Abortion, Apocalypse, and "Killing for Life"

Those of us who have tracked clinic violence over the past two decades have long known of the militant anti-abortion subculture that ebbs and flows with the political moment. There are two factors that are central to this movement. One is that many of them believe in a vast conspiracy to destroy the country and defame God led by liberal secular humanists and other subversive swine like those of us who read Huffington Post. The other is the role of aggressive apocalyptic belief among certain Christians on the Political Right. These folks read the Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins Left Behind series of novels as if it were a roadmap to future history. More than 70 million sold. Christian bookstores, especially on the Internet, are well stocked with Christian conspiracist literature as well as Christian apocalyptic literature. Sometimes they are the same book.

When you combine conspiracy theories that demonize a scapegoat with an aggressive form of apocalypticism, you have a volatile mix--one that throughout history has generated violence and murder. When you add in an intersection with the right-wing populist "Patriot" movement, more heat is added to the cauldron of rage. It appears that Scott Roeder came out of this Patriot movement, as did Eric Robert Rudolph and John C. Salvi, III, who killed and maimed clinic workers not that many years ago.

Apocalypticism is a package of the following beliefs:

- There is an approaching confrontation between good and evil.

- During this struggle, hidden truths will be revealed.

- The outcome will change history in a significant way.

Constructive apocalypticism can produce social movements that seek peace and equality, such as the U.S. Civil Rights Movement.

Aggressive apocalypticism can produce violence, murder, and genocide.

Scholar Carol Mason is the author of Killing for Life: The Apocalyptic Narrative of Pro-life Politics. She has written and essay that makes some important points:

Sunday's murder of Dr. George Tiller in Kansas raises again the question of what it means to defend life through killing. When militant antiabortionists began bombing clinics and shooting doctors in the 1980s and 1990s, law enforcement officials looked for some conspiracy among the perpetrators. They did not find one. What they needed to look for was a cultural explanation for how members of a movement dedicated to defending life began to kill for life. Dr. Tiller's assassination signals the return of an apocalyptic zeal that has lately been directed elsewhere.

So it is important to understand the power of apocalyptic thinking when it is grafted on top of anger, bigotry, and conspiracy theories that portray named scapegoats. The militant anti-abortion movement sees itself as defending God and country. While less militant anti-abortion activists express their horror at the assassination of Dr. Tiller, others express their delight and consider Tiller's death an act of justice and an offering to God.

According to Mason:

The late twentieth century rise of antiabortion violence grew out of a sense that America was severing its ties to God and all things good. To prolifers, abortion was a sign of national inhumanity and increasing antichristian barbarism. Racist prolifers argued that abortion was a bourgeoning Jewish-engineered industry geared toward a white Christian genocide and praised those who killed abortion providers.

The right-wing media demagogues and pious national anti-abortion leaders can continue to claim they play no role in this deadly dynamic. We can pretend that these aggressive apocalyptic movements don't exist, or are so marginal as to be insignificant. We can continue to pretend anti-abortion violence is carried out by deranged people acting alone.

And if that is how this story gets spun by the commercial media, there will be more phone calls reporting that a bullet has finally found its mark...and there is another funeral to plan by the family of another doctor, or nurse, or clinic worker.

You can read the full essay by Carol Mason here

Comments

[wltdnfaded]

So, in other words...they're all batsh*t crazy.

[khc1]

The U.S. Civil Rights movement DID include violence, on both sides. So did India's independence movement. Putting a familiar face on each - Martin Luther King, Jr. and Gandhi, respectively, does not erase (nor excuse) the fact that there were violent groups involved. In fact, notice what happened to these leaders - and the latter from his own side.

It is possible to hold the two thoughts in mind: to be glad that terrible acts no longer occur and still abhor the way such acts were stopped.

Respectfully, for all that we strongly disagree,

H.

[crowepps]

The problem is that you're being "glad that terrible acts no longer occur" is premature. This doctor and the doctors murdered before him will do longer do abortions, but the women who have disastrous complications of their pregnancies still need appropriate medical care including abortion. Murdering Dr. Tiller removed ONE doctor -- then other doctors immediately fill in the gap, so there is no decrease in abortions at all.

There will still be 40 women a year who discover they have an anencephalic fetus, and the vast majority of those 40 women will have it removed. Is this 'the mother's convenience'? Perhaps it is, but I cannot imagine anyone with an ounce of compassion who dosn't see the horror of continuing a pregnancy for another three or four months after discovering that the baby will die as soon as its born. REQUIRING a woman to do so would be, frankly, just vile.

The assumption that if abortion is made illegal, that there will be fewer abortions, is false. When abortions are made illegal, they simply become secret, with numbers that can only be estimated by the rise in the maternal death rate, but they do not decrease.

There is a confrontation going on right between 'good' and 'evil' but in my opinion the 'good' is personal freedom and civil tolerance and the 'evil' is fundamentalist and fascism.

[khc1]

crowepps,

That is fair, I was not specific. *His* terrible acts are finished, not all such acts. Thank you for the opportunity to clarify.

In the same spirit, while it may not have a large difference in the total number of abortions, it would be a "zero-friction" fallacy to say that there will be a perfect redistribution of resources so that Dr. Tiller's work continues completely unchanged.

While not speaking for anyone else, I will try to explain these parts of my understanding of the pro-life movement. First, to point out that the language regarding medical necessity from the pro-choice lobby is, to the pro-life movement, a Trojan horse of a reason: that the worst cases are being used to push through a worldview that allows abortion for any reason, up to and including a woman's preference. Where such a view leads society is terrifying to those who are pro-life.

The second is particular to the Christian faith, that the consequences you mention are not the worst case - that regards to the harm done to an everlasting soul that murder of an unborn inflicts, even compared to personal harm or death, is the larger issue. I recognize this isn't an acceptable reason for pro-choice rationale, but perhaps it helps get to the root-cause difference between the two sides.

As such, I disagree with your analysis of the definitions of good and evil, but understand where you are coming from.

H.

[research]

Good article.

Christians: who did Jesus Kill?

Who would Jesus kill?

reread the Gospels.

Learn Peace, love and tolerance, and

Judge not lest you be judge, and God has the right to judge, not people.

Go ahead and respond, we know the bible. Please explain your hate and violence.

[Chip Berlet - Huffpost Blogger]

Exactly

[Zanti]

Who did or would Jesus kill? No one. Just like me.

He hated as many people, too, and blew up as many abortion clinics.

I'd think to think a 2009 A.D. Jesus would be pro-choice, like myself. And that he'd believe in the feature of our democracy which holds that all people are presumed innocent until proven guilty.

Your problem with that principle? Explain, please.

[wretchedbabypaste]

Excellent post Mr. Berlet. I'm looking forward to your future commentary.

[Chip Berlet - Huffpost Blogger]

Thanks, I have a few more coming.

[mommadona]

I've been waiting (with bated breath) for ANY response to this stuff from contemporary MAIN STREAM RELIGIOUS leaders and/or PHILOSOPHERS.

Like I said
"bated breath"

"Who, us?"
"Yes, YOU."

[Chip Berlet - Huffpost Blogger]

Really! So am I! Really angry. I intend to stay angry...

[Zanti]

Or... you could Google the topic:

http://rhrealitycheck.org/reader-diaries/2009/06/02/religious-leaders-respond-murder-dr-george-tiller