Posted by
Curt Day on Sunday, June 07, 2009 7:40:43 AM
Tragedy can be seen on all sides of George Tiller's assassination. First, Dr. Tiller practiced abortions. Abortion robs the unborn child's right to live with methods that can only be viewed as gruesome for its older victims. Next, Dr Tiller was robbed of his life and his family members and friend's were robbed of a loved-one. Next, Tiller's assassin decided to follow the old adage, "if you can't beat them, join them," by killing Tiller. So if what Tiller practiced was wrong, his assassin now joins him in his sin. And finally, the TH blogs I read expressed little to no condemnation of the assassination. Where disapproval was expressed, it was lifeless. In fact, some were even enthusiastic to condemn Tiller's church but said not a word about the assassin.
These reactions to Tiller's murder shows that the self-righteous right lives. The self-righteous right are conservatives who take their own behavior and statements for granted as they attack others for their "sins."
Tiller's assassination was almost as tragic for the pro-life cause as it was for Tiller and his family--this is not to relegate the horrible sense of loss his family unfortunately experiences. This assassination made the following sweeping overgeneralizations of pro-life advocates made by some abortion apologists somewhat more plausible to the public. This increased plausibility makes inaudible the legitimate points that pro-life advocates make. This increased plausibility makes a "moderate" position on abortion a more desired direction for the the general public. And finally, the unwillingness to strongly condemn the assassination by some pro-life advocates hurts the credibility of the cause.
Those pro-life advocates who use threats and violence to advance their cause must realize that they are only putting a silencer on the movement that tries stop the silencing of many unborn children. Pro-life advocates need to take that approach with both practitioners of abortion and their supporters that Dr. King took with racists; he sought to win them over. And pro-life advocates need to be honest and realize that they have some weaknesses in their logic and pro-choice advocates have some very legitimate concerns that pro-choice advocates have. In short, if the pro-life movement is to succeed, it must show the same attitude to its opponents that they want practitioners of abortion to show to the unborn. They must show respect.