Damon Linker asks an important and reasonable question:
If abortion truly is what the pro-life movement says it is -- if it is the infliction of deadly violence against an innocent and defenseless human being -- then doesn't morality demand that pro-lifers act in any way they can to stop this violence? I mean, if I believed that a guy working in an office down the street was murdering innocent and defenseless human beings every day, and the governing authorities repeatedly refused to intervene on behalf of the victims, I might feel compelled to do something about it, perhaps even something unreasonable and irresponsible. Wouldn't you?
The answer, I think, has to do with prudence. We live in a society and a culture in which there is wide disagreement about the moral personhood of the unborn child (or, if you prefer, "fetus"). Taking another human life is the gravest crime imaginable. If one is prepared to do that, one had better believe that one has no other choice, and that the stakes are radically high. The consequences for introducing lawless violence into a society, even in a righteous cause, are unpredictable, and stands to bring about a worse evil than the evil the violence is designed to fight.
Think of the anti-slavery radical John Brown. He grew weary of the peaceful tactics of abolitionists, and engaged in revolutionary violence. His cause, obviously, was just. But he helped lead the country to civil war, and mass slaughter. Is that what pro-lifers want, or want to risk?
Think too of Martin Luther King, Jr., and how tactically brilliant his embrace of non-violence was. If the Palestinians had a Martin Luther King, they'd be much farther along toward achieving their goals. But they don't: they have Hamas, a tribe of Islamist John Browns. Many decent people who might otherwise sympathize with the Palestinians remain disgusted by the violence Hamas and others engage in in pursuit of their ideal of justice.
We need more MLKs, and fewer John Browns. And not only us pro-lifers.
UPDATE: Steve Waldman makes a good point. Excerpt:
In a way, conservatives now face a choice similar to what liberals in the late 1960s and early 1970s faced during the hayday of the Weather Underground. Some on the New Left defended them as legitimate-albeit-excitable members of their broad coalition, while other more traditional liberals attacked them as extremists who violated liberal ideals. My sense of the history is that enough on the New Left defended extremists to tar all of liberalism. Will that happen for conservatives now?
Maybe I'm naive, but pro-life conservatives have been on the record for a long time opposing violent anti-abortion extremists. Who on the respectable pro-life right defends or excuses these extremists? I'm not asking rhetorically; I really want to know. They have no defenders on the mainstream, not even on the far edge of the mainstream. I may be wrong, but I don't hear it, and every pro-lifer I know wants nothing to do with the zealots.
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"the French Resistance, etc" Hector
TR: Why is John Brown equatable to that? The US, even the South, was not a dictatorship. The nation had banned the slave trade and at times restricted its expansion. Even after the Fugitive Slave Act was there really a compelling reason to think non-violent means wouldn't work? And if there was what is the difference between then with slavery and now with abortion?
I'm seriously asking, I'm not being sarcastic.
Observer,
I am very happy to know I was wrong about your circumstances. What a good and compassionate woman you are.
Re: Gabriel project. It is in a great many states. I was hoping to find a link that showed which ones and how many. The interview at Priests for Life may have been an old one and did not include that info. I do know that it is over 10 years old and expanding nationwide.
They DO provide material needs, money etc. for women after the child is born. I have sheltered women in my home after delivery. Some folks in the Gabriel project have sheltered women for years. They are given cars, helped with car maintenance, drivers take them to work if necessary etc. There really are an abundance of things that are offered. Of course the need increases all the time and more always needs to be done. But please know that this sort of help DOES exist and is expanding. The pregnancy centers are just at the beginning of the lifeline.
It is true that 27 years ago these things were largely non-existent. Or if they were around they were extremely rare. People seem to learn slowly. If the Pregnancy Centers ever become obsolete (ie: if abortion is ever outlawed) the need for Gabriel Projects will only increase.
God Bless,
Maria
The problem I have with this debate and the pro-life movement in general is its reluctance to dig deeper. I'm deeply against abortion and I don't think Dr. Tiller should have had fellowship with any Christian church that really believes in Christ if a large part of his OB-GYN practice was performing abortions. However, I think his murder and murderer was wrongheaded and just as guilty as he was and made the movement and Christianity look bad. The reason why Jesus by example and Paul by dictate said that we should overcome evil with good is that if we want good to happen—i.e., abolish abortion, we ourselves have to be good. You can’t shed light and engage in works of darkness. We’re supposed to be “without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom ye shine as lights in the world;
Abortion is reprehensible because most of the individuals who engage in it willfully engaged in sexual activity and instead of “manning” or “womanning” up and taking responsibility for their behavior—either by engaging in protected sex or not having sex at all, they decided to kill an innocent human being. For me, this is the definition of moral depravity. It is symptomatic of a culture that doesn’t take sex seriously or potentially risky—when’s the last time you saw someone whip out a condom in a sex scene in a movie or television show--and a culture where sex is used to cover self-esteem issues—how many teenagers engage in sex because it’s the first they feel or want to feel any sort of emotional security with someone? And it is shameful that the pro-life movement isn't doing more to address these issues.
No one is forcing any woman to have an abortion in this country, so there must be something else beneath the surface. The reason is that abortion is symptomatic of economic and social problems—problems the movement doesn’t generally try to alleviate. For one thing, the underlying cause of abortion is poverty. If the pro-life movement is unwilling to have greater government intervention in poverty, its claim to defend life is cheap political posturing. You cannot support or belong to a political party that wants to advance Christian morality in public life—no abortions, gay marriage, 10 Commandments posted up—and then is unwilling to advance Christian charity in public life—health insurance for all children/all people and targeted, sane access to social services. Pro-life people cannot associate themselves with a political party that makes calls women who have multiple children and are on welfare, welfare queens, if they want to be a party of the culture of life. This is why you won’t say many black preachers call out black women for making up a multitude of the abortions in the last decade or so. If the government network isn’t suitable to rear a child, home life is atrocious, and black babies are hard to place with adoptive parents, why shouldn’t a black girl/woman, or any woman abort the child? I don't have much respect for the Catholic Church, but I feel they are the most consistent in their pro-life position; they have numerous adoption agencies and for many years ran orphanages to care of the children of women who would have otherwise aborted. They were and still are willing to bear the cost of raring the resulting children from women who couldn’t afford their children’s care. I can't say the same of much of the pro-life movement.
For me, this is why Dr. Tiller’s murder was counterproductive. His murder didn’t compel a Christian to witness to a 15 year-old Black girl so that in having a genuine experience with Christ, she can be reasonably expected to delay sex until marriage, focusing instead on her spiritual and intellectual education, instead of having sex and getting pregnant by 16 by the first boy who showed her attention. It didn’t compel a non-religious pro-life/pro-choice person to mentor a 13 year-old Hispanic boy at risk so he can go to school and not become one of the many baby-daddies in America. That’s why the pro-life movement needs to spend its forces, on preventing the conditions that lead to abortion or help relieving women who choose to give birth but can’t support their child. Focus on, expand and promote the Project Gabriel side of the movement, instead of the Dr. Tillers. It should also be more amiable to insisting on expanded use and education of condoms and birth control methods in schools with provision for waivers if you’re are religiously against these things. Condoms and birth control work a vast majority of cases of their correct use. If this will prevent overall unwanted pregnancy and abortion, why not insist on their use by teens? Especially if a vast majority of teens or parents won’t subscribe to the religious nature of abstinence. Trying to justify or repudiate Dr. Tiller’s murder while condemning him as Randy Terry has done is pointless and makes the movement seem as shallow as a lot of people think it is—including this black, conservative Christian city girl.
Non violence does not in reality, always work. Where it has, it has done so against an empire that was a democracy, with a free press, and relatively soft (Great Britain). And in a country that was a democracy where it was possible to whip up public sympathy (the US). It has pretty much failed in recent times (China and Burma).
I feel there is far too much blind respect shown for "moderation". It always sounds like a very reasonable word in the abstract. But in practice moderation is not much more than the unwillingness of people to be consistent in their own thinking, and find ways to make this inconsistency sound noble.
Abortion is one issue where this tendency is noticeable, whether with people who support it, preferring euphemisms to describe the procedure or say that it does not involve any killing, or opponents who regard it as murder but prefer not carry that to it obvious conclusions.
In this area I actually think it is the "extremists" who say honesty they do not care if it involves killing or who say that women who undergo it and doctors who administer it, should be put to death, are actually more intellectually honest and consistent than their "moderate" counterparts.
Just destroy all life on the planet, then the problem is solved!
Death to the human race and the abomination that it truly is!
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