Ted Post 10

1.)

The anti-abortion movement went through a very definite and very extreme change from the time of the Roe vs. Wade trial to the massive amount of protests and pro-life action that took place in Pensacola during the late 1980s. This change was not only constant, but was continuously exponential, and as anti-abortion activists built up more and more steam and drew further attention to their cause throughout the 1980s, so their seeming craving for heightening levels of media/public attention and dominance in their ongoing “war” against pro-choice activists correspondingly inflated. In this period of ever-increasing funding/group members, and public (as well as clandestine) action taken by pro-life activists, many specific changes can be noted both in the confidence of and group commitment to anti-abortion protest on the part of these activists, as well as the overall severity of action taken by those with more extremist views on the subject of abortion.

These changes include the continuous growth of particular pro-life groups who frequently protested at abortion clinics across America-groups such as those headed by Randall Terry, John Burt, and John O’keefe. The fact became increasingly clear during the few years following the Roe vs. Wade court ruling that these devoutly religious and, at least in their religious circles, highly convincing men were not going to allow abortion clinics to go smoothly about their business, and had plans to recruit the help of as many church-members and anti-abortionists to further the volume of their cause as possible.

As well as the general growth of anti-abortionist groups, and the subsequent “noise” they were able to make through their protest due simply to increased size, well-known extremists of the anti-abortion movement during the 1980s took to increasingly hostile and even violent methods in their fight against abortion doctors/clinics/supporters. What started as midnight vandalizing of abortion clinics (i.e. jamming door-locks with superglue, spray-painting pro-life maxims on walls, etc.) turned into frequent destruction of entire facilities through carefully calculated methods of arson ,bombing, and gaseous poisoning, many of which were outlined in an underground extremist manual entitled Army of God. Eventually, even these methods of stalling the actions of abortion doctors and clinics proved to be too tame for the most hardcore and adventurous of the anti-abortion movement. Soon to follow the use of the aforementioned tactics of force used against abortion clinics was the direct targeting of the murderers themselves-abortion doctors. Harassment of abortion doctors ranged from threatening letters sent to their homes, to verbal intimidation utilized in brief parking lot trips from car to clinic, to the eventual (rare as it may have been) occurrence of attempted as well as successful murder of a few unfortunate doctors on the part of activists who took solace in the thought that they were killing to save lives.

Certainly, during this decade in which the actions of anti-abortionists increased monumentally both in amount and severity, many were baffled as to why these groups were willing to go to such extremes in their discourse, and perhaps an even more puzzling quandary, why were they able to do so for as long as they did? To address the inquiry as to why these activists found such seeming excitement in using increasingly exaggerated tactics, one might make note of a thought that was frequently suggested in Risen and Thomas’ Wrath of Angels. This is the assertion that a good number of few prominent anti-abortionists in the 1980s were, previous to their activist ventures, somewhat lost souls searching for some cause or movement in which to pour all of their otherwise dormant efforts and time. The authors’ description of Joan Andrews, one of the most recognizable martyrs of the anti-abortionist movement, includes statements such as, “Single and unattached, permanently unemployed, and with no money and almost no need for any except to pay for food and bus fare, she was free to become the movement’s first full-time itinerant protestor.” In the case of anti-abortion activist Michael Bray, Risen and Thomas first establish the fundamentalist’s seeming need to latch onto some cause or belief system, “…In Orlando, (Bray) attended a Baptist tent revival and, still piecing together a new direction, began to think seriously about the role religion should play in his life,” and soon follow up with an explanation as to how abortion came to fill this void of Bray’s, “…by the time he was settling into Bowie, the election of President Ronald Reagan and the conservative flood tide in Washington put abortion back into the headlines. Abortion soon became Bray’s main focus.” There are many other similar descriptions of those pro-life activist leaders of the 1980s most blatantly vehement in their dedication to their cause that can be found within Wrath of Angels. This seeming parallel found in the possible need for these anti-abortion extremists to commit unconditionally to a cause can offer some explanation as to why the anti-abortionist movement escalated, both in amount and conduct, so notably during the years following Roe vs. Wade. If Risen and Thomas’ assertions concerning the reasons for these men and women’s commitment to pro-life activism hold some truth, then one could easily argue that these specific anti-abortionists were responsible for leading their groups to committing increasingly hostile acts of protest. These few but dominating members of the movement, because of their need for absolute commitment to their cause (to any cause), needed to believe that, at what ever cost, any and all action should be taken that would further their victory over legalized abortion in America. They had an inner need to believe that their fight was a righteous one, and therefore called for any necessary measures of insuring its being publicly recognized, and eventually, its overthrow of the opposition.

A possible explanation as to why such progressively severe methodology on the part of anti-abortionists was allowed following the Roe vs. Wade court battle is that, frankly, many Americans (including government and law enforcement officials) were “one the fence” concerning the abortion issue, and were therefore uncertain as to how much of these protests should be prohibited by law/force. Certainly, if those members of the pro-life movement were vandalizing, bombing, and publicly protesting local fast-food chains for the distribution of food products that could lead to health problems in their consumer, their actions would have been curbed far sooner. The fact of the matter is, these activists were fighting for a cause that did, in many ways, appear just, despite the often unnecessarily hostile manner in which they fought for it. Abortion deals with the killing of the defenseless; be its victims actual “people” or not (a topic that incites infinite debate), the large amount of propaganda, including disturbing images and video, utilized by pro-life activists did shed the light of a fight for justice on their cause, and therefore granted them the ability to go to drastic, and in many cases (ironically) inhumane methods of protest.

2.)

Certainly, there are many reasons to argue that Michael Griffin’s actions comprise one of history’s most extreme (if not the most extreme) cases of anti-abortion activism. The obvious reason for viewing the religious extremist in such a manner is that he was, in fact, admittedly guilty of murdering abortion doctor David Gunn by firing three gunshots directly into the doctor’s back in the midst of his walk from automobile to office. Most

useful in application to an explanation of Griffin’s actions are two of the four factors said to “increase the likelihood that Protestants approve of contentious actions” by writers Mcveigh and Sikkink, these being, “…a perception that religious values are being threatened,” and most importantly, “…a belief that individuals should not have the right do deviate from Christian moral standards.” Obviously, Michael Griffin, along with countless other American Christians of numerous denominations, felt that the legalization and carrying out of abortion was a direct threat to his religious values. There are many passages within the Bible that form the base for the basic Christian belief that God values all of his creation and creatures, and that for any man to take it upon himself to destroy any number of these creatures is to commit a mortal sin, punishable by death. A favorite of these Biblical passages of Griffin’s, and in fact that which he deemed Gunn’s well deserved sentence was Genesis 9:6: “Whosoever Sheds man’s blood, by man his blood shall be shed.” Griffin found Dr. Gunn to be blatantly going against a fundamental Christian moral standard, and thus felt it perfectly justifiable, if not by man’s law than by the law of a higher being, to take it upon himself to see that Gunn was properly punished. In Griffin’s own mind, as well as the mind’s of his supporters, he was carrying out the work of God, and was thus ever more right in his murderous actions because of a seeming command of God’s (Genesis 9:6) than any man-made law might find him to be.

3.)

When browsing through some past New York Times articles concerning Michael Griffin’s murder of David Gunn, one will certainly come across a fair share of mere expository articles on the case-writings that display little or no personal opinions of the author’s on abortion. Along with these “just the facts” type of articles about the event, for example Larry Rohter’s Doctor is Slain During Protest Over Abortions, one will also find articles that voice a clear-cut opinion concerning the extremist actions of Michael Griffin. An excellent example of this latter type of article is Anthony Lewis’ Right to Life. In stark contrast to Risen and Thomas’ chapter concerning this murder case, which seem to display an honest attempt of the authors’ to explicate the happening with little bias, Lewis’ piece uses Griffin’s contentious act as a means of painting a picture of anti-abortion activists as a group that is less than flattering, to say the least. In fact, in the article’s very opening paragraph, the reader will come across the following statements: “The murder of a doctor in Pensacola, Fla., tells us the essential truth about most anti-abortion activists. They are religious fanatics, who want to impose their version of God’s word on the rest of us. For them, the end justifies any means, including violence.” Obviously, the authors’ opinion on abortion-activists previous to David Gunn’s murder was a negative one, and he merely utilized Michael Griffin as a prime example of what he believed to be the general character found in pro-life activists. In actuality, one can be fairly certain that very few abortion-activists would be willing to go to measures in the fight for their cause as extreme as those used by Griffin. Thus, this over-generalized portrait of abortion-activists painted by Lewis is of a decidedly different tone than the more objective views found in Risen and Thomas’ writing on the subject.

Some very distinct and curious differences can be noted between Risen and Thomas’ description of abortion clinic protests led by Randall Terry and available images depicting these protests. Again, Risen and Thomas seem to maintain an at least somewhat objective outlook in their description of anti-abortion activism, and in doing so, provide their reader with some insight into reasons why people such as Terry made decisions to stage such massive and disruptive protests. On the other hand, if one were to view images of these abortion protests led by Terry in the late 1980s without much previous knowledge of the nature of and reasons for these protests’ having taken place, they would undoubtedly come to the conclusion that those activists depicted in such images are clinically insane. The men and women that are shown in these images are taking part in acts such blocking the doors to a regularly functioning office building in which no acts of inhumanity can be seen as taking place (at least not within the confines of the image), laying on the pavement of a parking lot in the path of a moving car, hurriedly climbing over fences so as to block the entrance of a clinic just before its presiding doctor is able to gain entrance into it, and even images of Terry himself placed on a high pedestal and outstretching has arm over his followers as he preaches to them (an image not unlike countless depictions of notorious dictators caught in speeches aimed at the masses under their control). Again, when seen only within these images, Terry and his followers appear to be out of their minds, a clear testament to the thought that images cannot be trusted to admit every truth of a situation, and in fact rarely, if ever, do. Though the actions of Randall Terry and his followers during their numerous protests, even when described in more objective texts, can appear as rather extreme by nature, certainly when they are depicted in photographic images, a certain side of the story is taken out of the picture (no pun intended), and thus any real objective grasp on or understanding of the situation is lost.

Images:

1.) http://www.dr-tiller.com/images/mercy17.jpg

2.) http://www.dr-tiller.com/images/mercy15.jpg

3.) http://www.dr-tiller.com/images/mercy31.jpg

4.) http://www.dr-tiller.com/images/mercy26.jpg

5.) http://www.dr-tiller.com/images/mercy27.jpg

Sources:

1.) James Risen, Judy L. Thomas, Wrath of Angels: The American Abortion WAR, Perseus Publishing, February 1999

2.) Rory Mcveigh, David Sikkink, God, Politics, and Protest: Religious Beliefs and the Legitimation of Contentious Tactics, The University of North Carolina Press, Social Forces, June 2001

3.) Anthony Lewis, Right to Life, New York Times, Mar. 12, 1993