League staff at Mount Rushmore in western South Dakota, May 2008
Earlier this week the desperation overtaking the pro-abortion movement was pitifully on display in a groundless controversy stirred up over HB 1171, an innocuous bill introduced in the South Dakota legislature.
It started with a post at Mother Jones headlined, “South Dakota Moves To Legalize Killing Abortion Providers.”
In reality, the bill was intended to extend the state’s definition of justifiable homicide to cover the actions of someone trying to protect the life of an unborn child from a felonious attack.
But in a reading of the bill’s language devoid of common sense or any statutory context whatsoever, Vicki Saporta of the National Abortion Federation decried the bill as “an invitation to murder abortion providers.”
This bizarre claim was quickly picked up by the radical outpost The Daily Kos and
liberal Huffington Post, and began making its way around the pro–abortion blogosphere.
Pro-Abortion Movement Unhinged
That so many on the left could actually think the purpose of this bill was to encourage the killing of abortionists shows how far detached from reality they have become.
Not only are they completely out of touch with the actual goals of the pro-life movement—like restoring a “Culture of Life” and converting abortionists to the pro-life side—but with what is even possible in the real world.
It seems important to the hard-core of the pro-choice side to believe that we are, variously, mad, wicked or idiotic.
Which is just as well. The less they really understand us, the more feckless their efforts to halt us will be. Even the liberal Washington Post and New York Times had to admit the bill wasn’t intended to have anything to do with abortion.
The bill was, however, shelved because of the controversy. It may be redrafted with more explicit language about its true scope.
Who Wants to Kill People, Again?
Even if a desire to kill abortionists were widespread in the pro-life movement—as the radicals clearly believe it is—we’d hardly be waiting for statutory permission to do it. Nor would we be insane or stupid enough to seek that permission through legislation!
The Mother Jones article mentions the killing of abortionists by a few anti-abortion radicals, without pausing to consider that these homicides took place despite being illegal.
Pro-lifers aren’t refraining from killing abortionists because it’s illegal to do so. Because, you see, we’re become quite attached to the idea that you don’t get to kill someone just because the law says you can.
In fact, there’s a name for those who will kill people just because it’s legal to do so. They’re called abortionists—and those who want to defend that kind of homicide are looking increasingly frantic.
