It's taken me most of today to figure out what to say about the cold-blooded murder of abortion provider Dr. George Tiller, gunned down in front of his family while he served as an usher in church. The temptation is to immediately go off on a rant and blame religion for all of society's ills, but after reading Southern Beale's post I reconsidered and realized that was wrong. Of course you can't blame Christianity for what happened, Dr. Tiller was himself a Christian and an active churchgoer. You can't blame all Christians for Operation Rescue and the other nutjobs any more than you can blame all Muslims for al-Qaeda and the Taliban.
But I absolutely do equate the two. What happened in Wichita today was, without any question, an act of terrorism.
What is an act of terrorism? It's the work of cowards, those who resort to violence because they cannot achieve their aims through the democratic process. It's designed not only kill or otherwise permanently silence the terrorists' direct enemies, but also to instill fear in the population at large. Even if the majority of the population may support abortion rights in one form or another, acts like this are designed to ensure that the majority does not stick their necks out over this issue. Best not to "rock the boat" or something.
It would be nice if we could think of this as just an isolated instance. But by and large we only hear about the biggest acts of anti-choice terrorism in the news, acts such as the murder of Dr. Tillman or the Eric Rudolph bombings. But according to the National Abortion Federation, since 1977, there have been seven murders, 17 attempted murders, 41 bombings, 175 arsons, 96 attempted bombings or arsons, 390 invasions, 1400 cases of vandalism, 1993 cases of trespassing, 100 butyric acid attacks, 659 anthrax threats, 179 cases of assault and battery, 406 death threats, four kidnappings, 151 burglaries, and 525 cases of stalking specifically directed at clinics, their workers, or their volunteers in the US and Canada--over 6,100 individual acts of terrorism. And those are just the incidents that were reported, the actual number is probably much higher.
These are not acts happening in isolation, we just hear about it so infrequently that it gives rise to that impression. Eric Rudolph, Timothy McVeigh, Jim Adkisson, and now Scott Roeder did not happen in isolation. These are acts fueled by the rhetoric of groups like Operation Rescue (whose founder, Randall Terry, is today more concerned about covering his own ass than the fact that a man died, reminding everyone that he is simply a "mass murderer"), by the Bill O'Reillys and Glenn Becks and Rush Limbaughs, by the Republican politicians who rely on these people to get out the vote every two years.
If you constantly refer to someone as a "mass murderer" or a "baby-killer," then why is it so illogical to think that eventually, someone will come to the conclusion that the mass-murderer must be stopped, somehow? You don't get to ask "Will no one rid me of this troublesome priest?" and then act surprised when someone does, in fact, rid you of the troublesome priest (but bear in mind, Henry II did take responsibility for the fact that his words had led to Thomas Becket's murder, something the people in the "party of personal responsibility" will certainly never do).
And I certainly see some symbolism in the fact that Dr. Tiller was murdered not at his clinic or at his home, but at his church. These terrorists want to send a message not just to abortion providers or to liberals, but to the churches and clergy who don't fall in line behind the terrorists' extreme views. Either they'll fall in line, or they'll share the same fate.
It's not surprising that they're going about it in that way. It's another way in which these terrorists are the exact mirror images of their Muslim counterparts. When the jihadists gained control in Afghanistan, Iraq, the Palestinian territories, and now in parts of Pakistan, one of the first things they did is shut down and silence moderate clerics. This was to ensure that there was only one voice dictating how Muslims should act, and that there were no dissenting voices. That is what these terrorists aim to do with Christianity. Jews aren't immune from it either--just because there hasn't been any more high-profile assassinations in the 14 years since the murder of Yitzhak Rabin doesn't mean that the extremists who encouraged Yigal Amir have gone away altogether.
I see that the Justice Department has already arranged the dispatch of U.S. Marshals to protect abortion providers. It's a good first step, and the first person to get protection should be Dr. Warren Hern in Boulder, Colorado, who may very well be the last late-term abortion provider in the country, and who will almost certainly be the next target for the terrorists. President Obama and Eric Holder are certainly doing the right thing, but this won't be solved until everyone, including the so-called "pro-lifers," can acknowledge it for what it is--terrorism.
1 comments:
Several years ago my mother's OB-GYN was murdered by anti-abortion terrorists.
His name was Dr. Barnard Slepian.
These ghouls forget that setting aside abortions, the doctors they are killing usually help successfully deliver thousands of healthy babies who might not otherwise have survived were it not for the skill of the OB-GYNs.
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