It's Not Just What You Say ...

You know, the whole "pro-life" movement is showing its dark side in the wake of Dr. Tiller's murder. Today's gem of the week comes to us from Lifesite: Fr. Pavone Emphasizes Biggest Danger From the Killing of George Tiller

Says Father Pavone:

The biggest danger is the enemy within. It is the fear and self-doubt to which we can all too easily fall victim. It is the voice inside that makes us feel guilty for saying “Abortion is murder” or “Abortion is a holocaust” or “The babies who are being killed need to be defended now.”

Why yes, there should be some serious introspection taking place right about now among the fetus fetishist movement. It's not just the words - it's also about how that word is delivered.


The issue is also the blood-soaked rhetoric and imagery that the fetus fetishists employ. These images are designed and intended to shock people. To the more rational among society, these images are propaganda and have little impact.

But, as has been shown repeatedly over the years, there are those in the anti-abortion movement whose contact with reality is sufficiently weak that these images and the blood-soaked rhetoric can drive them to violence - sometimes, it seems, to a killing rage.

The claim has been made that the man who kill Dr. Tiller was "mentally unstable", and a "loner". Perhaps he was all of the above. But he was also a consumer of the propaganda that the fetus fetishists have been producing for so many years.

The monsters who have carried out these assassinations may not be "sanctioned" by the screaming banshees of the anti-choice movement, but that doesn't mean that they are not influenced and driven by the propaganda of this movement.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, in his Letter from the Birmingham Jail, responded to criticisms that the civil rights activists were fomenting violence. No, he said. That’s like saying the person who owns money is fomenting the activity of the robber. To expose the violence that is already occurring, to call it what it is, and to sound the alarm that it has to stop, is not to foment violence.

The pro-life movement is a movement of non-violence.

I won't even touch the slimy attempt to co-opt Martin Luther King's work in the name of the anti-choice movement. It's more important to recognize the lack of understanding of the responsibility that the propagandists carry.

We should also recognize the repeated belligerence of the fetus fetishists - whether it is the juvenile behaviour of the University of Calgary's "Campus Pro Life" group, or the shrieking loons one sees accosting patients, staff and family outside of abortion clinics, this is not a group that conducts itself civilly. This is a movement that has lost its perspective, and needs to take a step back to re-examine its tactics, strategy and goals.

Lifting The Barrel ...

Just when you think you've found the bottom depths that humanity can descend to, someone lifts up the barrel and shows you what's squirming underneath.

Of particular note is a link to a conversation from a Quiverfull movement message board talking about Dr. Tiller's assassination last Sunday. (Do not follow that link unless you have a strong stomach for the kind of bilious rhetoric that gave Roeder the excuse he needed to justify killing someone)

However, they underscore my point for me from back here - namely that there is a collective responsibility from the ranks of the "pro-life" movement for Dr. Tiller's murder.

The flaccid "I condemn but ..." statements from the more publicly visible parts of the pro-life movement, and the utterly insane commentary on that message board serve as an indictment of a movement that has inspired others to kill in its name previously.

It is past time for the "Pro Life" movement to look at its own bloody rhetoric and imagery, and take stock of the implications of how they have argued their "righteous beliefs". If that is how they intend to continue to conduct themselves (and I include Calgary's own "Campus Pro Life" crowd in this), then it is high time that society hold these groups collectively responsible for inciting violence.

There is a fine line between civil disobedience and provoking murderous violence, and the collective "pro life" lobby has arguably stepped over it.

H/T JJ @ Unrepentant Old Hippie
and
Sabina at Hollow Hill

A Twofer: One Gets It ... The Other ...

Not so much.

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.

The Fetus Fetishists Strike ...

[Update 31/05/09 18:50]
So, I see that Randall Terry is out flapping his gums about how George Tiller was a mass murderer - as if that justifies some nutcase gunman shooting him in church.

I am more concerned that the Obama Administration will use Tiller's killing to intimidate pro-lifers into surrendering our most effective rhetoric and actions.
...
"Those men and women who slaughter the unborn are murderers according to the Law of God. We must continue to expose them in our communities and peacefully protest them at their offices and homes, and yes, even their churches."

All that this statement does is give the wingnut who shot Dr. Tiller reason to think he's some kind of hero. He's not - he's a vigilante, a murderer and a criminal ... and a man who deserves to be treated far worse than how he treated Dr. Tiller.

The Fetus Fetishists have lost the moral high ground. It is time to recognize that their judgmentalism is giving the worst society has to offer the license to kill. Directly or indirectly, they are responsible for what happened in Kansas today.
[/Update]
Come and talk to me about the "angry left" sometime ... last I checked the pro-choice lobby doesn't go around murdering doctors in cold blood.

It's things like this that make me downright furious most days, and today more so than average.

When we hear politicians musing about introducing abortion controls, they are pandering to the same wingnut extremism that thinks it's some kind of heroism to gun people that offend them down in the streets.

This isn't the first time that a doctor has been murdered, simply because he provides women with abortion services. It is time for politicians in both Canada and the United States to condemn these acts of violence, and close the door to the anti-abortion crowd.

H/T: Feministe

Blame The Victim: Angie Zapata Edition

The defense in this case makes me sick.

But an attorney for Allen Andrade said the case is about the woman's deception and Andrade's reaction to that deception, not whether Angie Zapata's lifestyle was right or wrong.

"This girl that he had just spent the last day with, was in fact a man, and Allen snapped," defense attorney Bradley Martin declared in opening statements.

Oh yes, the "trans-panic" defense (a variation on what's been used to justify beating GLBT people to death for years) It's the most intellectually vacuous excuse making I've ever seen - especially when it's murder.

Accusing the victim of "deception" hardly justifies a murderous response under any circumstances. If you are so fragile that learning someone is transgender is a threat to you equivalent to having a gun pointed at you, then perhaps you shouldn't be trying to date people yet.

The defense argument is ridiculous and offensive. To accuse a transsexual of being "deceitful" for living their life is beyond offensive, it demonstrates a clear lack of understanding of the transition process itself, and the WPATH standards of care which clearly obliges the transitioning person to live at least a full year in their chosen gender before they are candidates for Gender Reassignment Surgery.

Nieto showed jurors partial transcripts of tape-recorded jail calls in which Andrade allegedly told his girlfriend that he "snapped" and that "gay things need to die."

In another transcript, Andrade downplays the slaying. "It's not like I went up to a school teacher and shot her in the head, or killed a straight law-abiding citizen," he said in the transcript.

Martin said the jail calls were taken out of context as Andrade joked with his girlfriend about a crime he knew he didn't commit.

"Taken out of context" - ah yes, the excuse of politicians everywhere. In this case, the excuse of a murderer trying to justify to himself his own actions.

Let me be very, very clear here. Murder is murder. You cannot justify it based on some ridiculous excuse like "I panicked because she was transsexual". There is no way that someone being transsexual poses that much of a threat to anybody.

If the judge allows this defense to prevail, it will be open season on transsexuals across America. Sadly, this kind of defense is being used because it has been successful before - when it had no right to be.