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What does pro-life mean if it encourages killing?
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Within the past weeks, two murders took place. In Little Rock, Arkansas, William Long was killed outside of an Army recruiting office, allegedly by an American convert to Islam, 23 year old Abdulhakim Muhammad. Mr. Muhammad reportedly said that the shooting was a general and vague “war protest” and police initially have reported that the shooter had acted alone. While it may end up otherwise, the killing of Private Long does not appear to be part of a group religious conspiracy but rather the act of a deranged criminal. Nonetheless, the killing was inexcusable and the murderer needs to be punished in accordance with the law.
On May 31st, while standing in the foyer of his Wichita church, serving as an usher and distributing bulletins, Dr. George Tiller was shot and killed by Scott Roeder an unstable drifter who found a home on the extremist right, joining a militia group that refused to pay taxes and allegedly posting comments on antiabortion websites likening Dr. Tiller to the infamous Nazi Josef Mengele.
Immediately the far Right complained that media coverage of Dr. Tiller’s murder was far more extensive than that of Private Long, thus equating the two. I do not dispute the different amounts of coverage but the murder of Dr. Tiller seems more newsworthy.
The killing of the soldier in Little Rock was a criminal act supported by no political group in this country; it was inexcusable and, as far as I am aware, no one has posed any conceivable excuse or politically based defense. On the other hand, many on the right have stretched facts in order to provide some justification for Mr. Roeder.
Most disturbing is that for years religious leaders, many in the media and. influential members of the anti-abortion have set the stage for violence.
To their credit, some of these same religious leaders have acknowledged the responsibility they bear, the harm that comes from referring to opponents in pejorative terms and how that kind of talk is not only counter-productive but can incite violence by the weak and unsophisticated. Others still deny the repeated calls to violence, calls to which Mr. Roeder responded. The efforts some on the far Right is illustrated by the following excerpt of a comment sent to me where motives are discussed:
Tiller was a Baby Killer, Jim. He murdered over 60,000 babies that could have survived outside the mother. He was a monster. There is no excuse for what he did.
That being said, the man who shot him may have had motives that we don't yet know. Perhaps Tiller murdered his grandchild or perhaps his granddaughter lost her mind after Tiller killed her baby. Until we know the motivations, I'm willing to wait to condemn the shooter.
Notice, if you will, the killing of Dr. Tiller is probably wrong, but. . . he may have had a granddaughter, his hypothetical granddaughter may have become pregnant, that hypothetical granddaughter who may have become pregnant may have had a late-term abortion, she may have traveled to Wichita, she may have voluntarily gone to Dr. Tiller’s clinic where the doctor may have legally performed a legal procedure. So it’s possibly excusable to kill Dr. Tiller. There is always, “but”.
There is a fiction going around that the pro-choice and anti-abortion-at-all-costs groups are two equally extreme positions, and that rational answers exist in the middle, where everybody disapproves of abortion except when they want one for themselves or someone they care about.
There's only one set of extremists here, the one that uses language like "baby killer," " Nazi," "murderer," and "death mill," kidnaps and murders providers and clinic workers, burns and bombs clinics and drives cars into them, posts pictures of clinic workers and their families on the internet, and harasses patients on their way to get care. Bret McAtee, a well known and popular Michigan pastor made a statement regarding Dr. Tiller’s murder:
Somehow when the end came for Dr. George “Mengle” Tiller the setting of his death was altogether appropriate. Tiller had spent his life serving as the high priest in the sanctuary of humanism for decades, bringing murder, death and torture to tens of thousands in his abortuary [sic]. In turn, when Tiller was murdered Sunday, God returned him the favor as Tiller was murdered as he stood in God’s house. The irony shouldn’t be lost on us – it seems that even God operates with an eye for an eye ethic. …
But I also know joy. Not the shallow type of joy but a deep resonating joy. I feel joy that no longer will this wicked man slay the judicially innocent. I feel joy because justice, albeit of a rough variety, was visited on someone who so thoroughly opposed a culture of life and who worked so assiduously to spread the culture of death. I know joy because the truth of Scripture that those who take up the sword shall die by the sword is seen as authoritative. I know joy because I know that no longer will Dr. Tiller be sucking out the brains of people, or torturing people with saline or dismembering people in utero. How could a sane person not feel joy at the death of a mass murderer and a terrorist?
To their credit, some religious leaders and people strongly opposed to the work if George Tiller (which after all was legal and sanctioned by Kansas law) have acknowledged that hate speech is inexcusable. Frank Schaeffer, a long time evangelical on the Right, along with his late father, assumes responsibility and guilt:
Angry speech has become the norm in American religion from both the right and the left. Words are spoken which -- when taken seriously -- lead directly to violence by the unhinged and/or the truly committed.
When evangelicals on the right call President Obama a socialist, a racist, anti-American, an abortionist, not a real American, and, echoing the former Vice President, someone who is weakening America's defenses and making us less safe, the logical conclusion is violence. If you take these words literally you might pull the trigger to "make America safe" and/or free us from communism or to even protect us from -- what some "Christian" leaders claim -- Obama as the Antichrist. …
The same hate machine I was part of is still attacking all abortionists as "murderers." And today once again the "pro-life" leaders are busy ducking their personal responsibility for people acting on their words. The people who stir up the fringe never take responsibility. But I'd like to say on this day after a man was murdered in cold blood for performing abortions that I -- and the people I worked with in the religious right, the Republican Party, the pro-life movement and the Roman Catholic Church, all contributed to this killing by our foolish and incendiary words.
I am very sorry.
And so am I.
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