Stanek weekend question II: Why do abortion proponents get so angry?
The mind of the abortion supporter is complex. As I wrote in my previous post, on the one hand they want to make light of abortion, as if it is no more grave than an ingrown toenail.
And on the other hand abortion proponents cannot stand viewing pro-life messaging or the reality of abortion.
This week I was forwarded photos of pro-abortion vandalism in two different states.
The photo on the right was taken in front of the office of Nebraskans United for Life, in Omaha. NUFL’s signs were defaced on two separate occasions. They’re now hard to read, but certainly not “HATE”ful: “Protect the Unborn, Defend Marriage, Safeguard Religious Liberty,” and “Religious Liberty, The Soul of Democracy.”
Yet this is the world in which we now live, when some people think “Xtians [should] get out.”
Meanwhile, at an event featuring VP Joe Biden, a supporter stuck out in the cold waiting for two hours for him to show up apparently decided to vent her frustration on pro-life activists who were also on hand to remind the crowd what exactly the support in the Obama/Biden ticket.
Oddly having a ready can of spray paint, the woman walked over and blacked over the pro-life messaging on two signs leaning against cars.
Before (click to enlarge)…
After…
Pro-lifer Kevin Rilott told me via email police apprehended the woman, and pro-lifers will be pressing charges, also demanding reimbursement for the signs.
Read more about the incident here.
But, bottom line, what’s the problem? Why all the aggression?

It seems to me that the angriest ones tend to really believe that we are only pro-life because we genuinely want to control women and oppress them. That’s where I think it comes from.
“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”
-Mahatma Ghandi
I think much of their anger is denial and defense. This anger is projected onto people who oppose abortion because if they put it where it belonged, they might have to do some soul-searching and admit their guilt. We remind them of the anti-life choice(s) they made in their past.
Because Satan is vicious and when he’s confronted with the truth, he has a temper tantrum and becomes violent. Satan is the “spirit” behind abortion. He hates life, freedom, and most of all, the truth.
As do people who are invested in their own euphemisms and reliant upon the illusion of “choice”. When the truth threatens to expose their lies and their wrongdoing, the only thing to do is get angry and destructive.
They would relax if they only listened to what Jesus promised: The truth shall set you free.
I think a lot of it is that the don’t want to be reminded of the dead babies in their closet. They don’t want to confront the reality of the “choice” they made. But they hurt anyways. They feel grief and they don’t want to think WHY they feel that grief. They don’t want to confront the fact that they are mourning for their child and they miss that child. So they lash out at anyone who says their child mattered or that the choice to abort is the choice to kill an innocent child. I’ve been the recipient of this anger, even from a friend. She wasn’t a close friend but we had started hanging out. A couple months into our friendship she saw on Myspace (ha ha, remember Myspace?) that I was pro-life and she FLIPPED out on me. She called me ugly names, said my oldest son should be dead because he was unplanned and just really went off on a tantrum. I was angry because of this treatment but ultimately I knew where it was coming from. She had multiple abortions and she didn’t want to think about what she had lost with each abortion.
The anger comes from knowing deep down they are wrong.
You would think those responsible for the deaths of some 60 million Americans over these past 40 years might suffer the display of one or two of their victims every now and then. But no, They want it all concealed! They realize that most Americans are OK with child sacrifice so long as the walls are high enough to hide the carnage, and thick enough to muffle the screams.
Because they believe any opposition to abortion constitutes direct and actual violence against women.
No, I am not exaggerating. I realize that makes no sense at all and is not logically comprehensible in any way whatsoever, but that’s what they believe. And because they view even peaceful pro-life activities as violence, they will continue to view themselves as directly imperilled by all pro-life activists–even if the activist in question is twelve years old–and take whatever steps to defend themselves that they feel are appropriate, even if those steps are violent.
That’s the way I was kinda thinking about it Alice. They really, truly believe we are out to cause harm to women.
I used to volunteer at Planned Parenthood in Cincinnati many years ago. When I would drive into the Planned Parenthood office parking lot, people would crowd around my car shouting, “Don’t kill your baby!” and waving signs in front of my windshield. I stuffed envelopes for fund-raising efforts. I have never had an abortion. While I recognize that Planned Parenthood does abortions, I believe they play a very important role in women’s health screening. The anger comes from people on both sides of the issue. As I drove into the parking lot at Planned Parenthood, I always proceeded very carefully, not wanting to hurt any of the protesters, but I personally felt endangered. Some of the signs would whack my windshield. I don’t think the protesters meant to hit my car, but they were so frantic to get their message across that they crowded very close to my car. You can’t say the anger is only on one side. What about the murder of doctors who perform abortions, bombings of clinics, and other acts of violence against people who don’t hold your point of view? Those acts stem from rage. The anger belongs to people on both sides of the issue.
Both sides have angry people.
To answer the question directly, if a person believes honestly that something is a right of theirs, and that somebody wants to take it away, depending on the maturing and anger management of that person, they might get hostile.
This question really is just basic human nature though – I’ve seen HORRIBLE things written on this board and other boards simply because they disagree with somebody. I think some people just really get worked up about arguments and the prospect that people disagree with them and think differently.
Not just “out to,” but actually doing it. I’m pro-life. In the minds of the abortion defenders, that is violent. I don’t have to hurt anyone physically or even move. Expressing that conviction is, according to them, morally equivalent to throwing a punch.
As a clinic escort, I’ve been kicked, elbowed, spit on, told that “(we’re) going to find out where you live, and told “You’re going to meet your maker, and I hope it’s soon.” Had I realized that this came from a place of love, I would have taken it quite differently.
CaT-
What do you mean by your last sentence?
I think it’s sarcasm Ex.
I’m sorry you were treated that way CaT. Truly. I really think it’s awful. Most pro-lifers wouldn’t condone that kind of behavior, I believe.
I put together a group of angry Pro-Aborts.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUTiEXdEsGk
Sorry CaT that you have gone through violence.
Did you report the protester to authorities? Did you get any video?
There is no excuse for violence and the prolifers I know would never condone it. They actually speak out against killing/hurting abortionists and bombing abortioneries.
Just because a small minority of people have used violence in attempts to curb abortion, doesn’t mean legal abortion is a common good. Planned Parenthood offering women expensive manual breast exams won’t make abortion a common good either.
Why? Because they become what they defend.
As for CaT, I’m sorry that this happened to you. That is not a true pro-life spirit. One of my biggest desires is to hug and get to know the workers in the abortion clinic where I pray in front of. It’s important for those on the other side to know that we are not your enemy but have a great love for all of you as well.
Abortion legalizers get angry for exactly the same reason abortion criminalizers do: they see a threat to LIFE. The legalization people believe anti-abortion laws are ineffective and just lead to the girl or woman getting butchered or killed along with the embryo or fetus.
You mourn the aborted since Roe v. Wade. But the fact is there was many abortions before that.
I think the nub of this is that most of you who want it criminalized believe that the law renders abortion RARE. You think: A few girls or women are killed because of these laws but they are in fact few. If abortion is unlawful, a girl or woman with an unexpected pregnancy simply accepts the pregnancy in the vast majority of cases. Thus, lives are saved because the law tells her she must carry to term. She doesn’t go to a “back-alley butcher” but just has the baby.
You believe the law is effective in leading girls and women to automatically accept their pregnancies. They believe the law is ineffective and that girls and women will abort no-matter-what with anti-abortion laws just leading to the deaths of the female who rejects the pregnancy.
There is a lot of anger on both sides because each believes more deaths will result from the policies of the other.
Praxedes nailed it at 1:38pm.
Perfectly stated.
At its most basic, the anger is because people believe anti-abortion laws have different results.
“Their side” believes more women will “disappear,” mysteriously die, or get injured.
“Your side” believes anti-abortion laws will mean we will see a lot more big bellies.
Several years ago, we were just starting to discover that abortion had lingering psychological harm. No one had even started to talk about it in those terms. A wise woman whispered to me then, “Have you ever noticed how certain women are just always angry, all the time, about just everything? That often means that she had an abortion in her past.”
There is healing for this….
Pro-lifers are not angry people. You find hundreds of thousands of the most firmly committed pro-lifers at the March For Life, but you won’t find any angry people there — except for the handfuls of pro-abort counter-protesters.
Andrew, that was a great quote from Ghandi.
“Your side” believes anti-abortion laws will mean we will see a lot more big bellies.
Not just the bellies, but the people who come out of them. I believe I get as much vitriol as I do (and that is A LOT) from the other side because they try to tell me “it’s just a clump of cells” or “it’s not a human being” to ease their guilty consciences, because to them, their dead children ARE just that. And I shatter their self-deluded little bubbles by loudly and proudly showing them my daughter, WHO IS AN ACTUAL PERSON, and the same actual person their dead children were and could’ve been today if they’d just been allowed to live. I won’t contentedly let them live in their little bubbles of self-delusion, because I’m not going to stop until my child(ren) are finally recognized for the valid human beings they are and have ALWAYS been. And they recoil from the truth, and the fury they should rightly feel about their own current realities they take out on ME for simply showing them the TRUTH. That is why, in my opinion, they are so angry. At least, that has been my experience.
I was a premie. Thousands upon thousands of babies older than me have been murdered by legal abortion. To compare those numbers to the relatively small number of violent deaths of abortionists is to see the real body count. You can say a human being older than I was when I was born is not really a person, but that’s not logical. The anger comes from unhealed wounds, like many of you have said. It’s not easy to live with the knowledge that someONE is missing from your life. Maybe Chelsea will inspire other post abortive women to find healing. God can easily write straight with a crooked line. What seems impossible to us is always possible for God.
You mourn the aborted since Roe v. Wade. But the fact is there was many abortions before that.
Prolifers mourn all the aborted. It was wrong when it was illegal and it’s wrong now. It’s just that more are dying now because it is legal. Some men kill their wives when they want a divorce. Legalize men killing their wives when they want a divorce and watch the number of dead wives increase.
A little common sense goes a long way. . . .
“If the world hates you, realize that it hated me first.19If you belonged to the world, the world would love its own; but because you do not belong to the world, and I have chosen you out of the world, the world hates you.20Remember the word I spoke to you, ‘No slave is greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will also keep yours.”
John 15:18-20
I agree with Prax about not wanting to face the truth of what they have done. Another reason is that they are complete narcissists and really don’t give a rat’s ass at all about anyone but themselves and they strike out at pro-life people for trying to take away their chance to do it again.
Grrr… Post the “warning: graphic images ahead”, I’m upset enough right now without the visual reminder!
I would have to agree with several different explanations already offered, and add that I think people really dislike hearing (essentially) “No, you can’t do anything you want!” This may seem obvious, but I have seen otherwise rationale and even sweetie-pie adults get surprisingly upset when being “bossed around” by the wrong person.
ex says:
This question really is just basic human nature though – I’ve seen HORRIBLE things written on this board and other boards simply because they disagree with somebody
Name one thing that has been written here that is as horrible as an abortion.
I have seen incredibly hateful and ignorant screeds from many a troll but nothing that rises to the level of atrocity that is an abortion. It is all about perspective.
Here we are now four decades and 50 million abortions later and still we have people trying to make light of the atrocity of abortion in any number of ways…whether it is through obfuscation, lying, ridicule, or just plain stupidity.
When we as pro-lifers bring the reality of abortion to the streets it is we who are accused of being hateful. And then those same accusers turn around and act in ways they accuse us of acting by lashing out with ignorance and intolerance.
But that is the way of the world. Bringing truth to people has a way of reminding them of things they do not want to confront in themselves. Hence they deface our signs and scream their obscenities and flip us off and swerve their cars at us….and write dumb things in blogs. So be it.
Jerry -
Where in the world do you get off taking a quote like that and pretending that I said that anything could be said would be as horrible as abortion?
USE THE WEAPON OF LOVE. WE MUST HAVE COMPASSION AND UNDERSTANDING FOR THOSE WHO HATE US. We must realize so many people are taught to hate us they are not responsible for their hate. But we stand in life at midnight; always on the threshold of a new dawn. – Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Please see this commentary on religious freedom: http://youtu.be/tvdVFuYP1gw
Praxedes says:
November 3, 2012 at 8:02 pm
You mourn the aborted since Roe v. Wade. But the fact is there was many abortions before that.
Prolifers mourn all the aborted. It was wrong when it was illegal and it’s wrong now. It’s just that more are dying now because it is legal.
(Denise) And this is exactly where the nub of the disagreement is. You believe that if abortion is outlawed, only those who are genuinely desperate or completely reject pregnancies will abort. When abortion is legal, many who would accept a “surprise” if it were outlawed now abort.
The other side doesn’t believe that. They believe that outlawing it doesn’t up the number of abortions but means that you are more likely to injure or kill the girl or woman as well as the embryo or fetus that they see as doomed anyway.
The trolls wouldn’t be coming here if they truly believed that abortion was ok! they are conflicted and that makes them angry. Deep down they know it is murder.
If the photos on the signs are laminated, the spray paint can be pretty easily removed. The writing above the photos will probably come off with the spray paint and need to be redone, or maybe just replaced with a strip with the same words on it.
I don’t have anything to add to the comments on the anger, the best of which I think have been from Praxedes, Dan Holman, Xalisea, Donna and Alice.
@Jack Borsch, I think you are right up to a point; anger is generally fear-based, and you hit on the sort of fears that proabort rhetoric feeds; but I think it’s deeper and more personal with each individual as to why she is feeding at the proabort trough in the first place. The unresolved, existential guilt and grief from the abortion itself, and likely other things related to it – coercion from the child’s father or her own parent(s), the horrid sense of betrayal at realizing that she was lied to and exploited by the abortion profiteers, etc.- also are often at work here. If she was not coerced into it, I think that there would have been serious anger issues at work that were unresolved, probably also suppressed, and that anger was taken out on the child in the abortion.
xalisae says:
November 3, 2012 at 6:48 pm
“Your side” believes anti-abortion laws will mean we will see a lot more big bellies.
Not just the bellies, but the people who come out of them.
(Denise) Yes, I know that. I was pointing out that you believe laws forbidding abortion don’t just mean back-alley butchery and suicides. You believe such laws mean that many more women will CARRY to term than do now. That’s why I said we’ll “see more big bellies.”
The other side doesn’t believe that. They believe that outlawing it doesn’t up the number of abortions but means that you are more likely to injure or kill the girl or woman as well as the embryo or fetus that they see as doomed anyway.
Some of them believe this because they have been brainwashed. Others know that it is not true but want the mass killings to continue anyway.
It seems to me that the angriest ones tend to really believe that we are only pro-life because we genuinely want to control women and oppress them. That’s where I think it comes from.
Well, people who are willing to kill kids need to be controlled. Sheesh.
You can say that again, hippie.
Ex says:
Where in the world do you get off taking a quote like that and pretending that I said that anything could be said would be as horrible as abortion?
No “pretending” here. It was you who suggested a moral equivalency between our pro-life positions and those who are diametrically opposed to pro-life. What could we have possibly said here that is as horrible as what the other side holds as a moral good; i.e. abortion? To me we are not even on the same page.
You say you have seen “horrible” things here from both sides. So I ask again: If that is so, please cite chapter and verse of the “horrible” things we are alleged to have said.
” No “pretending” here. It was you who suggested a moral equivalency between our pro-life positions and those who are diametrically opposed to pro-life. What could we have possibly said here that is as horrible as what the other side holds as a moral good; i.e. abortion? To me we are not even on the same page.”
He literally said that there are angry people on both sides. That’s true. I tend to think that the people on the pro-choice side are worse, but there’s no denying that our side has some bad ones.
” You say you have seen “horrible” things here from both sides. So I ask again: If that is so, please cite chapter and verse of the “horrible” things we are alleged to have said.”
There’s one commenter here who, among other things, has talked about how Paul Hill is a hero, called abortion supporters “filthy jews”. Another commenter has said that she doesn’t feel bad about people blowing up abortion clinics. There have been some nasty things said. Our pro-choicers tend to be worse, but there has been some bad stuff said for sure.
Jack Borsch says:
called abortion supporters “filthy jews”.
Bad, for sure. But my point still stands: it is abortion and the support of it that it the atrocity, not words. Abortion, 3300 times a day, 50 million to date since Roe v Wade. How can anyone possibly compare the reality of 50 million dead babies to a comment or two uttered in poor taste?
Our pro-choicers tend to be worse
Not only do the pro-choicers “tend to be worse” but it is far worse than what they say: Day after day, in thousands of instances on this site they support the killing of unborn babies. We do not. What could possibly be more clear? On that basis alone any attempt to reduce the discussion as merely two sides taking verbal potshots at each other is intellectual dishonesty, a mockery of the truth, and an injustice against the victims of abortion.
Once again my point from the beginning was if we want to talk about what is truly “horrible” it is abortion itself.
the ‘dead babies r us’ mob are by nature a bitter people.
dead babies and warm fuzzy feelings are mutually exclusive.
“On that basis alone any attempt to reduce the discussion as merely two sides taking verbal potshots at each other is intellectual dishonesty, a mockery of the truth, and an injustice against the victims of abortion.”
This weekend question wasn’t “what’s more horrible, abortion or mean comments?”. It was talking about why pro-choicers are angry. Ex simply pointed out we have our fair share of keyboard warriors. I don’t see how that is an injustice against the unborn.
Jack,
Paul Hill is a hero…to the unborn. It is a fact. He may not be a hero to you or even to me but he is DEFINITELY a hero to the unborn. I remember saying that in the past. Am I your hateful pro-lifer :) Or did somebody else you know of say that they personally held Paul Hill to be a hero and I missed it?
Jack Borsch says:
This weekend question wasn’t “what’s more horrible, abortion or mean comments?”…. Ex simply pointed out we have our fair share of keyboard warriors.
I think you are missing the point. It was not me who changed the subject. Here is the exact heading of the weekend question: “Why do abortion proponents get so angry”? So when ex, not me, introduced the word “HORRIBLE” (in upper case, no less) he was changing the subject from why do abortion proponents get so angry to something else; that is to say both sides say “horrible” things and have angry people.
My response to ex is that it is not the words on this blog that are “horrible” but rather it is the intrinsic evil of abortion. I have asked ex to give me a single example of what we have said here that is so horrible or a word so angry as to equal the gravity of an abortion. Ex supports abortion to some degree and others here support it wholeheartedly. To support the dismemberment and killing of innocent inborn children…now THIS is something TRULY horrible. Abortion is an extremely serious subject that rises above the semantics and obfuscation ex was introducing.
Getting back to the weekend question there have been thousands of instances where pro-lifers have encountered angry proaborts. The question as to “why they get so angry” has to do I believe because of two main reasons. One is the world view of things that many proaborts have which does not see abortion as anything more than a “woman’s right to choose”. Nothing perturbs some of them more than to have anti-abortion activists crowding their space. But the second reason has deeper emotional reasons for their anger…these are the ones that were involved in some manner in an abortion. These are usually the screamers. They do not want to be reminded.
Jack, I know this is kind of a taboo subject but since you brought it up and said people who think Paul Hill is a hero are horrible people. I am interested to know where do you draw the line on when somebody can be a hero for saving innocent people from murderers I would like to pose two questions to you.
1) What if Paul Hill had killed Kermit Gosnell; the abortionist from Philly who routinely drugged women and delivered their babies alive and then cut the baby’s spinal cords. Could somebody be a considered a hero for killing him?
2) How long does a baby have to be alive before a hero can kill a murderer to save the baby’s life? Does birth become that moment for you where it would be acceptable to kill in order to save a baby’s life?
No, it wasn’t you truthseeker, though I am quite disappointed that you apparently agree with this poster.
You realize we have a criminal justice system and due process of law for a reason right? Sure, abortion is a horrendous miscarriage of justice and is causing a lot of death. But vigilantism is horrifying and leads to a lot of terrible things. If you think it’s somehow heroic to go shooting doctors and taking out random bodyguards too then there is something wrong with you. You know, I work security, and I’ve guarded a lot of events that I don’t agree with the message. Who knows what James Barrett thought about abortion. You think that it’s justified to blow him away? Oh yeah, almost killed Barrett’s wife too. That’s just flat out evil, and if you really think that’s heroic I have no problem tarring you with the same brush.
Oh, and they still do abortions in Pensacola today. Hill didn’t save any babies. Any possible “good” from his horrible actions never even happened.
Jack,
1) I didn’t say one way or another that I thought Paul Hill was a hero. Read my post again. I said that he is definitely a hero to unborn babies. So careful who you tar
2) You didn’t answer the questions I had posted to you about when a babies life is worth killing a murderer in order to save the baby. That is ok if you are uncomfortable answering just say you need some time to consider the question. It is a tough one.
Jack, you missed answering the questions truthseeker asked you.
You realize we have a criminal justice system and due process of law for a reason right?
And you realize that sometimes criminal justice systems can be more criminal than the criminals that come before it, right?
I didn’t answer the questions because they are incredibly stupid. Hill didn’t save any babies. Killing abortion doctors will never save any babies and overall probably kills more, since it makes us all look like psychos. That’s why you “Hill is a hero” people infuriate me, all he did was murder a couple people, fail to save babies, and make our movement even more suspect. Everyone likes to forget the collateral damage too. How many innocent people is it okay to murder while trying to kill an abortion doctor truth?
About Kermit Gosnell, no, it’s not heroic to go and kill people who are breaking the law. I would consider someone a hero for getting him arrested though.
Second question, a born baby and unborn baby are morally no different, they deserve to be protected the same. But considering that the unborn happen to live inside someone else, and it’s legal to kill them, there is actually no way to protect the unborn by hurting someone else. It’s just incredibly dumb to pretend this isn’t the case, and that going around killing doctors is going to do anything to change it.
I didn’t answer the questions because they are incredibly stupid.
Thanks for putting some thought into the hard questions.
Well sorry if I come across a little strong Praxedes but I sincerely think that when people start talking about how Paul Hill was a hero it’s extremely counterproductive to the movement. And it’s creepy.
Step 1: interact with pro-abortionists.
Step 2: see what they say to try and make you look bad.
And that’s how you know what not to do or endorse to further our cause. It’s really easy, guys.
Praxedes says:
November 4, 2012 at 9:13 am
The other side doesn’t believe that. They believe that outlawing it doesn’t up the number of abortions but means that you are more likely to injure or kill the girl or woman as well as the embryo or fetus that they see as doomed anyway.
Some of them believe this because they have been brainwashed.
(Denise) Or because they are generalizing from their own experience. I know a woman who got pregnant when abortion was illegal. She looked for an abortion and was going to abort no-matter-what. She assumes those who abort when it is legal are the same who would have aborted when it was illegal.
OTOH, your side believes that there are at least some who — if abortion is illegal — will just accept the “surprise.”
For example, a middle-class married woman has 2 kids. Her contraception fails. If abortion is legal and easy to get, she decides to abort. If it is illegal, she won’t risk the horrors of the back-alley but just has a 3rd child.
“Second question, a born baby and unborn baby are morally no different, they deserve to be protected the same.”
Then logically if a mother hired a hit man to kill her toddlers and Somebody knew he was going to kill them and they killed the hitman on his way to their house you don’t think that man did any good either right?
Truthseeker, The Somebody that killed the hit man to save the toddler would only make those who oppose toddler killing look like psychos.
I can’t have a rational discussion if you refuse to look at reality truthseeker.
If you want to look at it from a rational viewpoint, no emotion or useless moral quandries look at reality: Abortion is legal. Killing abortion doctors is not. Killing doctors saves zero babies. Two abortion doctors have been murdered in Florida, yet we are still like third or fourth in the nation for abortions. After David Gunn was murdered it gave legitimacy to the Freedom of Access to Clinics act, after Britton was murdered it caused a huge push in Congress to get anti-abortion groups infiltrated by the FBI and put on terrorist watch lists. If you think that’s positive for the movement then there is something wrong with you. If you think it’s moral to kill people when it doesn’t even save anyone and can arguably cause even more death than I don’t know what to say.
Principles mean nothing when there are no positive results. A dead doctor and setting the movement back is the exact opposite of a positive result. Plus I don’t know what to say if you are seriously claiming that outright murdering people is an okay or moral thing to do
I correspond with Eric Robert Rudolph. He stands apart from other prisoners because, IMO, he isn’t a psychopath. A psychopath lacks empathy. Eric empathizes so strongly with human embryos and fetuses that he was moved to violence to protest their lack of legal protection.
And if there had been any babies or pregnant women near that bomb in Atlanta during the Olympics? What then?
Am I missing something? Has anyone here advocated bombings?
Jennifer Starr says:
November 7, 2012 at 7:43 am
And if there had been any babies or pregnant women near that bomb in Atlanta during the Olympics? What then?
(Denise) I don’t expect you to wholeheartedly support Eric Rudolph’s tactics. Yes, that bomb could have killed a baby. It could have killed a pregnant woman — who was planning to have her baby.
However, it remains true that Eric isn’t necessarily a psychopath. He identifies very, very strongly with the unborn.
The Olympic Park bombing was because he believes the Roe v. Wade decision rendered the US government illegitimate. Thus, he wanted to bring shame upon the government that had denied protection to the unborn. He knows that people who are completely innocent might get killed. But he believed he had to make an important point about protection of the unborn.
Jennifer Starr says:
November 7, 2012 at 7:43 am
And if there had been any babies or pregnant women near that bomb in Atlanta during the Olympics? What then?
(Denise) This question reminds me a lot of something I read back in the late 1960s and early 1970s when radical leftists were bombing to protest the American presence in the Vietnam War as well as racial and class inequalities. In an anonymous interview with a radical, the questioner asked about the possibility of a janitor or maid getting killed by a bomb.
The radical replied, “That would be an unfortunate accident.” The implication is that in a fight, innocent people are always going to be harmed or even killed. I believe that is similar to Eric Rudolph’s thinking.
Jack, I agree that killing is wrong; however, abortionists are also killing people. I agree two wrongs don’t make a right. Yet, can the deaths of the abortionists be justified by recognizing that they were trying to prevent the deaths of more children? I wish this question was easier to answer. Ultimately, I still hope that compassion and peaceful dialogue can win the day and that the tragedy of abortion doesn’t require violence to bring it to an end. However, the pro-abortion side is trying to bullying everyone that this question is not a serious question – it is, in my opinion. A serious adult discussion, without appeals to extreme emotional situations, of when it is appropriate to take human life needs to be had in Western society.
I find it very hypocritical for abortion supporters to think that killing an abortionist is wrong while killing preborn children is right. Their outrage at the death of an abortionist comes across as faux outrage. To me, it seems that abortion supporter don’t really care about the abortionist who died but rather that they only mourn the loss of his/her services, his/her utility in killing preborn children in the womb. At the end of the day, abortion supporters must console themselves by thinking of the abortionist’s death as a late term abortion or partial birth abortion or after birth abortion or a born alive abortion. Their support of abortion clearly shows that they don’t value the human life of other human beings, and that they think if a person is given the right circumstances it is perfectly ok to kill human life.
The question then becomes which circumstances, if any, justifies the killing of other human life. To me this question is answered by the just war theory. (I have not done an analysis of whether abortion meets the criteria outlined in the just war theory.)
Jack I also don’t understand your argument that it is wrong to kill an abortionist simply because it is illegal to do so, and not that it is wrong because the abortionist is a human being and has intrinsic value and dignity apart from being legally recognized as a person and apart from his atrocious grotesteque crimes. If the law is wrong in failing to protect the life of the preborn why do you place your moral judgment at the discretion of what is legal? Clearly the law is not always correct at reflecting what is moral. Aren’t you placubg your moral judgement in the hands of whoever writes the law and thereby abdicating your responsibility to come to your own conclusions as to what is moral and what isn’t?
What makes the law a good benchmark of morality when it determines that it is right to protect the life of the abortionist and that is not right to protect the life of the preborn?
Tyler, this is an honest question: do you think that someone who believes that the death penalty is murder would be justified in killing the guy who gives the lethal injections? After all, if that guy dies, then the people he will kill may be saved. Probably not, because someone else will do the job (as is often the case with abortion), but let’s just pretend. Let’s say that maybe if you kill enough executioners, no one will agree to do the job anymore, and lives will be saved.
I recognize that people draw differences between guilty prisoners and innocent children – but for people who believe that all life has equal value and that the death penalty is therefore wrong, the difference is as much an equivocation as the inside/outside the womb equivocating that goes on with abortion. It is a life that is being deliberately, unnecessarily taken. So why should someone who murdered the executioner not be considered a hero by the anti-death penalty, pro-life movement?
Alexandra
As I said earlier….
The question then becomes which circumstances, if any, justifies the killing of other human life. To me this question is answered by the just war theory. (I have not done an analysis of whether abortion meets the criteria outlined in the just war theory.)……
The mother who aborts has her circumstances, just like the executioner, and the abortionist, and the soldier, have their circumstances etc… The question is which circumstances, if any, permit someone to kill?
“Jack I also don’t understand your argument that it is wrong to kill an abortionist simply because it is illegal to do so, and not that it is wrong because the abortionist is a human being and has intrinsic value and dignity apart from being legally recognized as a person and apart from his atrocious grotesteque crimes. If the law is wrong in failing to protect the life of the preborn why do you place your moral judgment at the discretion of what is legal? Clearly the law is not always correct at reflecting what is moral. Aren’t you placubg your moral judgement in the hands of whoever writes the law and thereby abdicating your responsibility to come to your own conclusions as to what is moral and what isn’t? ”
I didn’t make that argument, actually. I don’t think the law is always correct or moral. I did bring up the fact that like it or not killing the unborn is legal, while killing an abortionist isn’t, and that definitely changes the ball game on whether or not it’s a good idea to go around shooting abortion doctors.
I didn’t really make an argument from “morals” at all, I did make one from effectiveness. Shooting anyone is, in my opinion, extremely rarely justified. Really. I don’t believe in the death penalty, I am extremely anti-war unless there is literally no choice, etc.
“I didn’t make that argument, actually. I don’t think the law is always correct or moral. I did bring up the fact that like it or not killing the unborn is legal, while killing an abortionist isn’t, and that definitely changes the ball game on whether or not it’s a good idea to go around shooting abortion doctors.”
Not much of a point Jack. In fact it is highly irrelevant. If the guys who have murdered abortionists were prepared to accept the punishment (death sentence or life in prison) they have already considered your point and found it to be wanting as a morally relevant factor. Furthermore, the fact that killing an abortionist is illegal does not help us to determine if an abortionist should not be killed in order to protect innocent life, and whether such killing would be morally justifiable.
Your other argument – from effectiveness – is equally weak. You merely identified that the killing of abortionists did not take place upon a wide enough scale and was too localized. Your argument seems to suggest that the killing of abortionists needs to take place at all places where abortion is done, in all fifty states. Is that what you were suggesting Jack?
“Truthseeker, The Somebody that killed the hit man to save the toddler would only make those who oppose toddler killing look like psychos.”
Praxedes, did I miss something here? Are you saying a person a psycho for killing a hit man who was coming into their house to kill their baby?
If you think it’s moral to kill people when it doesn’t even save anyone and can arguably cause even more death than I don’t know what to say.
Jack,
How long after that abortionist was shot before the clinic re-opened? How many days? How many missed abortion appointments. You have no idea how many women might have decided not to have an abortion because of that abortionist was no longer here to kill unborn children. And IF you genuinely believed that the unborn have as much a right to life as the born then even one saved would justify the death of the abortionist. And
Because we view laws and politics in a practical light, and not strictly as a matter of principle. I know for a fact that there are far, far less humane ways of killing a baby, and that if a law was passed today outlawing abortion, those methods WOULD be used. If any prospective parent feels they aren’t ready for a child, they will make sure they don’t become parents. The alternative methods to standard medical abortion are not only repulsively crude, but they are dangerous to the mother, I’m not going into details. Furthermore, the life of children “saved” by pro-lifers would be uniformly terrible. How do you think a child would feel if their mother said “I would have aborted you if I could have.” And you think “Depression and psycological problems” are on your side.