There is a lot of interesting news this week: choosing a new Pope, Senate confirmations of cabinet officials and ambassadors, baseball starting up, Tiger Wood's amazing ball roll at the Masters, etc. But the story that most interests me is the confessions of serial bomber Eric Rudolph.
He was, as you may recall, the serial bomber that was responsible for the bombing of the Olympics in Atlanta and at least one abortion clinic. Both actions killed and maimed people. After years on the lamb, Rudolph was captured and is in the hands of law enforcement – where he should be. The big news this week is his guilty pleas in court.
Media accounts indicate that Rudolph issued a statement while pleading guilty. The news story that I read called it a “rambling” statement, but that characterization may be in the biased eye of the media reader. I’d like to read it myself. Anyway, Rudolph attributed the motive for his bombings as a desire to embarrass the U.S. Government for it’s acceptance of abortion and homosexuality. He also indicated that, since he believed that abortion is murder, violence to end abortion is justified.
A lot of pro-abortion and media people believe that Rudolph is typical of the right-to-life movement. That we’re all fringe people capable of, and often guilty of, violence to achieve our ends. That’s not true, of course, but some people believe that, and Eric Rudolph being in the news this week will feed their most paranoid fears of anti-abortion activists.
I have been involved, at different intensity levels at different times in my life, with right-to-life activism for more than a decade. Always in spirit, even when not in direct action. And the truth is that the vast majority of pro-life activists are just normal people who believe that there is something terrible wrong with the mass practice of abortion in our country. However, I have never personally heard anyone advocate any use of violence in the efforts that I have been involved with. I’ve attended public lectures. I’ve participated in the Life Chain. I’ve participated in marches. I’ve prayed at abortion clinics. I’ve never heard anyone advocate violence.
I have, of course, seen it discussed academically in journals. Not advocated, but debated. The discussion usually centers around the Hitler analogy, which is – if you could go back in time before World War II, would you assassinate Adolph Hitler to prevent the mass murder of millions? If you would, then doesn’t the same logic apply to a doctor or a clinic who will perform thousands of abortion as their responsibility?
Also, the Civil War analogy. Slavery was wrong, and our nation fought a bloody internal war with in excess of 500,000 dead to stop it. Was that violence justified to end the practice of slavery? I know that pro-abortion folks recoil at that analogy, but it’s a perfectly valid one. Slavery was the moral test of their time, abortion is the moral test of our time. And we’re failing.
Again, those are the academic arguments. I’ve read them. I understand them. I don’t subscribe to them.
I believe in working to end abortion on two fronts:
First, persuasion. We make the case that the unborn are living human beings that have a right to protection. Medical advances are making the biological argument in our favor there. You might have been able to argue that the “fetus” was a “clump of tissue” in 1973 when Roe v. Wade was decided, but not today. Look at the most advanced ultrasounds today and tell me that is not a living human being you are looking at.
Second, support the alternatives with our time and money. Support adoption. Support Crisis Pregnancy Centers, where pregnant women in crisis can get help to make the choice to choose life.
No violence. We cannot, in a civilized country, choose violence to end even a practice as abhorrent to me as abortion. If you choose a terrorists means to your end, you are a terrorist even if your ends are valid.
As is Eric Rudolph – an American Terrorist. Guilty.
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