Tawny N post 10

Tawny Najjar

“Religion provides life, the world, and history with meaning, through a sacred reality which transcends those mundane realities. But in doing so, religion establishes a perceived objective reality above and beyond temporal life, the world, and history, that then occupies ad independent and privileged position to act – through those who believe in the religion – back upon the mundane world. That which is sacred and transcends temporal, earthly reality also stands in the position to question, judge, and condemn temporal earthly reality. In this way, the ultimate legitimator of the status quo can easily become its ultimate judge.” – Smith (McVeigh 1430)

Abortion has long been an extremely controversial topic among Americans. One reason for this conflict is that this issue directly relates to many American women, and challenges moral beliefs and ideas. Opposition to ideas that are considered by some to be “amoral” is inevitable, but a question that arises from this opposition is: How far is too far? Are there valid reasons for protestors to resort to violence? Many protestors that represented various religious groups believed that they had a “God-given” right to fight for what they believed to be moral. Actions speak louder than words, and this idea was clearly shown during the anti-abortionist movement.

The Roe versus Wade decision launched what came to be known as the anti-abortionist movement. In this decision, the court abolished all laws prohibiting abortion. They declared that abortion was permissible for all reasons up until the fetus reaches a point in which it is “viable,” which is when it has the potential to live outside of its mother’s uterus. This period of “viability” began during the second trimester of pregnancy. This decision triggered many debates about under what circumstances abortion is permissible and acceptable.

The beginning of the anti-abortionist movement was characterized by political involvement. Rallies were organized to recruit other to join the cause. In 1981, Michael Bray attended a rally in Bowie in support of the county executive, who had proposed a ban on abortion (Risen 83). Group involvement was mostly seen in churches. The Assemblies of God, for example, formed the backbone of the protests in Pensacola, protesting every Saturday morning. This became the first large-scale anti-abortionist protest campaign in the South, as well as the first in the nation to be dominated and organized by Fundamentalist Protestants, rather than Catholics (Risen 197). Projects were developed, such as the Pro-Life Non-Violent Action Project, started by Bray and O’Keefe in Gaithersburg, Maryland. This protest project occurred on November 17, in which forty-seven people, including seventeen Protestant and Catholic members were arrested. Over one hundred protestors blocked the doors of the clinic. This was the first publicized protest, gaining media recognition from the Washington Post. Anti-abortionists used propaganda as well, creating a documentary called The Silent Scream. This documentary was produced by a former abortion doctor who turned anti-abortionist. It contained traumatic footage of an ultrasound examination conducted during an abortion. This was the most successful piece of propaganda and one of the most effective recruiting tools (Risen 198).

However, protests, posters, and letters did not inflict the change that anti-abortionists were demanding. In an effort to make their point more noticeable, protestors started to resort to violence, starting with vandalism, and ending with total destruction of buildings. Joan Andrews, a Pro-Life advocate, spray-painted anti-abortion graffiti in clinic walls, superglued the door locks, and spread noxious liquids throughout clinics in St. Louis, which forced a temporary closure. Another advocate, Michael McMonagle, staged sit-ins, and invaded clinics and damaged equipment whenever possible. Besides picketing and inflicting damage on clinics, protestors started to make more personal attacks against clinic employees. McMonagle picketed the homes of abortion doctors, clinic owners, and clinic staffers (Risen 193). John Burt, another protestor, also personalized his protests against doctors and clinic staffers.

The final stage of the protest movement was obvious violence. Some protestors felt that this method would be the most effective way to get through to people and stop abortion. As John Burt stated, “When the history of this period is written, it won’t be the pickets or the letter-writers who will be the heroes. It’s going to be the bombers” (NY Times, Jan 18 1985). Clinic bombing began in 1984, started by Bray and Spinks. The Wheaton blast, occurring on November 19, 1984, was the first clinic bombing to make national news. One protestor gave the statement, “Yes, it is just…Is it prudent? No. But it is just to respond to violence against people by destroying property. Human life is far more valuable than property. Pro-lifers are going to act…The question is what shape that action will take” – O’Keefe (Risen 94). Protestors created the group, The Defenders of the Defenders of Life, which was a support group for clinic bombers and their families. Clinic bombing reached a high in 1984. Those activists who did not want to resort to this level of violence instead turned to civil disobedience. Half of the abortion providers claimed that they had become the “targets of anti-abortion ‘harassment,’” a politically loaded term that clinic personnel and abortion-right advocates used to describe civil disobedience and even legal protest activity, such as picketing (Risen 241).

The bombing in Pensacola was the final straw for the government. On Christmas of 1984, three bombs destroyed twp clinics and a doctor’s office. Matthew Goldsby was arrested for the bombings. This event gave people the impression that the anti-abortion movement was taking a turn to extremism. As Risen stated in the reading, “The Pensacola bombers were not active members of the anti-abortion movement and in fact had no ties to any of the Pensacola activist leaders. What they shared with the more visible activists was religious fundamentalism and a belief in the literal power of the Scriptures to tell them that abortion was an unholy stain on America” (Risen 198). Although the bombing in Pensacola marked the extremism that the anti-abortion movement was starting to appeal to, the protests did not stop there. In 1986, Joan Andrews was convicted of a third-degree burglary for entering The Ladies Center clinic in Pensacola and damaging equipment there. The anti-abortion movement unified behind a “free Joan Andrews” campaign, which gave the movement a second wind (Risen 187). This campaign gained a lot of media coverage. “It was one of the great ironies of the anti-abortion cause that fundamentalist Protestants, who had until them steered clear of anti-abortion activism in part because of their antipathy toward all thing Catholic, were finally mobilized by the plight of a woman who was feverishly Catholic” (Risen 188).

Religious protestors felt that they were morally obligated to fight for their ethical beliefs. As Appleby said, “There is a crime going on, the murder of babies…This is a war. We’re at a battlefield. We’re soldiers for Christ” (Risen 202). In their study, McVeigh and Sikkink came up with proven reasons for why these people accept contentious tactics as a means of protest. These reasons were a belief in coercive moralism, a belief that all humans are sinful, and a belief that one’s moral standards are being threatened. Religious groups may feel that their moral standards are being threatened, and so may be “acting defensively” to preserve moral order. When they feel threatened, groups may be more likely to resort to contentious tactics. Volunteering for religious organizations may also implicate that one may be accepting of contentious tactics. Joining an organization requires that one believes in what that organization believes. There is a unity among those people, an understanding. These anti-abortionists believe that they were in a struggle of “good versus evil,” “God versus the world.” As McVeigh stated, “If human history is about God struggling with Satan, about right struggling against an indifference to what is right, about a religious community embattled by external forces, it only makes sense that contentious tactics will, by analogy, be required for social change” (McVeigh 1450).

One example of a Protestant man who believed in the use of contentious tactics was Michael Bray, the man who started clinic bombing. He was convinced to “fight with everything at [his] disposal – tools of politics as well as weapons of war – and that it was appropriate for the godly man to take the law into his own hands, because his hands were the tools of the Lord” (Risen 82). Bray believed that “any members of the ‘elect’ – anyone saved by God through faith – had the right to ‘rebellion against idolatrous and tyrannical sovereigns’…it was his duty as a Christian to fight abortion by any means necessary” (Risen 82). Bray’s decision to become involved in the anti-abortionist movement began when he was confronted by a woman who had had four abortions before the Roe versus Wade decision. Her story made it clear to Bray that “abortion was murder, a sin against God; she was a sinner seeking salvation; and now it was up to the faithful, the elect, to stamp out this evil. If the church failed to act, the church was guilty as well.” As Bray later stated, “It became impossible for me to continue to permit the tragedy to continue without direct intervention” (Risen 83).

Bray began with political involvement. In 1981, he went to a rally and met Thomas Spinks. They were both fundamentalists and members of the Cornerstone Assembly of God. In his writing, McVeigh stated that the “activist faith” of Evangelicals calls for a public presence of Christians, which would include protesting (McVeigh 1430). Bray convinced his church to help the Bowie Right to Life Committee to establish a local “crisis pregnancy center.” However, Bray and Spinks soon turned to more extreme measures to get their point across to the public. Their first clinic bombing occurred on January 14, 1984 at the Reproductive Care Clinic in Dover, Delaware. The clinic was completely destroyed by their homemade Molotov cocktails. By February 17, they had been reading up on more sophisticated weapons, and wired seven pipe bombs together, planting them against the outer wall of the Hillcrest Clinic in Norfolk, Virginia. Bray also left a sign there that read, “AOG – Army of God” (Risen 87). On May 19, Bray joined O’Keefe’s protests and started the Pro-Life Non-Violent Action Project campaign at a brand-new clinic in Gaithersburg, Maryland (Risen 89). He continued to give Spinks more clinic targets to hit. Bray was a highly religious man, and believed that the rules laid down by the Bible should be strictly followed. As McVeigh stated, “Biblical literalism and religious participation had a strong impact on the likelihood of participating in protest movements” (McVeigh 1426). Spinks once said, “Before God, we both felt committed that we had to do all we could to save as many of these children as we could, short of destroying the human lives who took human lives…in other words, it would be okay to destroy buildings…we viewed 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 lost in the process” (Risen 86).

The actions of these anti-abortion protestors were discussed in the media, including the New York Times. Research of the archives revealed that there were many newspaper articles that discussed the clinic bombings in Pensacola, Florida. However, the story that was discussed in these articles is not the same story discussed in Risen’s book, The Wrath of Angels. All of the newspaper articles are very factual. They tell what happened, when it happened, where it happened, and who was involved. However, they do not go very deeply into why these bombers were so fervent in their beliefs and statements. Risen’s book gives a more personal account of the activists and bombers, so that the reader can relate to them and understand why they did what they did. The articles do not show evidence of a strong bias, and many have quotes from both sides: the activists and the victims of the bombings. In one article about the Pensacola bombings, Mr. Pelham, who testified against Goldsby, stated, “If he saved one life, then what he had done was worthwhile. He felt that God’s law was what he had to follow, not man’s law” (NY Times, Jan 1, 1985). Other articles showed that not all of the religious activists condoned the bombings. The Reverend Lindall Ballenger of the First Assembly of God in Pensacola was quoted ass saying, “It’s easy to say, ‘God made me do it,’ but that’s a cop-out in my opinion. I’m not saying God can’t talk to people, but God doesn’t tell people to go out and bomb abortion clinics. Like it or not, abortion is legal, and blowing up a building is not. Our weapons are not bombs. All that does is take the issue away from us” (NY Times, 1985). Another article showed that people did condone the bombings. John Burt, an anti-abortionist said, “When the history of this period is written, it won’t be the pickets or the letter-writers who will be the heroes. It’s going to be the bombers” (NY Times, 1985). One article discussed the possibility that the bombers were mentally unstable. It said that they were claiming to suffer from “severe mental disorders” and were “borderline personalities capable of slipping in psychotic behavior” (NY Times, April 1985).

The photographs of this event also tell their own stories. Though not many photographs could be found that directly related to the Pensacola bombings, the photographs of the protest groups show the fervor that these activists had. Pictures relate to viewers differently than words do. Photos show emotion and speak to the viewer’s sentiments. They are vivid; the viewer cannot escape the reality of what the image is trying to say. An excellent example of the difference between images and words is the Silent Scream documentary. The Silent Scream was used as anti-abortionist propaganda. It depicted an abortion taking place, using an ultrasound for viewers to see the effects that an abortion has on the baby. The doctor who narrated this documentary explained the exact steps of an abortion, showing the viewer the tools that are used. It was scientifically based, yet it appealed to people’s emotions, and deterred many from supporting or having an abortion. This factually based documentary had a strong effect on the viewer, because it was the harsh reality. There was no “sugar-coating” what really happens during an abortion. The depiction was ugly, graphic, and highly disturbing. In the Abortion Power Point, many of the Protestant and Catholic views of abortion were stated and discussed. However, these statements about why abortion is wrong and should not be taken lightly did not have the same effect of actually seeing an abortion take place. In one reading, it stated, “aborting an unborn child destroys a unique creation which God has called specially into existence” (Abortion Power Point). However, viewing that actual destruction is what really makes the viewer/reader consider the issue more seriously. Images have a powerful impact on people. They can show the harsh realities of life, and speak to the viewer’s emotions. However, as seen from the activists, words can also have a lasting influence on people. Bray had the belief that the Bible was to be taken literally, which spurred him to use whatever means necessary to spread his beliefs to other people, and impose a change on society. What people see and read has an effect on their beliefs and standards. This has been seen in many culture wars throughout the decades, and will continue on as more controversial issues rise up.