how can a murderer be pro-life?

[cellio]

I keep starting and abandoning posts about the murder of Dr. Tiller. I guess I'm still a little dumbfounded by the fanaticism involved.

It's not about pro-choice versus pro-life; the people I know who oppose abortion are not cold-blooded murderers, and we can disagree thoughtfully and respectfully. And most of the people I know who oppose abortion still grant that under some circumstances it might be the least-bad path, if the life of the mother is at stake (and with it the life of the fetus anyway, in some cases). I don't like abortion, but I feel it can be necessary sometimes. People like Randall Terry call Dr. Tiller a butcher; what do you call a doctor who stands idly by while a woman dies from a pregnancy gone horribly wrong?

But as I said, this isn't just about abortion. The person who murdered Dr. Tiller committed the same kind of terroristic act as the unabomber or the Oklahoma City bombers or any number of other people trying to advance a position by inciting fear and committing violence. No matter what the issue is, the method is unacceptable. As with treason, terrorism is about more than the specific acts committed by the wrongdoers. It doesn't seem like our legal system has a good way to deal with that, and indeed it would be hard to write the relevant laws, but I sure hope this factor is taken into account when Dr. Tiller's murderer is convicted and sentenced. The murder of any individual is sad; this was not just the murder of one individual. It needs to be discussed and, if possible, prosecuted as the larger crime.

Comments

[metahacker.livejournal.com]

It's hard to wrap one's brain around.

The 'logic' route I can find is this:

1. Abortion is wrong.
2. ...Because it's killing a person.
3. It's evil to kill people.
4. People who do evil are "Evil people".
5. "Evil people" aren't people.
6. It's okay to kill "evil people".

This also explains how pro-'life'rs can be pro-death penalty, another paradox. See, you're not killing "real" people or innocent babies, you're killing evil doers! You're actually doing the world a favor!

(...It also points to how misleading the term "pro-life" is, and why I basically never use it without sneer quotes. Save a life? No... just justify making a decision for someone else. But it's not a nanny state! we hate those.)

[indigodove.livejournal.com]

As a faithful Catholic, all I can say is that a person who makes a choice like this, killing another human being in cold blood (and in his CHURCH...don't get me started there), well, he isn't pro-life, or acting in a Christian manner.

It just makes me sick.

[alaricmacconnal.livejournal.com]

This comment is being really tough to write as I just can't seem to write down what I'm thinking. Here's a stab that is less bad than the others (and one possible line of reasoning might explain, but not justify, Mr. Terry's actions):

I think part of the issue here is that, a murderer who gets the death penalty has had the benefit of a trial, whereas the victim of an abortion has had no such benefit.

The murderer, in this case, is being a vigilante as he is stepping in because he believes that the state has failed in its duty.

This, of course, brings up the issue of when (and how) it is appropriate for an individual to step in when the state is failing (or an individual believes it is failing) in its duty ...

[hildakrista.livejournal.com]

This is going to sounds strange, but I don't think the murder was about abortion at all. I think that people who kill on purpose are likely unbalanced and very easily misled. Such people fall into many, many different situations in this world, and it's a combination of luck and environment that leads them to their eventual ends.

If the good doctor's killer was mentally unbalanced and easily misled, then a different combination of events would have led him to hurt someone else for a different reason, but the damage to someone else (whether murder or not) was probably inevitable.

These are the people that are this world's fanatics. What form the fanatics take depends, I think, mainly on environment. Some fanatics straps bombs to themselves and blow up in busy train terminals. Some of them are widely respected and revered religious leaders. Some have 120 cats in their houses. All these people scare me.

When fanatics are bought up in an intolerant household, they become very, very dangerous. Tolerance is key to diffusing these sorts of people, and it's a damn shame that so many religions, including the murderer's brand of Christianity, regularly steep children in intolerance.

Abortion--Worth Killing For?!

[anniemal.livejournal.com]

I have always been careful to avoid pregnancy. Rubbers on all but three. I don't spread disease willingly. I don't take new lovers idly. But pre-menopause, I was so careful. No insemination, no abortion. No nasty parasite in my system. No labor, no birth. I'd never have regarded it as a life. Just a bunch of cells proliferating inside me. With a gross result if I were obliged to bear the process.

I realise that this feeling is abnormal. Tough. I didn't want any of it. No babies, none of that. I never felt worth reproducing, had a suitable man, or ynogh money at the dame time.

Killing a thoughtful human being is grounds for death. Just a first thought. I could reconsider. But we want to keep him around? I'm betting the doctor thought hard about the work he did. It had to be ugly and hard. He had to think hard to be a doctor in the first place.

Other folks think otherwise. Fine.

[byronhaverford.livejournal.com]

I would love to sit down with you and Alaric to work through ideas on this (we're queuing up a list of such discussions). In this forum, I will say that, IMHO, "pro-choice" is a more misleading term than "pro-life", so I don't describe myself as pro-choice. I think that abortion should be legal, just as virtually any medical procedure should be legal (see: assisted suicide) when performed by individuals trained in medicine AND ethics. Congress is completely unable to judge the ethics of an individual case.

[nickjong.livejournal.com]

I too wish the discussion surrounding this crime more closely examined its connections to terrorism and hate crimes. In practical terms, the important differentiating factor is that a large fraction of the population shares the criminal's ideological position against abortion, if not his methods. Unfortunately, this factor severely constrains how public personalities cover this story. Even so, it's clear to me that any portrayal (including the eventual prosecution) of the crime as a "mere" murder misses a critical consideration.

I believe the first step is to expand the lexicon (or to take a stand and fully label this crime as a terrorist act). A lynching is more than just a murder. Rape is more than just assault and battery.