Potential donors to PP receive suspicious envelopes; the addresses appear handwritten, and there is no return address. The pitch begins: “Sadly, a letter like this would have to be treated with suspicion at Planned Parenthood. While you probably opened the envelope without much thought, such haste could be deadly for the volunteer at a women's health center.”
After cataloguing some incidents of clinic violence, Planned Parenthood reports that, “the federal government won't track the leading suspects.” But this is wrong. The federal government not only tracks “leading suspects,” but also many others whom the FBI has no evidence to suspect in bombings other than their denunciations of abortion. The existence of an FBI database of pro-life activists and religious leaders has been the subject of some publicity; Judicial Watch brought suit against the Department of Justice and Federal Bureau of Investigation for being denied related documents, even after filing a request under the Freedom of Information Act.
To hear PP tell it, anti-abortion fanatics are not only getting away with violence, they are assaulting clinics with alarming frequency. “Doctors must wear bullet-proof vests”; “Buildings are peppered with bullets,” reads the letter. Although plainly immoral and illegal, to say nothing more, a total of three abortion doctors were killed from 1993-1998. This is a tragedy, to be sure, but hardly an epidemic.
The effect of this type of hysteria is to link a small fringe with the pro-life movement as a whole. Even though violent criminals openly disregard the core principle espoused by virtually everyone who opposes abortion, there is inviolable dignity in every human life. Planned Parenthood scarcely deigns to distinguish among pro-life activists and those few individuals responsible for violent attacks.
Here are the monikers that Planned Parenthood chooses to append to those who object to abortion: “religious political extremists,” “well-armed militias,” and “anti-choice fanatics.” These words deliberately attempt to cartoon intellectuals such as Robert P. George of Princeton, Nat Hentoff of the Village Voice, or Dr. Bernard Nathanson, all pro-life, all of whom participated years ago in a landmark symposium in First Things that skewered the philosophical rationale proffered by those who kill abortion doctors.
And yet, in order to raise money, Planned Parenthood stokes an environment of nail-biting fear and paranoia. “The local police are sympathetic to the very people who are blocking entrances and threatening clients and staff,” asserts PP's letter. (The old “vast right-wing conspiracy” line never fails to rally the troops).
This letter, needless to say, is not the first attempt by supporters of abortion rights to characterize their ideological opponents as violent thugs. Kate Michelman, the president of the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League (NARAL), used the murder of Dr. Barnett Slepian to indict the entire pro-life movement. At his vigil, she said, “Those who oppose abortion must take responsibility for their role in creating a climate where the zealous feel justified in committing acts of violence. They must acknowledge and admit that their words drive unrestrained factions of their movements to commit these horrific acts. Denials and condemnations no longer suffice.”
Condemning fringe radicals who misconstrue the pacifist pro-life message is insufficient, according to Michelman. And although she concedes that such extremists represent “unrestrained factions,” she nevertheless finds the whole pro-life movement culpable.
Why, when radical pro-choice activists resort to violence, do we not hear similar protestations? In 1994, a man leaving an abortion clinic with his wife shot at a pro-life picketer who had expressed a negative view of abortion. Carole Griffin, the president of a pro-life group in Florida, reports that her home has been fired upon, her car windows broken, and her pool despoiled with poisonous snakes. And in another case, abortionist Dr. Alan J. Ross was convicted in 1985 of assaulting protesters who belonged to the Pro-Life Non-Violent Action Project. Ross had previously been found guilty of attacking an activist with a hypodermic syringe outside his clinic.
Were these incidents to be cited in a pro-life fundraising campaign, in a disingenuous attempt to indict all pro-choice activists as thugs, pro-choicers would cry, “Slander!” and rightly so. So why is it acceptable for PP to accuse pro-life activists of being accessories to violence and to raise money in the process?
(This article courtesy of Pro-Life Infonet. To subscribe, send the message “subscribe” to: [email protected].)
