Colby Cosh has a longish piece about the murder of George Tiller, which he concludes thusly:
No: Like most pro-lifers, [Jim Hughes, of Campaign Life Coalition] is simply a purveyor of beliefs whose literal truth he does little or nothing to act seriously upon. (As I’ve pointed out in this space, you can make Henry Morgentaler a member of the Order of Canada, thus offering the grossest provocation imaginable to Catholics and evangelicals who have received the honour, and literally 99% of them will suck it up.) But, very occasionally, some ardent religious loner is confused enough to hear those beliefs, conclude they are true, and follow through. And a doctor somewhere ends up maimed or dead. And we blame only the individual who pulled the trigger.
I can’t speak for others, only for me. Here’s why I blame only the individual who pulled the trigger. For the same reason I don’t blame Muslims (or even “just” the hard-core ones, or even peaceful anti-Iraq war activists) for the shooting death, on Monday, of a young soldier outside a U.S. Army recruiting station in Arkansas. Because every individual is responsible for his or her own actions. You can’t blame those of us who say Dr. Tiller made a living taking innocent lives, or even that he was a murderer, for his death the same way you can’t blame the folks who claim U.S. soldiers are murderers for the death of that Arkansas soldier.
Ideological disagreement, moral confusion, religious bigotry, anger or even blind hatred are not the same as murderous intent, as any first-year law student can tell you.
by
lwestin says
Maybe the blame for inciting violence falls on those who, like Colby Cosh, repeatedly challenge pro-lifers to ‘do something’. Apparently, according to many comments he has published, seeking to educate and win hearts is not ‘something’ enough for Mr. Cosh. He says it doesn’t count, if you are really SINCERE.
(I guess Mr. Cosh is then appreciative of the SINCERITY of Tiller’s murderer?)
Mr. Cosh can only throw out the red herrings, like ‘if you really think abortion is murder, then act like its murder’.
How does Mr. Cosh react to murder? How does he ‘prove’ his sincerity?
Mr. Cosh doesn’t want to deal with the reality of abortion, the actual killing of actual human beings in a society where such killing is perfectly legal, and there is more pressure to have a ‘stress free life’ than to preserve life. He wants the believers in the sanctity of life to ‘put up or shut up’ .
Get real, Colby. We won’t shut up. And we can’t be shamed for being protective of EVERY life. Even George Tiller’s.
Colby Cosh says
You can’t be shamed for morally equating a serial killer of “actual human beings” with his innocent victims? I suppose you are completely incapable of shame, then.
Brigitte Pellerin says
Oh, come off it Colby. One can value everybody’s life equally (the innocent baby’s life is as valuable to many pro-lifers as the life of Paul Bernardo). We don’t despise Paul Bernardo because he is alive. We despise him for his actions. Likewise, we didn’t despise or criticize George Tiller because he was alive but because of what he did with his life.
You’re still welcome to pass judgment on my character if you like. But do please pay attention to what we’re saying.
Colby Cosh says
You come off it. There is nothing in the tenets of the Christian faith which proscribes defending innocent human lives by force where the law is powerless to act, or refuses to do so; once that is conceded, talk of “valuing everybody’s life equally” on some elevated plane of non-action no longer has anything to do with the issue. Christians look ridiculous in Gandhi’s diaper, and it doesn’t fit them well.
Brigitte Pellerin says
I wouldn’t know; I’m not a Christian and I never understood Gandhi (I’m not big on martyrs). But I’m puzzled: I always thought arguing from first principles was a good thing regardless of practicalities.
I am powerless to stop the government from throwing who knows how much money at GM. Does that mean I can’t talk about how wrong it is to do so because so far my arguments against government intervention in the economy have done nothing to stop it? Is my elevated plane of non-action ridiculous there, too?
Colby Cosh says
I don’t really understand the analogy. I’m not saying (not here) that anyone is wrong to oppose abortion. I’m saying there has to be intellectual hygiene: if you’re going to argue that abortion is state-licensed mass murder or genocide, you can’t turn around at an inconvenient moment and denounce someone who pursued that idea an extra half-inch to its logical conclusion. And if you’re a pro-lifer who thinks that abortion is a less serious sin–one not rising to the level of a capital crime–you should be prepared to acknowledge that the movement is mass-producing irresponsible, insupportable arguments that lead predictably to occasional violence.
I have, for example, heard a lot of pro-lifers take issue with the Genocide Awareness Project. But in my experience their beef always boils down to “Yuk, those pictures are gross.” The real problem–the problem that actually has an ethical implication instead of a purely tactical one–is that abortion isn’t genocide, isn’t like genocide, cannot properly be resisted with the means recognized as ethically warranted in cases of genocide, and should never, ever be described as genocide. I’m sure this argument may have been made, sometime, by some opponent of abortion, but it’s definitely not getting much traction with pro-life groups and their contributors and enablers.
Mary Ann says
The Oxford Canadian say genocide is “the mass extermination of human beings, esp. of a particular race or nation.” The mass extermination of human fetuses transcends race or nation, so I don’t know – does that mean it’s genocide? Or does genocide have to involve the singling out of a “race or nation?” Those who argue it is genocide might say the category is not race or nation in this instance, but the state of being unborn – one does not become legally a human being until one’s head emerges from the mother’s vagina; until then you have no rights.
In WWII, there was genocide going on and there were still pacifists who argued that violence is always wrong. Does CC have a big problem with that too?
The point is, the reason pro-lifers bother to care about abortion is because they believe in the sanctity of human life and that murder or killing of human beings is wrong. Therefore, they will not go the extra half inch and say go out and kill all abortion providers even though many do believe that abortion is damned close to being genocide. Me, I don’t care if it’s called genocide or not. Those icky pictures show a reality that is wrong.
And let me say, it is morally wrong to murder somebody. But this somebody used ultra sound images to help him see the sometimes viable fetus and enable him to kill it cruelly and inhumanely. What he did was morally loathsome and it isn’t so difficult to understand how every so often someone goes over the edge. It isn’t the fault of the movement that points out how morally loathsome abortion is.
There are environmental, animal rights, “human rights” wackos out there too. And of course, acts of terrorism are everyday justified by looking for “root causes.” The hypocrisy with which the anti-abortion movement is treated is stunning.
Brigitte Pellerin says
Hey, I’m happy to call abortion the state-licenced mass termination of unborn human entities through careful dismemberment and suctioning out then re-assembly to make sure no bits are missing. And I object to it in principle because I am opposed to mass termination of unborn human entities even in cases where dismemberment does not precede death and regardless of licence requirements.
Thing is, though, abortion is, in practice, a very ugly and bloody business. I object to the GAP because it’s not right to assault unsuspecting pedestrians with such disturbing images without giving them a chance to brace themselves first. But I also challenge every single pro-choicer and middle-of-the-roader to see those images, because you can’t claim to be in favour of abortion, or neutral on the subject, if you have no idea what it does in practice to actual unborn human entities.
Anyway. That takes us somewhat away from the main point. Perhaps you know more about the pro-life movement than I do, but my impression was that, as with most other social or political movements, it was in the main part composed of normal law-abiding people who care a lot but would never dream of doing something like shooting an abortionist or firebombing a clinic. Seems to me we’d see a lot more violent incidents otherwise.
Dan says
“…you can’t turn around at an inconvenient moment and denounce someone who pursued that idea an extra half-inch to its logical conclusion.”
Colby,
You are wrong to imply that killing an abortionist is the “logical conclusion”. It is in fact an illogical conclusion, because such acts hurt the pro-life cause and thus they will, in the long run, diminish our prospects for saving unborn children. Furthermore, we don’t kill to solve our problems; otherwise we have descended to the level of the abortionist.
To pursue the idea a little further for a moment… perhaps you are thinking along the lines of the so-called Just War Theory. One can fight a just war if one has a reasonable expectation of winning and one can show that winning would bring about a good that far outweighs the wrongs that inevitably come about from fighting a war. In this case, there is no expectation of “winning” by killing an abortionist, so the just war theory does not apply.
Colby Cosh says
You make it sound as though expecting pro-life arguments to be made by means of sincere, careful, responsible, accurate language is a frightfully onerous imposition. And of course, the “law-abidingness” of pro-lifers is not the issue; the issue is rhetorically encouraging law-breaking 90% of the time and pleading sweet, peaceable innocence the other 10%.
Colby Cosh says
Sorry, got in just behind Dan there. Part of my argument in the column is that violence against abortionists does satisfy “just war” criteria, though I don’t speak explicitly of the “just war” concept.
Brigitte Pellerin says
OK. Show me posts on this site (by me, preferably, but I’ll take any example you find) that qualify as “rhetorically encouraging law-breaking” any percentage of the time, and I’ll pay darn close attention. The search box is at the top of the left sidebar. This is an open challenge – anyone feels like helping Colby? Be my guest.
If you have examples from other sites, please share a few. It will be my pleasure to highlight them and denounce them.
Otherwise, I’ll happily continue being sweet and peaceably innocent. Fair enough?
Colby Cosh says
Are you in some doubt that the pro-life movement supports and applauds the work of the Genocide Awareness Project? My whole point is that every time someone calls abortion “genocide”, or uses some similarly inflated, hyperdramatic term, he is encouraging people to act as though it’s genocide, thus encouraging vigilantism. I’m not suggesting you personally have done this, and perhaps I need to acknowledge more explicitly that you have granted its wrongness.
Mary Ann says
Give me a break CC. Hang around a university some day and listen to genocide of this and genocide of that…North and South American Indigenous peoples, residential schools, Palestinians, women pre-legal abortion etc. etc. etc. It’s tossed around to the point where it is meaningless even in the contexts where it might be argued appropriate.
So, so what? Are these people encouraging vigilantism? Those who choose to use the word “Genocide” in relation to abortion are not unique in this trend. (And that might be a good reason not to use it)
As usual, anti-abortionists are judged in ways no other groups are.
Colby Cosh says
Good point, but I couldn’t entertain the argument that it is inappropriate to devote special scrutiny to pro-life culture and language when an abortion doctor gets shot. (For the second time.)
Dan says
Colby,
You may have argued that killing abortionists satisfies “just war” criteria, but you haven’t made a very good case. Killing sets a horrible example which ultimately outweighs the benefits of stopping one abortionist or discouraging medical students from “pursuing abortion as a vocation”. Killing causes people who hold “pro-choice” views to become further entrenched and more determined than ever. It makes them much less willing to even listen to the reasoned arguments that are the basis for the pro-life position. Any hope for rationality disappears and is replaced by a visceral emotional response.
Colby Cosh says
I disagree: it doesn’t matter what the law says, or what people might favour, if the supply of abortion services can be choked off by threats, and the killing of Tiller is a powerful blow to the very small late-term-abortion industry. But it’s gratifying to see someone honestly conceding the *possibility* of just vigilantism, instead of denying it histrionically.
Mary Ann says
Two things –
Frankly, I don’t buy that the “late-term abortion industry” is small and abortion services have been curtailed – simply because of threats.
People become doctors, many of them, not all, out of some kind of idealism. And some to make lots of money. Who wants to spend their careers sucking out fetuses with vacuum aspirators and dismembering fetuses wriggling to get away from you and then reassembling their body parts on a dish? I know doctors have to become hardenend and lose their ability to care about “ickyiness” but aside from that, abortion is medically uninteresting, completely unrewarding. and wouldn’t you rather make your big bucks replacing corneas or hips or trying to save people from early death, or by delivering babies?
Many doctors may be theoretically “pro-choice” but very happy to pass the woman along to somebody else. It’s easier that way. You can feel smug but not have to face what it is every day.
Two: I don’t think “just war” and “just vigilantism” can be equated. Pro lifers can’t make the argument that abortion is so bad we have to kill abortion providers. Abortion is morally wrong because killing is morally wrong. We can’t be the Allies sweeping through Europe killing bad Nazis to let the Jews out of Auschwitz.
It won’t work; we have to change people’s hearts and minds, by showing them what is happening and daring them to care. Does that mean we really don’t think in our heart of hearts underneath all the “blowhard rhetoric” abortion is bad? No, it doesn’t. But it does mean I for one don’t have any problem understanding how Hitler got away with it or how slavery and the slave trade lasted so long. People want to be left alone and don’t really care about moral questions until they absolutely have to. It’s so easy to look away from abortion. Prochoicers know that one of their greates threats is people actually having to see the reality of what abortion entails – and that is why they become hysterical at the GAP. How dare you show us that?
Colby Cosh says
In the column, I made specific reference to the fact that abortion wouldn’t be a popular business line for doctors anyway. That only makes it MORE attractive for principled opponents of abortion to attack it on the supply side. As a matter of common sense, don’t you think the murder of Dr. Tiller will increase a whole bunch of line-item costs for clinics, raise the rates charged to the patients, and reduce overall access to abortion? I don’t see how you can really believe anything else.
Your second point is compelling, but it seems to me you’re really arguing “Tiller did in some sense deserve to die, and I would celebrate his death if it did not create practical problems for the movement (“it won’t work”); but because us sincere pro-lifers are outnumbered right now, it was tactically unwise for him to be killed, so we mourn.” Like Dan’s, this seems to me like an admirably honest position. But the mainstream pro-life reactions, and the ones I am getting in my inbox, and the ones in the comment thread to my column, don’t resemble yours at all. You’ve got people shouting “Pro-lifers believe in ALL life” and “The Bible says thou shalt not kill!” It’s all defensive, poorly-considered nonsense.
Mary Ann says
Well there are some pro- lifers who are vegetarians and vegans, and there are some who are anti-war and anti-capital punishment and there are some who subscribe to justt war theory and are not anti-capital punishment. The movement is not monolithic.
But I do think we all share the belief in the value, dare I say, sanctity of innocent human lives. That to be human is to be valued. Whether that plays out in never killing anyone anywhere no matter what, or deciding that there are times, self-defense, just war, capital punishment of heinous crimes when there are exceptions, is open. The sanctity of human life is I would assumethe intuition compelling the “defensive, poorly-considered nonsense.” So, no I am not arguing that in some way he deserved to be killed. I would say, however, in a truly sane and civilized society, his actions would have been deemed illegal and if he persisted in them, he deserved to be in jail.
Frank Monozlai says
Colby writes,
Part of my argument in the column is that violence against abortionists does satisfy “just war” criteria, though I don’t speak explicitly of the “just war” concept.
My whole point is that every time someone calls abortion “genocide”, or uses some similarly inflated, hyperdramatic term, he is encouraging people to act as though it’s genocide, thus encouraging vigilantism.
But it’s gratifying to see someone honestly conceding the *possibility* of just vigilantism, instead of denying it histrionically.
Your second point is compelling, but it seems to me you’re really arguing “Tiller did in some sense deserve to die, and I would celebrate his death if it did not create practical problems for the movement (”it won’t work”); but because us sincere pro-lifers are outnumbered right now, it was tactically unwise for him to be killed, so we mourn.” Like Dan’s, this seems to me like an admirably honest position. But the mainstream pro-life reactions, and the ones I am getting in my inbox, and the ones in the comment thread to my column, don’t resemble yours at all. You’ve got people shouting “Pro-lifers believe in ALL life” and “The Bible says thou shalt not kill!” It’s all defensive, poorly-considered nonsense.
**************************************************************
I appreciate the detail in which Colby has put forth his thoughts on the matter, especially his take on the different pro-life responses that he’s been receiving. Though I haven’t all of the primary sources in front of me, I think that this discussion of the application of just war theory is missing a few key ingredients. I’ll speak to two of them.
One element that has yet to mentioned is the fact that just war theory hardly grants private individuals license to employ violence, even when it appears capable of bringing about a concrete good or preventing evil acts. As one summary of St Thomas’ position on just war puts it, one of the key conditions that legitimize in conscience the use of armed force is, “when the war is brought on not by simple individuals or through some secondary authority,….but always through the authority that exercises the highest power in the State.” The rule of law and legitimate authority doesn’t give way to a license for anarchy the minute a regime enacts a law contrary to natural justice.
Since the Genocide Awareness Project came up earlier in the thread, perhaps looking at how this would apply to slavery might be of help. In that example, a Christian may be obliged not to participate in it’s practice, and might want to zealously campaign for as many restrictions as possible or an outright prohibition of slavery. One can even be inspired to join the army of a state that is fighting a war with the stated aim of abolishing slavery in the conquered territory. That option may legitimately entail the killing of others. Vigilantism, however, by its very nature violates the principle of legitimate authority when private individuals take it into their own hands to solve the problem. Consequently, violent methods such as those employed by some of the more zealous Abolitionists before the US Civil War lacked the legitimacy of the other methods whereby a person of good will could combat slavery.
Removing the right to vigilantism leads to the second point; namely the extent to which the state may legitimately employ violence to protect society. The point after all isn’t for pro-lifers or Christians to gain enough political clout so that we use the mechanisms of the state to kill off abortion providers. Though it may be allowable or even appropriate for the state to kill others in the defence of society, under just war theory the killing is only allowed in the most serious of cases after all other options have been exhausted. In a modern, developed country that chose to prohibit abortion and vigilantly prosecute and jail those doctors who continued to perform them, it would be very difficult to prove any necessity for employing capital punishment to achieve the desired end of stopping abortions.
In short, I think it wrong to suggest that one has to be inconsistent about abortion (as in we’ll call it murder, but won’t really treat it as such) or the naively pacifist stance, in which pro-lifers go on about how all killing is wrong. Private individuals can only kill in self-defence, while the broader circumstances where the state can employ violence is still restricted by the greater means at its disposal that must be exhausted before resorting to killing or the use of force.
Elizabeth says
Colby, the use of violence is the sole jurisdiction of the State, except in the case of self-defense. Most pro-lifers I know (and myself) believe in the right of a mother to terminate if her life is in danger (self-defense). Most pro-lifers would probably agree with killing Dr. Tiller if he was trying to kill their baby against their will (again self-defense). The overwhelming majority disagree with vigilantism, etc. There is not “an extra inch” that we are inciting people towards. This is like saying that all the grieving parents of children murdered after birth are inciting vigilantism when they speak out.
As someone else pointed out, the use of the term “genocide” is a red herring. That word is used non-stop in many contexts. Going vigilante on perps of genocide is not “the extra inch” from speaking out against whatever one personally considers to be genocide. I don’t think abortion fits this definition not only due to the race component, but due to it not being a centrally-planned thing. It is the result of a million decisions. Often, these women don’t know the reality of what is occuring until it is too late and have been given the socially-acceptable story.
Ann Coulter has an excellent column up about this today:
http://www.anncoulter.com/
” wouldn’t kill an abortionist myself, but I wouldn’t want to impose my moral values on others. No one is for shooting abortionists. But how will criminalizing men making difficult, often tragic, decisions be an effective means of achieving the goal of reducing the shootings of abortionists?
Following the moral precepts of liberals, I believe the correct position is: If you don’t believe in shooting abortionists, then don’t shoot one.
“
Jon says
On June 3 at 11:13 am Colby Cosh said, “I couldn’t entertain the argument that it is inappropriate to devote special scrutiny to pro-life culture and language when an abortion doctor gets shot. (For the second time.)”
Mr. Cosh, do you devote special scrutiny to pro-choice culture and language when an abortionist tries to kill the same person twice? Are you aware that Senator Obama consistently voted against the Illinois BAIPA, a bill designed to save new-borns, i.e. abortion survivors like Gianna Jessen? The pro-choice culture believes that every aborting woman is entitled to a dead baby, and Senator Obama was worried about endangering the Roe-Wade court decision.
Do you devote special scrutiny to pro-choice culture and language when an abortionist kills not just one person or two but sixty thousand people? Are you aware of the extent to which pro-choice culture foiled Phill Kline in his persistent attempts as Attorney General–he was not a vigilante–to bring Mr. Tiller to justice? Because of the Roe-Wade court decision and other pro-abortion legislation and attitudes, pro-lifers could not do much to restrain Mr. Tiller. They could do something because Mr. Tiller was such a lawless person that he broke the laws of his state. Despite the evidence, weak as the prosecution was (Mr. Kline was no longer in control), the jury refused to convict Mr. Tiller. The pro-choice culture believed that he was providing a valuable service to women.
I know your pro-choice reasoning: you just define a human fetus out of existence. And that might have been the same sloppy reasoning that Mr. Tiller’s murderer used: “Mr. Tiller is a devil, not a human being.” More likely, Mr. Tiller’s murderer believed that he was avenging the deaths of sixty thousand people. He wasn’t; vengeance is God’s, and only those who have His authority (i.e. the civil government) can repay.