Over at the "Mere Comments" blog, we find two responses from different authors to the murder of Dr. Tiller on the weekend.
The first one gets it:
Whoever murdered George Tiller has done a gravely wicked thing. The evil of this action is in no way diminished by the blood George Tiller had on his own hands.
The second writer, on the other hand is not so successful in achieving understanding:
Too much blood, too many victims. Dr. Tiller's many, many victims. His own life ended in cold blood. Roe opened this door and he went through it.
In this one sentence, he says exactly what has been said elsewhere - and just as wrongly - by the fetus fetishist crowd. His focus on Dr. Tiller's professional work misses the point - Dr. Tiller was murdered by a man because of that man's judgment of Dr. Tiller. In doing so, the author has tacitly approved the murderer's actions.
But, it gets better. He writes:
There will always be bad men (who of us is without sin?) but laws can make us worse, and abandoning the respect for human life in the womb cannot but make a nation worse. The children of Roe are rising up. Lord, have mercy.
So, once again, we have more excuse making going on. It wasn't the shooter's fault at all, it seems - no, it was a "bad law". Well wait a minute here. That line of reasoning is no difference than the "panic" defenses that are routinely dragged out when someone is accused of murdering GLBT people - it essentially blames the victim in a sorry attempt to justify the unjustifiable.
Let's be very clear about two things here. Dr. Tiller was murdered - in cold blood on Sunday. He was murdered, it seems, for carrying out abortions - something which the article's author is willing to excuse by saying that a 'bad law drove the man to it'. Well, no, it didn't. The constant howling from the fetus fetishists calling abortion murder and showing lots of lovely blood-soaked images gave him the sense of horror he needed to justify what he did. Those images come from all over the anti-abortion lobby, not just the "Army of God" types.
3 comments:
"Let's be very clear [...] here. Dr. Tiller was murdered - in cold blood on Sunday. "
I agree with all that you've said here, but I tend to take the tack that Olbermann and Maddow on MSNBC have taken.
Dr Tiller was not merely murdered. He was assassinated in an instance of US Domestic Terrorism. This act was not (just) 'an attempt to prevent the killing of innocent children' but an attempt to motivate the government to restrict access to abortion. This is what is meant by terrorism: intimidation, vandalism, bombing, assassination in order to effect policy changes.
It strikes me that the Napolitano report was prescient, not prejudiced.
Fair enough, Diane.
I haven't quite gone there in my own analysis of the situation - mostly because I can't quite decide if these cases are lone wingnuts who are enabled by the anti-abortion rhetoric, or if there is a greater degree of intent involved.
I hope it's really isolated nutcases, and I fear it is more sinister than that.
I fear it as well. Way back in the day, I recall helping to form human corridors for staff and patients to enter and leave the Harbord Street Clinic in Toronto.
Some of the things that were shouted at us have always left me unsurprised when something like this happens.
Post a Comment