Doesn't Pro-Life Mean Pro LIFE?

Sunday May 31, 2009

Categories: Current Events

(Follow-up to reflections on Jon & Kate postponed for a day or two)

George Tiller, a doctor who performed late-term abortions, was shot to death at 10 a.m. today, at his church outside Wichita, Kansas. For some, like Operation Rescue Founder Randall Terry, Tiller was a "mass-murderer" and deserved what he got. For others - their voices represented by women like NOW President Kim Gandy - Tiller is an innocent victim of "domestic terrorism."

Count me among the latter. This is terrifying and terrible and terrorism is as good a word as any to apply to what happened.

I'm pretty vocal about being pro-choice. I'm also pretty vocal about my ambivalence about what such choice entails, which is to say, I'm emphatically not pro-abortion. But then again, I don't know anyone who is pro-abortion, or anti-life, or anything other than simply pro-choice. Pro-choice is not pro-death. Funny, though, how pro-life, in this case, turned pro-death. A more perfect example of irony in action I cannot, at this moment, imagine.

Abortion is - to say the least - a complicated issue. How do we say when life begins, how do we determine whether the earliest stirrings of life should be protected, whether the rights and interests of a self-determining human being should or should not outweigh the possible rights and interests of a being whose life has not yet begun? Hard questions that sometimes seem to defy answers. Murder, however, is not a complicated issue. Killing a living human being in cold blood is wrong. We can parse arguments about murder to account for necessary defense (self-defense, war), but otherwise it's pretty straightforward: murder - understood as killing an autonomous, living human being - is wrong. So how anybody, anywhere, can defend this is beyond my understanding entirely. Even if you belief that abortion itself is murder, how does spreading more death - spreading death, and terror? - bring forward a message of life and hope?

I am confused, and sad. So, so sad.

Comments (61)

Filed Under: abortion, george tiller

posted by Catherine Connors @ 8:29pm Permalink email icon

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churchmouse

June 7, 2009 12:58 AM

The Bible is not that hard to understand and interpret.

Take for example this that Christ said.

"And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, all power is given to me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of The Father, and of The Son and of The Holy Ghost; Teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always even unto the end of the world. Amen" Matthew 28:19-20

This is pretty specific and easy to understand isn't it?
In fact it's so simple a child can understand it.

And these scripture.

"I tell you the truth, unless a man is born again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God... unless a man is born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter the Kingdom of God (John 3:3,5)."

"I am the Door [Gate]... by Me if any man enter in, he shall be saved (John 10:9a)."
"'So how can we know the way?' Jesus answered, 'I am the Way [Path]'... (John 14:5,6ff)."

Jesus says He is the way and that there is no other way to be saved. How else could one interpret this?

“All scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.” 2 Timothy 3:16

And this is simple.

People do not like to know that what they are doing is wrong, even if scripture plainly states it. They look for an out and they try to twist it to fit their lifestyle.

I take the bible literally because scripture says that all of it is God breathed. You cant take any out and you can't add to it.

“Faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word of Christ.” Romans 10:17

June 8, 2009 3:24 PM

*Blinks*

I think we all need to read "The Year of Living Biblically" and then see if maybe we can't leave out parts of scripture here and there in 2009... Just sayin'.

Religious Left

June 9, 2009 8:47 PM

Oh, Churchmouse, Churchmouse Churchmouse.....

I follow the scripture, too

Deuteronomy 21:10-14 "When thou goest forth to war against thine enemies, and the Lord thy God hath delivered them into thine hands, and thou hast taken them captive, And seest among the captives a beautiful woman, and hast a desire unto her, that thou wouldest have her to thy wife; Then thou shalt bring her home to thine house; and she shall shave her head, and pare her nails; And she shall put the raiment of her captivity from off her, and shall remain in thine house, and bewail her father and her mother a full month: and after that thou shalt go in unto her, and be her husband, and she shall be thy wife."

Every time I pillage a village,I grab the prettiest dame by the hair, lock her downstairs while she wails for her family, then do as the ol' good book says and rape her.

See how silly we sound when we admit to following the bible literally?

CleveMama

June 14, 2009 6:41 AM

I for one am staunchly pro-life and very much against the killing of any abortion providers. Like it or not, we are a country of laws, and being a vigilantiasm cannot be applauded as a way to get your point across or make change. BTW you would be hard pressed to find any mainstream pro-life group condoning this killing. This kind of wacko behavior just fires up the left and provides ammo to their argument that christians are loony, etc. etc. 2 steps forwardy, 25 steps back.

pagansister

June 14, 2009 3:18 PM

Have tried to read through most of this discussion...all 60 of them, but what stands out is comments made by a few posters (especially one) who think that an abortion is an easy decision...and from some posters who think that there is NEVER a reason for one. Guess they wish that the women who had to make that decision (especially those with Dr. Tiller, during the 3rd trimester) had kept the dead child inside and just "delivered" a rotting corpse or the one who was carrying a child whose brain was outside it's skull, or other really horrible birth defects that were discovered during the pregnancy, that guaranteed a dead baby or one a couple of hours of "life"(?) after delivery. Those women wished for a baby and I would guess that most wanted to be a mom, thus planned the pregnancy. So don't sit on your holy book (written by human beings with an agenda, BTW) as a reason to say that no woman should ever terminate a pregnancy. Don't like it, don't have one, but don't deny a woman control over HER body. It is no one elses business but the woman and the doctor she chooses for a safe, clean, LEGAL termination. I would hope that a woman makes that decision in the 1st 3 months, but again, it is NOT for anyone to tell her she can't do it. In my experience no woman makes that decision lightly, without long, hard consideration. As for being rather joyful that Tiller is dead, some here feel that way, but just didn't say it. They felt it was justice, since Tiller was, in their opinion, a "sinner" and oh yes, a murderer. The murderer is the man accused of having killed Tiller. He committed a crime. Tiller was within the law in his work.

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