMAN: If that's so, that's news to me. I'm not aware that decisions are made clinically and then -- to make a deadline. When people appear at news conferences here they are reporting the latest information that they have. But I'm not aware that anybody's rushing to do it for a deadline. That I have not seen any evidence of.

WOODRUFF: What about one of the other points that Dr. Boyle made, that really Mr. Schroeder didn't know what he was getting into when he went along with this consent agreement to have all the publicity, that there was just no way he or his family could have anticipated what was going to happen?

Dr. ALTMAN: There's probably no way you cananticipate a lot of events in life. He probably couldn't have anticipated what it was going to be like to live with heart failure or to be in the limelight. But we had asked him in an interview before his stroke and subsequently with his wife yesterday if any second thoughts had occurred regarding the consent to release this information and if he saw any harm that was coming from it. And Mr. Schroeder was emphatic in saying no. He felt that that information should be out, and it would be up to the people to make judgments as to the appropriateness of it and what, from the collected scientific information gained from the whole series of experiments doctors could learn, and whether this might be a potentially valid therapy some years in the future.

WOODRUFF: This is, of course, pure speculation on my part, but do you think there's any possibility that Mr. Schroeder's current depression may in any way result from the sort of high, the uplifted expectations because of his daily contact with the press or frequent contact with the press?

Dr. ALTMAN: According to Dr. Mudd[?], the psychiatrist who spoke yesterday, this does not appear to be the case and he said that he had had no second thoughts about being tethered to a machine, and he did not think that that was any part of his current depression. It seemed to be that the psychological aspect of the depression that he has now is in reaction to the stroke.

WOODRUFF: What about -- one of the other points Mr. Boyle made was that there were 18 people in a hospital room at one point when there should have been only two. Have you witnessed anything like that?

Dr. ALTMAN: Yes, I was the one who wrote that and noticed if from the outside. That was the interview that was conducted and that was done with his knowledge, his family's knowledge. There were family members there, there were press, there were a number of physicians and technicians there at the same time. That was a special occasion, but I didn't see or hear subsequently that any harm came from that.

WOODRUFF: But none of this media situation troubles you, I gather?

Dr. ALTMAN: So long as it's with the patient's permission and full express knowledge, which it is and it has been reiterated, if Mr. Schroeder or his family at any time said, no, this is too much, this is bothering us, I think that that's a perfectly valid objection and would be respected. But Mrs. Schroeder has just the opposite of that yesterday.

WOODRUFF: Thank you. Robin?

MacNEIL: Dr. Boyle, how do you reply to that? Mr. Altman, who is also a medical doctor as well as a reporter, who has been living with this daily, says to his knowledge Dr. DeVries has not been distracted and he's not aware of any medical decisions, clinical decisions, being governed by deadlines.

Dr. BOYLE: People should be perfectly clear on one point, and that is that I am quite convinced that Dr. DeVries is an excellent surgeon and an ethically practicing physician, and that the doctors responsible for Mr. Schroeder's care at the Humana Hospital in Louisville are perfectly capable of conducting this kind of surgery and are doing so in what they consider to be a proper fashion. On the other hand, Dr. Altman, who is a physician, did not attempt to answer that question. Instead, he said that the psychiatrist did'nt believe that any harm had been done. Get back to a fundamental issue, and that is that in every phase of every part of medical care, our concern should be what is good for the patient. I don't think that it is necessary or incumbent upon anyone whe raises thequestion to respond as to what harm has been done. If there's the potential that some harm might occur, that's wrong. If what is done in this instance in every step along the way is not something that is directed towards having Mr. Schroeder recover from his surgery, go on and enjoy the fruits of his continued life, then we are perhaps embarked upon the wrong course.

MacNEIL: What's your comment on that, Dr. Altman, that if there's even a potential for harm to the patient in managing it like this, it shouldn't be done?

Dr. ALTMAN: Well, I think that's part of an experiment. We don't know all the answers. That's by definition what an experiment is about. What I don't understand is the definition of the "in the best interests of a patient." Who defines that? What is the definition, and who judges that? It seems to me a patient should have as much input into what's in the best interest of a patient as physicians. And if we're talking about confidentiality, confidentiality is something designed to protect a patient. If a patient releases information, that patient has chosen to release information on confidentiality, and that is up to the patient. It's not the physician.

MacNEIL: Dr. Boyle?

Dr. BOYLE: I find it incredible that now we are conducting an experiment in the reaction to exposure to the press, not conducting a scientific investigation as to the possibility of making it possible to implant artificial hearts in people whose hearts are failing, or that it somehow is incumbent upon the patient to now object if somehow his or her privacy is being invaded when we have a solemn ethical oath to protect the interest of the patient, the patient's confidentiality, the patient's medical welfare, the patient's mental welfare. That should be our concern, not providing entertainment or some additional grist for the journalists' mill.

MacNEIL: Dr. Altman?

Dr. ALTMAN: Well, I think Dr. Boyle is overlooking an educational role that we've talked about here. And I think that, again, it's the patient who has an input in this, not just the AMA's definition or any other group's definition of just what is in the patient's best interest. It may be if we did a series of these and we found out that it wasn't in the patient's best interest, by whatever definiton is established and that harm has come about, then this should be evaluated. It should be part of the experimental process.

MacNEIL: Let me go back to Dr. Boyle on that. Dr. Altman said earlier that this educational value that he saw consisted in instructing the public in what an experiment really is, that it has its ups and downs and its pluses and minuses, and that this is educating the public to understand that human beings can legitimately be experimented on.

Dr. BOYLE: I surely hope that the public's vision of Barney Clark in his last days is not what Dr. Altman considers to be a desirable educational experience. I don't really believe that it is a part of our responsiblity to try and conduct an educational program for the public in how artificial hearts will work until the day comes when we do have one that has been demonstrated to work consistently and for a long enough period of time to be adequately documented and adequately demonstrated. I think that what we're talking about here is the care of a patient. And that care of that patient, at least as far as we can see, to a large degree has been conducted on the large screen.

MacNEIL: Okay. Are you saying, Dr. Boyle, that when it comes to medical experiment that the standards of press coverage and publicity should be different when you're experimenting on a human being than when you are simply treating a human being with established and known treatments?

Dr. BOYLE: No, I think that there should be a difference, as a matter of fact. I think that as the American Medical Association judicial council has said, when we are engaged in practices or procedures that are investigational in nature and advancing medical progress that we have a responsibility to see it that the results of those procedures or experiments are made known in a quicker fashion than we might otherwise. But, at the same time, we believe that this ought to be done in the same way in which we make other scientific reports. And that is in an objective and calm and dispassionate fashion.

MacNEIL: Do you have a final comment, Dr. Altman?

Dr. ALTMAN: Well, one of the problems that we have is, if this were not known to the public and then suddenly became known than an experiment was being done and an artificial heart was being put in place, we'd have the problem of how information would come out. The option is to have inaccurate leaks or inaccurate reports from people peripheral to the experiment giving information, because it's hard for me to believe that an experiment of this nature would remain secret and not be known. Hundreds of people are involved in the nature of this, and it's just human nature that information like this gets out.

MacNEIL: Well, it's an interesting subject we're discussing, gentlemen --

Dr. BOYLE: We are not interested in maintaining secrecy, but just objectivity.

MacNEIL: We have to leave it there. Dr. Boyle, in Los Angeles, thank you for joining us today, Dr, Altman in Louisville. Battling Abortion

WOODRUFF: For our next focus segment we return to the subject of violence against the nation's abortion clinics. This morning's bombings of three Florida clinics, which caused extensive damage, were only the latest in a string of such attacks over the past year. One of the three had already been bombed in June. Women's groups have asked the federal government to crack down on what they see as a growing trend toward terrorism by anti-abortion fanatics. Most of the violence has been attributed to a handful of extremists. But a larger number of anti-abortion activists are joining in a growing campaign to try to force abortion clinics out of business legally. Correspondent Kwame Holman profiled one such group in this report, which we first aired last summer.

EMCEE: I'd like to give you now Joseph Scheidler.

JOSEPH SCHEIDLER, director, Pro-Life Action League: The abortionists are scared, and they have a right to be.

KWAME HOLMAN [voice-over]: Joe Scheidler is on a crusade. His aim is to shut down the nation's abortion clinics, and he travels the country exhorting fellow pro-lifers like these in Detroit to take their protest to the streets.

Mr. SCHEIDLER: If there is an abortion clinic sitting within your purveil and it is not picketed on a regular basis, you have accepted abortion.

PRO-CHOICE PERSON [outside abortion clinic]: You can't judge us.

ANTI-ABORTION PICKETER: Yes, I can.

PRO-CHOICE PERSON: You are not God.

ANTI-ABORTION PICKETER: You are not God -- nobody if you kill babies.

CHANTERS: Stop the killing now. Stop the killing now. Stop the killing now.

Mr. SCHEIDLER: I believe abortion is murder, abortionists are killers. So our objective is so close the clinics by taking away their business.

HOLMAN [voice-over]: Scheidler claims to have already forced the closing of six clinics inhis native Chicago. This Chicago clinic has been picketed every week for a year by members of Scheidler's Pro-Life Action League. The clinic's director is Eileen Adams.

EILEEN ADAMS, director, Park Medical Center: Mr. Scheidler urges his people to scream at the patients, to -- perhaps four, five, six of them will run down the street, jump in front of the patient, scream at her that she's going to die, that she is a murderess. He will use props such as garbage cans filled with little dolls covered with blood. They become terrorists.

Mr. SCHEIDLER: If they're terrorized, maybe they have a reason to be terrorized. If I were killing children all day long, I would be living in constant terror of what was going to happen to me eventually.

HOLMAN [voice-over]: Many abortion clinic directors worry that Scheidler's kind of rhetoric is encouraging violence by extremists within the pro-life movement.

Mr. SCHEIDLER: I don't say that there aren't occasions when somebody is so infuriated by the murder, the killing that goes on in those places they may attack real estate. And I'll tell you, I have yet to shed my first tear when I see a charred abortion clinic, if nobody was hurt.

HOLMAN [voice-over]: Joe Scheidler drew an audience of over 600 to this recent convention in Fort Lauderdale. It was a first for the pro-life movement, a two-day seminar devoted entirely to teaching people how to shut down clinics in their home towns.

SCHEIDLER: In Orlando they were trying to tell us you can't march here, if you've got so iany people it's a crowd, you have to have a parade permit.

HOLMAN [voice-over]: Scheidler's lessons come straight from a book, the one he wrote called Closed: 99 Ways to Close the Abortion Clinics. His suggested tactics include tracking down and trying to dissuade women who want abortions, pressuring doctors and staging sit-ins at abortion clinics.

Mr. SCHEIDLER: Somebody asked the other day at one of the talks, would you ever break a law to save a child's life? I'd like to answer that, you betcha. I will break a law of trespass because there is a higher law that I'm keeping. I don't care if nobody else in the pro-life movement goes out to the clinics, I'm going out.

HOLMAN [voice-over]: While inside anti-abortionists plotted their new, more militant strategy, outside their opposition, members of the National Organization for Women and directors of local abortion clinics, tried to upstage the convention with a demonstration of their own. Scheidler is used to these heated confrontations. In fact, he promised conventioneers a hands-on lesson in picketing at a Fort Lauderdale clinic the next morning. He chose a clinic run by pro-abortion demonstrator Barbara Zeitlin, a clinic that has been picketed every Saturday for the past year.

BARBARA ZEITLIN, director Women's Awareness: I'm not ready to knuckle under, so to speak, and give in to them because they choose to believe differently. I'll defend the woman's right to an abortion as long as it's legal.

HOLMAN [voice-over]: The picketing organized by Scheidler was larger and more intense than any Barbara Zeitman had seen at her clinic.

Mr. SCHEIDLER: The line of march, to the dumpster where they throw the babies, undoubtedly, back around here to that pole. Now, we're just going to keep a big long line going. Just follow me. "Life, yes; abortion, no. Life, yes; abortion, no. Life, yes; abortion, no.

HOLMAN [voice-over]: As patients arrived, they were confronted by the demonstrators.

DEMONSTRATORS: Jesus loves you. Jesus loves the baby. Babies feel pain, too. Don't let her do it. Don't let her do it.

MAN [to patient's spouse]: Did you know that if you let your wife go through with this and you push her into this, that you are going to stand before Almighty God for this?

HUSBAND: I think about it for weeks.

Mr. SCHEIDLER: Go get her right now and pull her out of there.

DEMONSTRATORS [singing]: "Let me live. Let me walk into the sunshine, let me live. Feel my mother's arms around me, feel my father's arms around me, be a part of God's creation, let me live."

POLICE OFFICIAL: Stop, you are obstructing traffic. Any misdemeanor violation will be enforced.

DEMONSTRATOR: They're not going in! They can't get in.

HOLMAN [voice-over]: Some patients turned back, unwilling to face the harassment of the picketers.

Mr. SCHEIDLER: Hey, Steve, we stopped an abortion already.

PICKETER: Hey, we love you. We want to work for your health. You don't have to go into the butcher mill. We're here to help you. Life, yes.

Ms. ZEITLIN [to officer]: They're blocking the driveway.I want it cleared. They are denying the constitutional right to abortion of these women. I want it cleared.

I don't deny anybody the right to feel the way they want to feel. But when do the police really take notice? When do the officials of the cities where all of these things are occurring really put down their foot and say "This is not going to go on in my city any longer?" These people are breaking the law and we won't tolerate it.

Mr. SCHEIDLER: Everything we do in the "pro-life" movement is an exercise of our First Amendment right in one form or another, free speech, freedom to assemble, a right to be Americans.

DEMONSTRATORS: Don't kill your babies. Don't kill your babies.

Ms. ZEITLIN: I'm concerned that it's going to escalate. I'm concerned that my patients are going to be confronted with this constantly, that my staff members possibly are going to resign from their positions. I think it has to stop. Where do you draw the line?

Mr. SCHEIDLER: We not only saved a life, we sent a message into that abortuary. They sent a message that pro-life is on the move, this is a war to the end, and we are going to win. [with demonstrators] Pro-life. Pro-life. Pro-life. Pro-life. Pro-life. Pro-life. Pro-life. Pro-life.

WOODRUFF: That report was by correspondent Kwame Holman.

MacNEIL: Still to come on tonight's NewsHour, we have two focus sections. One is a debate on whether remaining blue laws should be abolished; the other, a documentary report on Christmas in El Salvador and the political role of the church. Never on Sunday: Blue Laws

WOODRUFF: If you are one of the many people who think Sunday blue laws are a thing of the past, this next focus section should be news to you. As it turns out, there are still 17 states that prohibit the sale of certain kinds of merchandise on Sunday, and there are hundreds of store owners who want those laws changed.The controversy flared up again during the Christmas selling season. Last Sunday five local retailers were arrested in Columbia, South Carolina, on charges of violating the state's century-old blue law. And in Houston, Texas, more than 400 stores have openly defied the local blue laws. Usually the Sharpestown Mall is closed on Sunday, but last Sunday lots of shoppers were out and buying. Sharpestown is the first mall in the area to defy the local law, in a revolt that has been spearheaded by a number of well-known retail chains, including K-Mart,Toys "R" Us and Sears Roebuck. But not all retailers are going along. Last Friday the Retail Merchants Association of Houston went to court to try to stop nine stores from opening on Sunday.

Joining us tonight are representatives of both sides of the blue law dispute in Texas.First, Linda Addison, a Houston attorney whe represented the Handy Dan Hardware Company when it won its court case attacking the state's blue laws. And Robert MacIntyre, an attorney for the Retail Merchants Associaton of Houston, the group that has sued many Houston-based stores for staying open on Sunday in violation of the blue laws.

Ms. Addison, let me begin with you. Why did your client, Handy Dan's, decide to defy the blue laws?

LINDA ADDISON: Well, that's very good question, and I think it can be answered both from a retailer's perspective and a legal perspective. From a retailer's perspective Sunday is a very important day for a retailer to be open and selling. That's when people want to shop and that's when a number of people need to shop, particularly in the hardware business. Legally it goes to issues of freedom of choice for retailers to determine when they want to sell their merchandise, if they're going to have their freedom of choice to be able to do that.

WOODRUFF: What are you saying would happen, what would the benefit be to these businesses then? What are you saying?

Ms. ADDISON: I'm sorry, the benefit to the businesses?

WOODRUFF: If the law were repealed.

Ms. ADDISON: Well, there's no question but that businesses increase their productivity when they do not have a drop in productivity that results from idle capacity. Particularly with regard to our difficult economic times and recessions, the retail industry has discovered what other sectors of private industry have discovered over the last several years, is that it must avoid the drop in productivity that results from idle capacity. And if that means staying open seven days a week, then that's what it means. And thereby increasing profits.

WOODRUFF: What about the argument, though, that blue laws encourage people to have a day of rest, which is what the laws were all about to begin with?

Ms. ADDISON: Well, in fact, although that is the purpose of blue laws, the attack that we have made, and thus far successfully, in Texas Judy, demonstrates that the blue law does in fact not achieve a day of rest for citizens. There are so few people involved in selling merchandies regulated by blue laws, and in fact the need for a common day of rest for the community has diminished dramatically over the last 25 years.People are working shorter work weeks, and in fact the average private sector worker in the United States is not even working a 40-hour week. The hours for people working in the retail industry are even less than that, namely, 29.9 hours a week.

WOODRUFF: Mr. MacIntyre, let me go to you now. Why is the Houston Retail Merchants Association so concerned about enforcing the blue law?

ROBERT MacINTYRE: Ms. Woodruff, two reasons, principally. We believe it's a good law.Our members obey the law, and I disagree with Ms. Addison.We think it accomplishes its stated purpose. We believe that it promotes a day of rest and if you drive around Houston, where we're from, on Saturday and then drive around on Sunday, there's an enormous difference in the amount of activity, and I think that's, while it may be old-fashioned, it's something that's worthwhile and beneficial to the community as a whole.

WOODRUFF: What about her point, though, that in these times, in the recentpast, recession, there's a drop in productivity, it hurts business overall?

Mr. MacINTYRE: Well, I am no economist but I acknowledge we've had some rough economic times. My client believes that there are only so many dollars out there and the there are just so many days you can spend those dollars, and what you're going to do if you change this law is you're going to spread six days' sales over seven and have no benefit, appreciable benefit, to the merchant.

WOODRUFF: Ms. Addison, how do you respond to that?

Ms. ADDISON: Well, in fact, my client disagrees with that. Handy Dan and the hardware industry, and there are other industries whose percentage sales figures parallel Handy Dan, Sunday is a very, very critical day to many retailers because a number of people make impulse sales on Sundays that they don't make other days in the week. That is particularly true for hardware and home-improvement business. In those businesses Saturday comprises 30% of sales, and Sunday comprises 20% of sales. In fact, the grocery business, you may be interested to know, has the same ratio. So the two weekend days make up 50% of their sales. It's evident in a business such as the home improvement business, that if a man or a woman is home and wants to do home repairs and it happens to hit -- the urge to do it happens to hit on Sunday, when he goes back to work on Monday he's not going to have that urge again until the following Sunday when he's home and has some free time. So we strongly disagree about the role of impluse buying.

WOODRUFF: Mr. MacIntyre, how do you respond to that, and also just to the point that, you know, with more working couples that people need the weekends to shop?

Mr. MacINTYRE: Ms. Woodruff, these stores have been -- are now open more hours than they were in 1961 when this statute was passed. The home improvement businesses didn't invent Sunday or the need for doing repairs on Sunday. I would submit to you that in 1961 when the Texas statute was passed, men were repairing their homes on Saturdays and Sundays and these problems arose then and they managed to cope with it.

WOODRUFF: But it's still an inconvenience for many people, isn't it?

Mr. MacINTYRE: Yes, ma'am, it is. Obviously we live in a society now where we want to be able to get any item at any time, night or day. Supermarkets are open 24 hours a day, drugstores are open 24 hours a day. That doesn't justify, or, in my opinion, make a firm basis for repealing this statute. Nor do I think it makes it unconstitutional.

WOODRUFF: Ms. Addison, are we talking about just really a fight between different merchants with different marketing needs here, or is there a question of religion somewhere in all of this?

Ms. ADDISON: Well, I don't think there's any question but that the statute is religious in its origins. The statute has never been upheld on religious grounds, and that is certainly not its function today, and the statute's proponents, a very talented and articulate advocate such as Mr. MacIntyre, know better than to advocate it on any religious grounds because of the First Amendment separation of church and state and the protections that we have in our society. So historically that is not really what we have here today. I think what the fight really is today in Houston it's evidenced by merchant against merchant, because we happen to have a statute in Texas that gives any private citizen the right to enforce it. So some merchants think it's to their advantage not to be open seven days a week; others think that it is. But the real question is that a statute that is constitutional when enacted can become unconstitutional through social and economic changes to which it is applied, and that is precisely the situation that we are arguing we have today.

WOODRUFF: Mr. MacIntyre, do you agree with that, and also the point she made about it's not really religious issues, it's merchant against merchant?

Mr. MacINTYRE: I agree that it's not a religious argument. I mean, the statute has its origins in religious customs, certainly, but we are not making a religious argument, nor will we. As far as her other point about the --

WOODRUFF: Why aren't you? Just briefly, why aren't you making -- why aren't you arguing people ought to go to church and therefore the stores should be closed? Why don't you argue it?

Ms. ADDISON: Because he's too good a lawyer to argue that.

Mr. MacINTYRE: Thank you. That's an inappropriate argument, Ms. Woodruff. That is no basis for upholding this law.

Ms. ADDISON: If I may interject for just a moment, a euphemism that advocates of the statute have is quality of life, the same type of argument that Mr. MacIntyre made earlier about driving around the city on Saturday and then driving around on Sunday and observing the difference. Quality of life, I think, is a euphemism for the family staying home together on Sunday as a family. In fact, there are an awful lot of families that like to go shopping together on Sunday.

WOODRUFF: Well, perhaps the two of you will be able to continue this in court one day.

Mr. MacINTYRE: I assure you we will.

WOODRUFF: Ms. Addison, Mr. MacIntyre, thank you both for being with us on this Christmas.

Mr. MacINTYRE: Our pleasure.

Ms. ADDISON: Thank you.

WOODRUFF: Robin? Christmas in El Salvador

MacNEIL: For final focus section we look at the Christmas season in El Salvador, which is different this year. It's the first Christmas of the last five to be celebrated without serious fighting between guerrillas and government forces. Both sides agreed to a holiday ceasefire. That decision followed their agreement this fall to hold formal talks aimed at ending the five-year-old civil war. The negotiatons are under the auspices of the Catholic Church and, as our special correspondent Charles Krause reports from El Salvador, the Church is the one institution trusted by both government and the guerrillas.

CHARLES KRAUSE [voice-over]: Salvadorans have a curious way of celebrating Christmas Eve. They explode firecrackers which sound like guns in a country torn apart by political violence. But last night and this morning El Salvador's real guns were silent. For the first time since the fighting began here five years ago, the country was at peace. In churches throughout El Salvador last night, tens of thousands prayed that an unesay Christmas truce would lead to a permanent end to the fighting. They also prayed that San Salvador's Archbishop Arturo Rivera y Damas would continue his efforts to mediate between the warring factions, El Salvador's government and leftist guerrillas. In a country that is more than 80% Catholic, only the Church and the Archbishop have managed to win the respect and trust of both sides.

RUBEN ZAMORA, guerrilla spokesman: The Catholic Church is the only institution in El Savlador that could talk to both sides of the conflict and be recognized by both sides with a measure of neutrality. I think Monsignor Rivera is a man that wants peace in El Salvador. He is sensible to social issues -- poverty, injustice, torture, all those things. He's very, very sensible to that. Of course, as a member of the Catholic hiearchey, he will prefer always negotiations, consensus over confrontation. This desire is a natural thing.

KRAUSE [voice-over]: The Archbishop told us last night that he had agreed to mediate peace talks between the government and the guerrillas because he believes the alternative is unacceptable. Only a negotiated peace, he said, offers El Salvador the possibility of resolving its political differences without continued slaughter and suffering. The Christmas truce was agreed to by government and guerrilla representatives last month. It began yesterday, and perhaps for the first time in five years there was no reported fighting. In San Salvador, El Salvador's capital and largest city, normal tension gave way to abnormal calm. Christmas decorations did not seem inappropriate, and last-minute Christmas shoppers seemed to be unusually relaxed and festive. Anna Torres is a legal secretary whom we met in the center of San Salvador near the cathedral.

ANNA TORRES, secretary: Compare four years ago for this year was a lot better. A lot, a loo better. But now everybody's excited about Christmas. You know, and the New Year is coming and everybody's thinking, "Oh, I hope God next year will be better. More jobs, more activities to do."

KRAUSE: And peace?

Ms. TORRES: And peace, right.

KRAUSE [voice-over]: Although fighting was curtailed yesterday as the truce began, the army high command said government forces would continue normal military activity. It was not exactly clear what that meant. In San Salvador a convoy of army trucks loaded with food was sent into the countryside, but we were told the bags of rice would be distributed not to soldiers but to civilian war refugees as a Christmas present from the government. Outside the capital, there were several relatively minor violations of the truce agreement by both sides. The guerrillas were seen collecting so-called war taxes near the town of Suchitoto and the army set up several checkpoints on roads leading into San Salvador. Despite the violations, Archbishop Rivera y Damas told us last night that at least so far the truce appeared to be a positive step forward. He cautioned, however, that the road to lasting peace in El Salvador would be long and difficult. That view was shared by Ruben Zamora.

Mr. ZAMORA: I believe you can say that something that was impossible in last year's Christmas, the year before Christmas now has already happened. That means the two sides in the conflict have already sit down at the table and have started to talk. The process is difficult, but has started. I mean the beginning of hope, it already is a reality in El Salvador.

KRAUSE [voice-over]: For most Salvadorans, this Christmas is the best they can remember. It caps a momentous year. In June, Jose Napoleon Duarte became El Salvador's first freely elected president in half a century. In October, Duarte met with guerrilla representives in La Palma, the first serious attempt to end five years of civil war. And today there is some hope for the future. At least for a few short hours this Christmas, El Salvador was at peace.

WOODRUFF: That report was by our special correspondent Charles Krause, who is in San Salvador.

Turning now to a last look at the news this Christmas day, there was no major breaking story on this holiday. Pope John Paul II criticized what he called the cynical society of consumerism in his annual Christmas message. In this country three abortion clinics were bombed early this morning in Pensacola, Florida. Overseas, Vietnamese troops attacked Cambodian rebel forces near the Thai border. The U.S. has told Israel it will not get any more aid until Israel tightens its economic belt. Robin?

MacNEIL: Finally, the British royal family sent out a different kind of Christmas message today, film of themselves at a family gathering behaving in an informal way never seen before on British television. The occasion was a reception last Friday at Windsor Castle, at the christening of Prince Harry, the second son of Prince Charles and Princess Diana.

[voice-over] Prince Harry worr the same gown that his great-grandmother, Queen Mary the Queen Mother, wore when she was christened. She seemed to take pleasure in showing the now baby to his cousins, amidst the hubbub that filled the room. The younger children were romping, and at one point Prince William leaped into his father's arms. A few minutes later, Princess Diana showed off the new baby.

[on camera] Today Queen Elizabeth made Prince Harry the star of her Christmas message. She said nations would get along with each other if they behaved with honesty and confidence, as children do. Good night. Judy.

WOODRUFF: Good night, Robin. And we'll see you tomorrow night. I'm Judy Woodruff. Thank you and good night.