Aaron post 10

Aaron Childree

When the Supreme Court case Roe v. Wade finally came to a close on January 22, 1973, a huge change had been made to the laws of the United States. Anti-abortion laws were declared unconstitutional and were said to violate the privacy of the women wanting an abortion. The court decided that during the first trimester there could be no restrictions on abortion and after that the state could intervene in some form (information on Roe v. Wade is from tourolaw.edu). This case caused a huge controversy and split the nation into those for abortion (pro-choice) and those against it (pro-life). This controversy slowly escalated over time until suddenly people were being killed over the issue. The controversy continues to this day and abortion is still an important political and legal issue.

Part 1

The anti-abortion movement had small and peaceful beginnings. John O’Keefe, known as the “father of rescue” (Wrath of Angels, p.78) was one of the first anti-abortionists to begin to organize peaceful sit-ins at abortion clinics. O’Keefe was a firm believer in “the power of nonviolence” (Wrath of Angels, p.79). He created an organization called the “Pro-Life Non-Violent Action Project” (Wrath of Angels, p.89) in which he would gather relatively small groups of protesters to gather around abortion clinics to hopefully interfere enough to close down the clinic for the day in order to send a message. Some of the clinics would decide to close down before the protesters even arrived and there were usually no arrests made. The idea was to get the point that abortion is murder across in a nonviolent way. O’Keefe realized that you can not fight against violence by being violent (similar to the beliefs of Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King).

Next came Michael Bray, the anti-abortion movement’s “father of violence” (Wrath of Angels, p.78). Bray started as a participant in some of O’Keefe’s sit-ins but began to turn towards more militant ideas. He and his friend Thomas Spinks began to make plans to bomb abortion clinics. “Their first target was the Reproductive Care Center, a clinic in Dover Delaware, which Bray had scouted out while visiting nearby relatives” (Wrath of Angels p. 86). They bombed the clinic in January of 1984. Spinks described the experience: “So Mike opened the hatchback, and I grabbed a log and threw it through the door. Mike was to the right of me, and he threw a cinder block through the window, the big plate of glass. We began to throw the cans and things of gas inside” (Wrath of Angels, p.87). Bray and Spinks did not think that what they were doing was wrong; they thought it was for the good of society. Spinks later said, “it would be okay to destroy buildings. We saw them as death camps. So we came to the agreement that it was okay to destroy these places as long as it was carefully carried out so that no human life would be hurt in the process” (Wrath of Angels, p.86) This marked the beginning of the more militant and destructive side of the anti-abortion movement. There was still no talk of harming other human lives, but the ideas of nonviolence were slowly being pushed away and labeled ineffective.

Another anti-abortion activist that attempted to get her point across in destructive and rebellious ways was Joan Andrews. Like most activists, Andrews began by participating in peaceful sit-ins but soon became frustrated and began to turn to violence and destruction. Andrews started driving by “St. Louis-area clinics late at night to inject superglue, a remarkably tough adhesive, into door locks to seal them shut” (Wrath of Angels, p.193). Soon Andrews was “getting arrested throughout Pennsylvania” (Wrath of Angels, p.193). Joan Andrews finally got her “big break” in Pensacola. On March 26, 1988, became frustrated during a sit-in she was participating in. She entered The Ladies Center clinic and began tearing apart the equipment. “While Andrews was yanking on the wires, two police officers arrived and grabbed her” (Wrath of Angels, p. 201). Andrews was then taken to jail and given an offer of probation which she quickly refused. “Joan Andrews didn’t want a deal; she saw an opportunity in Pensacola to challenge the system” (Wrath of Angels, p.203). Andrews was sentenced to 5 years in prison and decided to use her time behind bars to make a statement with total noncooperation. She expressed some of her ideas in a speech before she went to jail: “I do recommend fasting two or three times a week in jail and praying constantly- but total noncooperation. Going limp where you have to be carried to your cell- total disobedience. Now let me ask you, what jail would want you? You will create such a disturbance in the minds and hearts of all the people you come in contact with that they are going to say, wow, they really mean it” (Wrath of Angels, p.204). Joan Andrews’s noncooperative show in prison received lots of attention and caused large problems for the justice system until she was finally released.

Soon after, the anti-abortion movement took a turn for the worst. Activists started using Genesis 9:6 to establish the morality of “justifiable homicide”. The verse reads: “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed; for in the image of God has God made man” (Genesis 9:6, NIV). This verse is often seen as advocating the use of the death penalty in legal systems are more loosely as a “what goes around comes around” type of thing, but some activists saw it as a call to carry out God’s justice themselves by killing abortion doctors. Two such activists were Shelley Shannon and Paul Hill. Shannon shot George Tiller in August of 1993 and Hill shot and killed John Britton in July of 1994. These killings gave an understandably bad reputation to the anti-abortion movement and crippled its progress.

So why did everything turn sour so fast? The answer is frustration. Anti-abortion activists were looking for change, and no matter how hard they tried, they didn’t see it. They could shut down a clinic for a day, but it would open the next day and be back to business as usual. So the activists began to attempt to destroy the clinics. Abortions would then be stalled for a short period of time, but the clinics would find ways to provide abortions anyways. It just didn’t seem like any progress was being made. The final act of frustration, the killing of abortion doctors, was certainly a drastic step. But instead of making progress, it set the whole movement back to square one. How could people take pro-life advocates seriously if they are taking life away? They were now just a bunch of insane, murderous hypocrites. Changing the legal system takes lifetimes of slow and patient work, and the anti-abortion activists weren’t willing to be that patient.

Part 2

Randall Terry was a very important figure in the anti-abortion movement. “He had a gift, a relentlessness, that made it possible for him to talk to perfect strangers” (Wrath of Angels, p.241). He was one of the first people to take the anti-abortion movement to a national level. The fact that Terry was a Protestant Christian has a lot to do with why he decided to get involved with protests and “contentious actions”. First of all, because Terry wasn’t Catholic, he didn’t have to answer to the higher officials of the Catholic Church. Protestantism is less unified and structured and allows people to read the Bible and come to their own conclusions. Naturally, this leads to more freedom to carry out your believes without interference from the church. Another factor is that Christians believe in what McVeigh and Sikkink refer to as “moral absolutism” (God, Politics, and Protest, p.1432) Christians believe that anyone who doesn’t believe in Christianity will go to hell and that is why they believe they are doing the right thing by attempting to impose their beliefs on others. Yet another reason why Terry felt so compelled to protest abortion was because, like all Christians, he believed that all humans are sinful. Because of this he saw that people weren’t going to stray from their immoral ways on their own and took it upon himself to help push them to change.

Part 3

Article 1

KILL FOR LIFE?

[By Lisa Belkin]

New York Times; Oct 30, 1994; ProQuest Historical Newspapers The New York Times (1851 - 2004)

pg. SM47

Article 2

Is Abortion Violence a Plot? Conspiracy Is Not Confirmed

By TIMOTHY EGAN

New York Times (1857-Current file); Jun 18, 1995; ProQuest Historical Newspapers The New York Times (1851 - 2004)
pg. 1

The first article talks about the rapid evolution of the anti-abortion movement from peaceful sit-ins to ruthless murder. It mentions how ridiculous it is that pro-life advocates think that the best way to get their point across is to kill. They say that they are trying to save lives but now they are taking it away. The article talks a lot about Roy McMillan, an anti-abortionist who advocates “justifiable homicide” but says that he has no plans to kill anyone. The article also mentions Paul Hill and his murder of abortion doctor John Britton. Hill was close friends with McMillan and they shared a lot of the same ideas. The article says that government officials were trying to tie many of these political extremists together in order to uncover any conspiracies that might be going on.

The second article talks about how the government was trying to get information from Shelley Shannon on other anti-abortion extremists in order to establish whether or not there is a large conspiracy going on between anti-abortion activists who are willing to kill to get their point across. Shannon was unwilling to give any names even though she was already serving a ten-year sentence for the attempted murder of George Tiller, an abortion doctor.

Both articles mention that the federal government was investigating these murder cases closely and looking for any hints to a possible conspiracy. It seems that it was very widely believed that these murders were connected and that an “anti-abortion crime circle” was under operation. These articles also seem fairly intent on pointing out that they think the ideas of these murderers are crazy and ridiculous. This is probably because these extreme views are harmful to both sides of the debate. It harms the reputation of anti-abortionists by giving people reason to believe that they are just a bunch of lunatics, and it doesn’t help those for abortion because their doctors are being killed. Both sides wanted to stay away from supporting these views and the articles that were written at the time reflect that mentality.

1^st image is from www.fadp.org

2^nd image is from www.childrenneedheroes.com

The first image is a picture of Paul Hill the day before he is to be executed for murdering an abortion doctor. He seems to be shown smiling in order to show just how crazy he really is. He still believes that what he did was right and thinks that he will be rewarded by God in heaven for carrying out His work on earth. The second image is of Shelley Shannon, another person who shot an abortion doctor. This image also shows her smiling, but for a completely different reason. The site that this photo comes from (childrenneedheroes.com) is trying to say that Shannon should be seen as a hero and that she is smiling because she knows she has done the right thing. This site is trying to tell young children that they should be more like Shelley Shannon. The Children Need Heroes newsletter claims to be “Honoring the brave men and women who, at great personal cost, used force to defend preborn children from unjust violence” (childreneedheroes.com). Whereas the New York Times articles gave a more neutral and factual account of the happenings, it seems that these images are being used to aggressively promote one view on the issue.

The fight over the legality of abortion turned into a huge debate that included religious, political, and moral issues. It really is sad that some people can say they are “pro-life” and then turn into murderers. While the abortion issue continues to be a very difficult problem to solve, I think most people can now agree that violence will not help either side. This issue will not be resolved by destroying abortion clinics or even by killing doctors. If people want something to be changed they need to understand that it takes a lot of time and patience.