JRT
Abortion, Murder and Dr Tiller
Posted on: 06/01/2009 18:38
How I (and Other "Pro-Life" Leaders) Contributed to Dr. Tiller's Murder
My late father and I share the blame (with many others) for the murder of Dr. George Tiller the abortion doctor gunned down on Sunday. Until I got out of the religious right (in the mid-1980s) and repented of my former hate-filled rhetoric I was both a leader of the so-called pro-life movement and a part of a Republican Party hate machine masquerading as the moral conscience of America.
In the late 1970s my evangelical pro-life leader father Francis Schaeffer and Dr. C. Everett Koop (who soon become Surgeon General in the Reagan administration) went on the road with me taking the documentary antiabortion film series I produced and directed ( Whatever Happened to the Human Race?) to the evangelical public. The series and companion book eventually brought millions of heretofore non-political evangelical Americans into the antiabortion crusade. We personally also got people like Jerry Falwell, Ronald Reagan and countless Republican leaders involved in the "issue."
In the early 80s my father followed up with a book that sold over a million copies called A Christian Manifesto. In certain passages he advocated force if all other methods for rolling back the abortion ruling of Roe v. Wade failed. He compared America and its legalized abortion to Hitler's Germany and said that whatever tactics would have been morally justified in removing Hitler would be justified in trying to stop abortion. I said the same thing in a book I wrote (A Time For Anger) that right wing evangelicals made into a best seller. For instance Dr. James Dobson (of the Focus On the Family radio show) gave away over 100,000 copies.
Like many writers of moral/political/religious theories my father and I would have been shocked that someone took us at our word, walked into a Lutheran Church and pulled the trigger on an abortionist. But even if the murderer never read Dad's or my words we helped create the climate that made this murder likely to happen. In fact that very thing has happened before. In 1994, Dr. John Bayard Britton and one of his volunteer escorts were shot and killed outside an abortion clinic in Pensacola, Florida. Paul Hill, a former minister, was convicted of the killings and executed in 2003. Paul Hill was an avid follower of my father's.
Hyperbole from the pulpit from religious leaders, be it from my father or from President Obama's former pastor the Rev. Wright, is par for the course. But once in a while someone "does something" about it and then everyone says that they were only speaking metaphorically or "spiritually" when they called for violence or for the overthrow the state or when they said things like "God damn America!" or that "abortionists are murderers like Hitler!" Angry speech has become the norm in American religion from both the right and the left. Words are spoken which -- when taken seriously -- lead directly to violence by the unhinged and/or the truly committed.
When evangelicals on the right call President Obama a socialist, a racist, anti-American, an abortionist, not a real American, and, echoing the former Vice President, someone who is weakening America's defenses and making us less safe, the logical conclusion is violence. If you take these words literally you might pull the trigger to "make America safe" and/or free us from communism or to even protect us from -- what some "Christian" leaders claim -- Obama as the Antichrist.
The same hate machine I was part of is still attacking all abortionists as "murderers." And today once again the "pro-life" leaders are busy ducking their personal responsibility for people acting on their words. The people who stir up the fringe never take responsibility. But I'd like to say on this day after a man was murdered in cold blood for preforming abortions that I -- and the people I worked with in the religious right, the Republican Party, the pro-life movement and the Roman Catholic Church, all contributed to this killing by our foolish and incendiary words.
I am very sorry.
Frank Schaeffer is a writer. He is author of Crazy for God: How I Grew Up as One of the Elect, Helped Found the Religious Right, and Lived to Take All (or Almost All) of It Back and also author of the forthcoming Patience With God: Faith For People Who Don't Like Religion (Or Atheism)
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JRT
The Politics of
Posted on: 06/02/2009 07:15
The Politics of "Murder"
--- by Jeffery Feldman
The violent killing of yet another American doctor at the hands of yet another right-wing political activist forces us to ask a crucial question: Why does the right-wing anti-abortion movement in America repeatedly give rise to people who see murder as a legitimate form of protest? The answer does not lie in any single procedure (e.g. "late term abortions"), but in the violent rhetoric that defines a political movement.
The murderer of Dr. George Tiller is the product of a political movement that has so thoroughly expanded the definition of "murder" that it now includes everything and everyone who rejects or even questions the idea that a zygote is a citizen. Until that movement changes its focus, it will continue to give rise to activists who kill doctors.
So called "late term abortion" is a hotly contested and controversial practice debated in living rooms and judicial opinions alike. But it is not the reason a right-wing activist shot another doctor. Dr. George Tiller was killed in his church because the right-wing has built a political movement around a violent idea: that America has been transformed by liberals into a culture that "murders" babies. Like a giant river supported by millions of tiny underground streams, this movement is supported by everyone who defines those with whom they disagree on abortion policy as supporters of "murder."
For those Americans whose worldview has been saturated and distorted by this political movement, "murder" is not just a throwaway term from TV, radio or church. For these few, "murder" has become a dark lens through which they view all of contemporary American society--a poisonous paradigm that leads them to believe the only way to end this new holocaust is to refresh the tree of liberty with the blood of patriots.
But those who kill doctors are only one part of the problem. Even among those who would never condone violent acts in politics, many feel perfectly comfortable contributing to the political rhetoric that has steadily expanded the definition of "murder" to the point where it cultivates actual political violence.
In 2009, the right-wing definition of what constitutes the "murder" of babies goes far beyond the actual abortion of a fetus to encompass a vast range of political views, situations and people. It has become commonplace on the right, for example, to talk about defrosting frozen embryos as an act of "murder." Many on the right talk about the so-called "morning after pill" and the RU486 "abortion pill" as "murder." Many on the right even talk about birth control as "murder." Murder, murder, murder--the drumbeat is hypnotic. When the right is talking about abortion, they are accusing the left of "murder."
Watching Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity or other right-wing media figures discuss abortion offers a good glimpse into how these debates take shape, but it is not the only cause. In political debates, right-wing voices almost always use certain controversial procedures to define abortion as "murder," but even when the subject moves beyond those procedures they continue to use "murder" to describe all other aspects of abortion. The phrase "baby murderer," then becomes short-hand for referring to "liberals" in other contexts.
This right-wing rhetorical strategy is used so often, people barely give it any notice anymore. Calling people "murderers" and "baby killers" has become a normal part of U.S. media. Guests on TV and radio shows who routinely accuse their debate opponents of supporting or condoning "murder" are invited back time and time again to repeat the accusation. Steeped in this expanding definition of "murder," almost all right-wing political participants choose violent rhetoric over violent action. They choose to call someone a "murderer, rather than killing a doctor, as a protest against abortion.
But because the rhetoric has steadily expanded to such a vast range of political views and actions that have all been encompassed by one giant concept of "murder," there are some right-wing activists who do chose violent action as the best way to bring about political change. No matter how many or how few late term abortions are performed, so long as the right-wing anti-abortion movement continues to fold dissent into an ever-expanding definition of "murder," then the right-wing will continue to give rise to activists who kill doctors.