Note: This guest editorial contains a factual error. I said "anti-abortion terrorists may have killed dozens" but the number is actually less than 10. While one death is far too many, accuracy is important. I regret the error.
By Scott Tibbs. Printed in the Bloomington Herald-Times, June 19, 2009.
On May 31, anti-abortion terrorist Scott Roeder murdered notorious abortionist George Tiller, who has been a target of numerous protests and legal action by abortion opponents for years. Roeder's crime was especially heinous, shooting Tiller to death in a church and traumatizing Tiller's family. Whatever one thinks of abortion, there is no excuse for using murder as a means of opposing it. Abortion is a great tragedy, but the anti-abortion movement is dedicated to stopping it through peaceful, legal means.
Some have claimed that abortion opponents are guilty by association in Tiller's murder, because we use words like "murder" to describe abortion and we have compared the 50 million unborn children killed by America's abortion industry to the estimated 6 or 7 million killed in the Nazi Holocaust. They have said that this kind of "violent" language encourages acts of violence against abortion providers and support staff. That argument intentionally avoids the reality of abortion, sweeping valid arguments under the rug under the guise of a false "civility."
If abortion-rights advocates want me to stop calling abortion murder and comparing it to the Holocaust, they are going to have to convince me that abortion is nor murder and that the unborn child developing in his mother's womb is not a human being. Anyone who has honestly viewed pictures of a developing fetus knows that is simply not true. I am not going to stop proclaiming the truth simply because there are mentally unstable fanatics who will use violence and terrorism to accomplish their goals.
It is important to develop perspective. Anti-abortion terrorists may have killed dozens, but the abortion industry has killed 50 million and continues to kill 1.2 million unborn children each year. Just a few blocks south of the county courthouse, Planned Parenthood kills unborn children each Thursday. There were over 4500 abortions in Monroe County between 2000 and 2005, an average of nearly 15 a week, every week. Tying to make all abortion opponents somehow guilty by association because we are telling the truth about what abortion is will not erase the blood guilt of the abortion industry and the politicians who have defended the "right" to murder children in the womb.
In the mid-1990's, a number of anti-abortion organizations signed a "pro-life proclamation against violence" (see www.all.org/article.php?id=10357) and abortion opponents have consistently denounced anti-abortion terrorism, repeatedly stating that while the slaughter of the unborn is a great evil, it needs to be ended through peaceful, legal means. Attempts to tie peaceful anti-abortion organizations to terrorism is not only borderline libelous, it is stunningly hypocritical.
President Obama has called for more "civil" discourse in discussing abortion. Both sides of the abortion debate can and should be civil and respect those who disagree with us. However, calls for "civility" should not be used as an excuse to obscure the truth about abortion. Hiding the truth is not civility, it is cowardice. If you want to know the truth about abortion visit the Center for Bioethical Reform web site at www.cbrinfo.org/Resources/pictures.html and take a look for yourself at the results of "freedom of choice."
Scott Roeder is no different than the al-Qaeda terrorists that destroyed the World Trade Center in 2001 and if he is convicted of murder by a jury of his peers after a fair trial, he should be executed. But while we seek justice by punishing Roeder for his lawless actions, we should recognize that George Tiller was no hero. Instead, he was a mass murderer. He did not, however, deserve to be gunned down by a terrorist who thinks he is doing God's work.
