Some asshole went into a church in Wichita this morning and dispatched George Tiller. You might think, me being pro-life and all, that I'd think this was great news.
Think again.
First off, let me say I don't expect to sway your opinion about abortion at all. You're either wrong or you agree with me, but either way, nothing I say is likely to change your mind.
My opinion of Tiller is he was a worse vermin than Fred Phelps. Phelps is a scumbag, sure, but he hasn't killed anyone as far as I can tell, and his whole 'God Hates Fags' thing is so over the top as to provide a certain level of comic relief. Tiller, on the other hand, specialized in the slaughter of innocent life, and spent a lot of money on politicians of both parties to protect his interests as he played fast and loose with the few abortion laws that are on the books.
However, shooting him is going to prevent how many abortions? Oh, that's right ZERO because the law hasn't changed. It may be bad law, but some sociopath with a medical degree will be in that clinic sucking babies into sinks in Tiller's place before you know it. The murder of Tiller may have caused a few appointments to be rescheduled, but that's it.
Plus, now George Tiller gets to be a martyr for the other side.
And on the flip side, what does this do for the cause? It hurts it across the board. Pro-choice friends of mine were on Facebook before I could even learn of his death through normal news channels ranting about pro-life ideology and how we're all a bunch of hypocrites.
Sorry, but me and the guy who did this are not a part of any 'we.'
As for the evangelical and Catholic pro-life types I know, and I know plenty (especially the former category), most of them part company with me when I say I hope Tiller's murderer gets the death penalty. As I see it (my pro-life ideas are humanistic in nature, not religious), there is a distinction between innocent life and, say, an asshole bringing a gun to church to commit premeditated murder against an unarmed man, even a despicable unarmed man.
But the evangelical argument I've encountered over the years goes like this: we are all damned but for the grace of God. George Tiller is no more or less in need of redemption and forgiveness than your pastor, the guy who runs the homeless mission, or anyone else. We are all sinners, and there is no sliding scale: you can be saved by Jesus' sacrifice or not, but it is not up to you to take the life of another on God's behalf. And in fact, it's blasphemously arrogant to assume you know God's will and to enforce it by homicide. Or the death penalty.
So a lot of pro-life demonstrators will be protesting outside the state penn when Scott Roeder gets executed when and if he is.
As for this supposed member of Operation Rescue who was arrested on the highway not a mile from my house? Well, if I wanted to harm the pro-life cause in a big way, I'd join Operation Rescue and then shoot a prominent abortionist in church. That's about as much harm to the cause as one guy could do. Because here I am, trying to explain why any 'real' pro-life person would not assassinate anyone feeling like millions of 'real' Muslims must have felt when a big chunk of America thought the 19 hijackers were exemplary of mainstream Islam.
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