posted
From the article it sounds like there were two shootings and that it may not be related to the anti-abortion activities.
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posted
I'll wait to hear what the investigation says. I'm just pointing out that your conclusion "he got shot to death for his views" has been addressed by investigators and they claim they don't yet know.
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quote:I'm sure that he was protesting abortion at the time was a total coincidence.
Given that there was a 2nd shooting elsewhere and the same person is apparently suspected in both...it might have been. Perhaps we'll find out as the investigation progresses.
I hope that it was a coincidence, because he certainly didn't deserve to die for his views. (Not that dying for no reason is a marked improvement. )
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posted
A very bad man. And liked shooting people. I hope that his other victim doesn't just become a footnote. This is terrible all around.
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quote:There are bad people on both sides of every issue. It's as simple--and complicated--as that.
But sometimes, the numbers are vastly disproportionate. It's as simple as that.
ETA: And incidentally, the proper thing to say when someone on your side of an argument (no matter how far removed towards the extreme they are) does something horrible isn't, "There's bad folks on all sides." Rather it's something along the lines of, "This was a disgraceful act that shames me as someone who believes things similar to the perpetrator. I completely reject the deed itself and the doer himself."
posted
Yeah, but if I had to write something that long about every person on my side who does something horrible, I'd quickly run out of time to do anything else.
Seriously, though, the guy is a murderer and should be shunned by every pro-choice person everywhere as such, even more than just because he became an inconvenience for our politics.
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quote:Yeah, but if I had to write something that long about every person on my side who does something horrible, I'd quickly run out of time to do anything else.
Fortunately it's unlikely you'll ever know about every person on your side who does something horrible, so it won't come up:)
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Rakeesh's statement is exactly how I feel. As much as I dislike anti-abortion protestors, they shouldn't be endangered because of their beliefs. I hope the shooter spends the rest of his life in jail.
On another note, "But sometimes, the numbers are vastly disproportionate."
Yes. There have been far more people killed because they are providing abortions, or seeking to have an abortion, than people who have been killed because they are protesting access to abortions.
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quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh: And incidentally, the proper thing to say when someone on your side of an argument (no matter how far removed towards the extreme they are) does something horrible isn't, "There's bad folks on all sides." Rather it's something along the lines of, "This was a disgraceful act that shames me as someone who believes things similar to the perpetrator. I completely reject the deed itself and the doer himself."
This would be true if and only if I felt any sort of kinshp with the person who committed such atrocities. I canntot and will not apologize or justify myself for the wrongful act committed by anyone who shares an opinion with me, not even when that person commits their atrocity because of said opinion. I do not expect every anti-abortion advocate out there to feel shame every time an abortion doctor is killed (although when I hear some of them suggest that he deserved it, I get riled).
I may be pro-choice in my political views but that man had nothing to do with me and I feel no shame for his action, only sorrow for the man killed and his family, as I would for any homicide victim.
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quote:All of which is dwarfed by the numbers of people killed by abortions.
I partially agree with that statement (partially because I don't, for example, think a 'morning after' abortion equates to a person being killed - though I'm not sure), but that, too, is irrelevant.
It's irrelevant because as a method of reducing abortions in this country, killing providers and their supporters doesn't work. It is, in fact, extremely counterproductive to the effort of reducing and eventually eliminating abortions in this country, and I think we can all agree that that particular goal is plenty difficult enough to reach already.
So I have zero sympathy for folks (not saying you're saying this, katharina, but I've heard it elsewhere) who have killed abortion doctors and say, "This person won't kill any more babies." Because so far as I can tell, they (the killers) haven't reduced the actual abortions occuring at all. They've just redistributed them very, very slightly, and to make even that insignificant impact they had to kill someone.
If their true motivation were to make abortions less commonplace, if that was the biggest and most important goal in their hearts and minds, they wouldn't be making martyrs. They'd be on a PAC or something like that. If, however, their true motivation involves primarily hatred, bloodlust, and vengeance, well, making martyrs actually makes sense from that perspective.
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quote:So I have zero sympathy for folks (not saying you're saying this, katharina, but I've heard it elsewhere) who have killed abortion doctors and say, "This person won't kill any more babies."
Terrorism against abortion providers has actually lowered the abortion rate in Kansas, as far as I know.
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posted
This act is despicable. People bombing abortion clinics and murdering doctors is despicable. BOTH sides should agree with this.
One side also believes the act of abortion is murder and that it too is despicable. All of us at Hatrack know this, all of us know pretty much which members believe that. But I believe in my virtual community here - I believe that none of us would condone this action nor would any of us condone the action of murdering a doctor. So as we discuss these issues, I like to keep that belief close to my heart and give all my fellow jatraqueros the benefit of the doubt. We may disagree on whether or not a fetus is an independent being who has a right to life but I think we all agree that murder of someone outside the womb is wrong.
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quote:Terrorism against abortion providers has actually lowered the abortion rate in Kansas, as far as I know.
Are there any statistics in support of this, Tom? How long-range are they? And how would those statistics know if, for example, any individuals terrorized away from their local abortion providers didn't simply take a drive to the next place?
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quote:Originally posted by katharina: All of which is dwarfed by the numbers of people killed by abortions.
I'm not sure what point you are trying to make, perhaps you can clarify because the context of the comment suggests you think that "the numbers of people killed by abortions" is an ameliorating factor we should consider when someone murders abortion providers or people seeking an abortion. I hope that isn't what you intended because I find it morally repugnant to justify cold blooded murder under any circumstance.
As Belle said, we may disagree about whether or not a fetus is a human being. I will add, we may disagree about whether abortion is equivalent to murder. We may disagree about the rights of the mother. We may disagree about what circumstances if any justify seeking an abortion. We may disagree about the appropriate roll of government in regulating and restricting abortions. We may disagree about which side has the moral high ground, which side has greater concern for human rights, and which side is more belligerent. We may disagree about how far an individual has the right to go to defend their beliefs on this issue.
But we should all agree that murder is a heinous crime that is never excusable in anyway. And there should be no question in any mind that our opponents in any political argument are full human beings deserving of human rights. Murdering people for their stand on abortion or even their participation in abortion crosses a line that should never be crossed. There is nothing that can ameliorate such an act.
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quote: Murdering people for their stand on abortion or even their participation in abortion crosses a line that should never be crossed. There is nothing that can ameliorate such an act.
Well, if it turns out that abortion is the murder of a child, then killing someone participating in an abortion isn't murder at all, unless defense of an innocent's life is also murder.
In such a case I wouldn't label it a murder, even though I still think it's a line that ought never be crossed, because as I said before, it's simply not effective. If you're going to kill someone it should at least work.Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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quote:Well, if it turns out that abortion is the murder of a child, then killing someone participating in an abortion isn't murder at all, unless defense of an innocent's life is also murder.
No! Killing someone in defense of an innocent life is only justifiable it the innocent life is in immanent danger and can only protected prevented by the use of deadly force.
Killing someone because you believe they are going to commit a murder at some future time, is murder. Legally and morally. Killing someone because they support policies you think are likely to lead to the death of innocent life, is still murder, legally and morally. Killing someone because you believe they have in the past taken an innocent life is still murder, legally and morally.
Unless you know of a case where someone was killed while they were actually in the process of doing an abortion and could not be stopped by any other means, I'm confident it was murder and indefensible. Murder is wrong.
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posted
"Well, if it turns out that abortion is the murder of a child, then killing someone participating in an abortion isn't murder at all, unless defense of an innocent's life is also murder."
Well, if it turns out that meat is murder, then killing someone eating a Big*Mac isn't murder at all, unless defense of an innocent's life is also murder. Ya can't allow a person to go about willy nilly killing other folks cuz of hypotheticals, not even when that person believes their own particular hypothetical to be true.
* Admittedly a bad example. Eating a McDonalds hamburger is proof that one's taste buds are undead.
quote:Well, if it turns out that abortion is the murder of a child, then killing someone participating in an abortion isn't murder at all, unless defense of an innocent's life is also murder.
No! Killing someone in defense of an innocent life is only justifiable it the innocent life is in immanent danger and can only protected prevented by the use of deadly force.
I would venture to say that most likely (legally as well as morally and ethically) even if I walked up to someone and stated: "I am about to go to x address, with this gun here, and commit murder," and that person then pulled out a weapon and killed me, they would probably be guilty of murder as well. And that's even when all the factors involved are incredibly clear cut.
Now, if your personal sense of morality leads you to believe that you can kill a doctor who performs abortions, I'm glad we have a system of laws in place to protect me from your justice.
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quote:Now, if your personal sense of morality leads you to believe that you can kill a doctor who performs abortions, I'm glad we have a system of laws in place to protect me from your justice.
And I certainly the hope that overwhelming majority of people out there who deplore abortion, would find that (justifying killing doctors) morally abhorrent.
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posted
All in all, I find this incident very sad. Since the shooter shot another person who was seemingly unrelated to the abortion controversy, it seems unlikely that abortion was the sole factor involved. It seems likely that this guy was very seriously disturbed (unbalanced, maybe even evil). I am prone to see it more as random violence than real part of the abortion controversy, even though holding an anti-abortion sign is likely the thing that go this particular man shot rather than the one across the street.
I find it very unfortunate that some issues in our society have become so polarized and so contentious, that people feel they must resort to violence. Luckily, that is still a very minor part of the abortion controversy, which I am sure is no consolation to those who have been directly affected. Even though the majority of abortion related acts seems to come from nut jobs or one ilk or another, I can't help but wonder if even these people would be less prone to violence if the rest of the debate were less vitriolic.
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quote:No! Killing someone in defense of an innocent life is only justifiable it the innocent life is in immanent danger and can only protected prevented by the use of deadly force.
Yes. Killing someone in defense of another life (innocence not being necessary to the question, really) is justifiable if the life is in imminent danger of death or serious injury (because that can also result in death) or some other heinous injury (such as rape), and it is reasonable to believe that deadly force is the only way to prevent the thing from happening.
Wow, that's a mouthful. Basically, killing is justifiable and not murder (to me) if it's done because I believe that someone else is about to be killed or seriously injured by another person, and I can't see any way to stop that from happening besides the use of lethal force.
quote: Killing someone because you believe they are going to commit a murder at some future time, is murder.
I agree.
quote: Killing someone because they support policies you think are likely to lead to the death of innocent life, is still murder, legally and morally.
I agree.
quote: Killing someone because you believe they have in the past taken an innocent life is still murder, legally and morally.
I agree.
I'm pointing all of this out because I'd be interested to see where I said anything to the contrary. The only ground you've got to stand on is that someone might not 'know' that an abortion doctor, with abortions scheduled for a given day, was actually going to perform abortions that day. They could get struck by lightning or get the vaporizing flu, after all.
Anyway, even in that case, if someone honestly believed that abortion was cold-blooded murder of children, I would still not condone them killing an abortion doctor who performed hundreds of abortions a month because, as I said, it simply wouldn't work.
But for the sake of argument, if it turned out that abortion was in fact the cold blooded murder of children (and I don't think it is), then no, killing a given abortion doctor would not be murder, barring some other circumstances. Bearing in mind that people have tried other methods of stopping them.
Morally speaking, how much and how long is a person supposed to try non-lethal means before resorting to lethal means, Rabbit? Indefinitely? A day, a month, a decade?
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quote: Well, if it turns out that meat is murder, then killing someone eating a Big*Mac isn't murder at all, unless defense of an innocent's life is also murder. Ya can't allow a person to go about willy nilly killing other folks cuz of hypotheticals, not even when that person believes their particular hypothetical to be true.
Way to agree with me, aspectre!
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quote:I would venture to say that most likely (legally as well as morally and ethically) even if I walked up to someone and stated: "I am about to go to x address, with this gun here, and commit murder," and that person then pulled out a weapon and killed me, they would probably be guilty of murder as well. And that's even when all the factors involved are incredibly clear cut.
Does the second person believe the first person, Orincoro? Is it reasonable of them to have believed the threat? Is that address thirty second's walk up the street, or three hour's drive? Depending on the answers to those questions, you might be surprised.
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posted
Sure, that's a bag of nuts, but the point is obviously that with a real situation involving an abortionist or a protester, a preemptive killing is always going to be wrong.
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quote:Sure, that's a bag of nuts, but the point is obviously that with a real situation involving an abortionist or a protester, a preemptive killing is always going to be wrong.
OK, though I'm still not sure why folks feel the need to tell me that, as I've already said as much at least twice.
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quote: Well, if it turns out that abortion is the murder of a child, then killing someone participating in an abortion isn't murder at all, unless defense of an innocent's life is also murder.
That is why people are saying this to you. I don't think the first thing that pops into most people's minds when they read this is an image of a doctor with gloves on and a mask actually performing the procedure in a hospital room, and somebody busting in and shooting him dead.
I realize you said: "participating in," but that significantly broad to reasonably include a doctor on his way from the parking lot, or a nurse wiping the doctor's brow. It's begging an obvious question. Your statement could easily be read as a justification for a more preemptive act, even if you don't intend it that way. And anyway, I don't agree with you. I don't believe, for instance, that executioners are morally guilty of murder even though I believe that state sanctioned execution constitutes murder. It's a murder, in my opinion, being committed by the state, not by the person working the switch. Though we accept this concept when dealing with illegal murder, for instance conspiracy to commit murder is treated in the same way as the physical act (though in that case both the conspiracy and the physical act are crimes), we don't seem to use this concept when talking about abortion.
Anyway, if anything, I just think the pro-life focus on the specific act of abortion, rather than the more difficult societal problems that lead to abortions as a symptom, is in practical terms ineffective and counterproductive. When I see that the same people who are against legalized abortion are also not in favor of comprehensive sex education and the promotion of contraception, I tend to think the sanctity of life is not really the core issue- especially when many of these people are in favor of state-sanctioned execution. Rather, I think these acts of demonstration against abortion exist partly (in the larger picture) because they are a better public face for an ideological movement in favor of religious government. If one were in favor of a non-secular government, one would gravitate towards creating public outcry against specific symptoms of secular governmental control. If one were actually solely interested in the elimination of abortion, a more effective tack would be gaining a voice as part of a secular government in order to improve the social problems that cause an increase in abortions. Today, in my opinion, neither side of this issue, either pro-life or pro-choice, is aiming its energy anywhere near the right place. At the same time, this obviously bears little import for the individuals involved in demonstrations, who *are* ideologically committed to the obstruction of any and all abortions they have any power to effect. Of course these people want to feel, and are justified in feeling, that the only way for them to act is to confront the problem at the end-point, and also the point that so well defines the problem. But the problem is not entirely the procedure of abortion itself, and stopping all legal abortions would not fix the society in which they occur. Even if abortion was physically impossible, and babies were delivered by storks, there would be parents who would abandon them, refuse them, kill them, or neglect them. That would not be a problem solved by abortion, and in my opinion that is the greater problem, from which abortion follows. No loving and kind and generous and totally together and accepting society with all the resources needed for new parents, of any age, would need or want abortions. But we don't have all those things, and so we have this act, and we cannot make that problem go away by cutting off its head, and leaving the body.
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I realize you said: "participating in," but that significantly broad to reasonably include a doctor on his way from the parking lot, or a nurse wiping the doctor's brow.
It's really not, no more than someone on their way from their house to the bank they intend to rob is actually participating in a bank robbery one stoplight out of their driveway, Orincoro. If folks are reading 'participating in' to mean 'supporting in any way or potentially supporting in any way', well, I don't mean that. It's not what I said, either.
quote:Your statement could easily be read as a justification for a more preemptive act, even if you don't intend it that way.
Only if you substantially alter the meaning of the words 'participating in' to include things that most folks usually term 'supporting' or 'planning on doing later on'. Particularly since I've also already stated that lethal force should only be used - when it should be used, and (again) I don't think it should be used against abortion doctors - as a last resort, when other options are exhausted. If the doctor is not actually participating in the abortion at the moment, there are obviously other alternatives remaining.
quote:I don't believe, for instance, that executioners are morally guilty of murder even though I believe that state sanctioned execution constitutes murder. It's a murder, in my opinion, being committed by the state, not by the person working the switch.
This is a pretty strange disconnect to me. Someone is saved from being a murderer just because they get to cash a check afterwards? Isn't the usual term for that sort of thing 'assassin'?
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posted
So if someone believes that abortion isn't murder, then they should kill any person who professes a belief that abortion is murder to protect the innocent abortionist and various assistants (eg file clerks) from being murdered by that "abortion is murder" believer?
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quote:So if someone believes that abortion isn't murder, then they should kill any person who professes a belief that abortion is murder to protect the innocent abortionist and various assistants (eg file clerks) from being murdered by that "abortion is murder" believer?
I totally said this or something very like this.
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posted
And if someone believes that abortion is murder, then they should kill any person who professes a belief that abortion is not murder to protect innocent "abortion is murder" believers from being killed by those trying to protect the abortionists?
Then again the resulting tit-for-tat would go a long way towards solving any hypothetical overpopulation problem.
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posted
Rakeesh, please believe that I have read what you wrote carefully. I still have a question. If a doctor is in the operating room, ready to start an abortion, do you believe it is then justified to kill him?
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quote:Rakeesh, please believe that I have read what you wrote carefully. I still have a question. If a doctor is in the operating room, ready to start an abortion, do you believe it is then justified to kill him?
Do I believe it? No. But then I don't think abortion is the murder of an innocent.
I'm not trying to dodge your question, it's just that it's not nearly specific enough. It's a big thing, when to kill and when not to, and unfortunately for the sake of easy answers I don't think the correct answer is 'never'.
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posted
Number of Pro-Life protesters murdered by pro-Choice nutcases, that I know of..."x"
Number of Pro-Choice doctors, nurses, or others murdered by Pro-Life nutcases, that I know of...5x or so.
Number of Fetus destroyed by Pro-Choice doctors that I know of---5,000,000x or so.
Number of young girls that died before Rowe from back room abortions, dangerous pregnancies taken to termination, or other situations where an abortion could have saved the life of the mother-to-be? --- that I know of -- 5,000x or so
So the answer to the comment is this...
There seems to be more nutcase Pro-Life people killing doctors than nutcase Pro-Choice folks killing protesters.
This seems to be because the Pro-Lifers are more motivate to stop the abortions than the Pro-Choice folks are to stop the protests.
The question is whether you believe a fetus is a person if you want to tally up death tolls.
To the Pro-Life person, it is a life and makes the Pro-Choice people cold blooded murders.
To the Pro-Choice person, it is just a bunch of cells, and not worth the costs in lives of the girls and women killed before Rowe. Now the Pro-Life people are the cold blooded murderers, preferring the deaths of women and girls in order to force others to abide by their faith.
In reality, this is known.
Killing protesters does not discourage protesters.
Killing doctors does not reduce abortions.
Education, Motivation, Caring, and frank, open discussions of sex and pregnancy does reduce abortions.
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posted
I'm not sure why Rakeesh is getting piled on here. I think it's entirely consistent to suggest that if one believes that an abortion is murder than one should intercede, violently if necessary, to prevent it.
Of course I don't believe that abortion is murder and the idea of violent vigilantism scares the hell out of me, but I really don't see why people have such a hard time seeing the behavior as being internally consistence with a certain set of beliefs which are widely held.
I'm actually more surprised that more of the "abortion is murder" crowd aren't mobilizing violently. Some possible explanations are that they believe it's not pragmatically unjustified (i.e. it won't decrease the number of abortions), they place the order of a civil society above the lives that are being snuffed out, or their use of "murder" is hyperbole and they don't actually believe that there is a complete equivalence between ending a life pre- and post- gestation/viability.
I know if there were doctors that frequently - and legally - walked into hospital nurseries to euthanize day-old babies who's mothers had second thoughts then I *would* consider that murder and I have a hard time not thinking that violent acts committed to protect these children weren't justified.
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quote: Of course I don't believe that abortion is murder and the idea of violent vigilantism scares the hell out of me, but I really don't see why people have such a hard time seeing the behavior as being internally consistence with a certain set of beliefs which are widely held.
Those are just two of the reasons I don't condone killing abortion doctors.
quote: I know if there were doctors that frequently - and legally - walked into hospital nurseries to euthanize day-old babies who's mothers had second thoughts then I *would* consider that murder and I have a hard time not thinking that violent acts committed to protect these children weren't justified.
I'll go a step further than that. While I would certainly think these hypothetical doctors unquestionably invited violence against themselves in this situation, I still wouldn't condone that violence if it wouldn't have an impact on the actual euthanizations themselves.
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posted
Didn't this whole subtopic start with a statement that violence against abortionists HAD reduced the number of abortions in a particular area in Kansas?
For the record I largely agree with Matt and Rakeesh. I don't see a moral inconsistency in those who commit terrorism in an attempt to deter abortion. However, vigilantism only works if you're skilled on the order of Dexter or Batman, and since those are both fictitious people and I don't know offhand of any successful real vigilantes who didn't cause more problems than they solved, I'd say its society's perogative to stamp it out.
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quote:Originally posted by MattP: I'm actually more surprised that more of the "abortion is murder" crowd aren't mobilizing violently. Some possible explanations are that they believe it's not pragmatically unjustified (i.e. it won't decrease the number of abortions), they place the order of a civil society above the lives that are being snuffed out, or their use of "murder" is hyperbole and they don't actually believe that there is a complete equivalence between ending a life pre- and post- gestation/viability.
The reason is simple: civilization
We have come together as a civilization and determined that there are some things more important than our individual systems of beliefs. We have determined that certain compromises must be made in order to affect and maintain said civilization.
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posted
I don't think abortion is murder, it's a lot more like various forms of manslaughter, though not entirely so since it is always deliberate. But I have to recognize that the people engaging in it don't view it that way.
P.S. I see my civic duty going forward as trying to persuade people that it is wrong to engage in.
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