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.
Contributing to an extreme and sometimes violent climate has not only been the fault of the antiabortion crusaders. The Roe v. Wade decision went to far, too fast and was too sweeping. I believe that abortion should be legal. But I also believe that it should be re-regulated according to fetal development. It's the late term abortions that horrify most people. And for the sake of keeping abortion legal adjustments need to be made. Roe is far too all or nothing (as I explain in my book 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). As I say in my book today I believe that abortion should be legal but more regulated than Roe allows. I also think that we should do what President Obama calls for: use sex education and contraceptive distribution and programs to help women and children in a way that results in less abortions.
But the reason this issue will never go away is that the Roe ruling was an over broad court decision that makes abortion legal even in the last weeks of pregnancy. Take away the pictures of all those dead late term fetuses and everything changes emotionally. Democracy and civil debate is messy but if abortion had been argued state-by-state abortion would be legal in almost all our states today and probably the laws would be written more like those of Europe, where late-term abortions (of the kind Dr. Tiller specialized in performing) are illegal and/or highly discouraged.
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)
Another abolitionist, Hariet Tubman, has a slightly different story...
And African-American abolitionist leader and former slave her self -- helped runaway slaves to freedom in her "underground railroad -- almost 300 slaves in all over a 10-yeard period.
Ironically, Tubman had consulted with John Brown on plans to start an armed rebellion against slavery in the south. Tubman is generally honored today as a hero of the abolitionist movement.
Most would consider Brown's actions to be not much more than acts of terrorism --- and rightly so, in my view. Lincoln apparently called him a "misguided fanatic".
Our country has been able to mature to a point where now regard slavery as an unacceptable institution. Make no mistake - -that is a good thing! And despite the misguided fanaticism of John Brown, we rightly accept his conclusion (while disregarding his methods).
We can only hope that our moral conscience (and laws) as a nation will finally acknowledge the clarity of the simple truth that ALL life is precious, and abandon the myopic, inconsistent, unscientific logic that fails to properly recognize the personhood of the unborn.
It's not an either/or. We can achieve a moral balance that regonizes the worth and dignity of women and the unborn equally.
but a third party may be best in 2012
The real problem with Roe v Wade is logical, not just theological. The courts operate with two incompatible legal standards. The first is Roe v Wade which states that only birth creates a legal obligation. The second is what you might call the "Deadbeat Dad Standard" which holds a man responsible which of course can only be based on conception as men do not give birth.
When a woman invokes this standard a man can simply state "Your choice, your child, your responsibility." His logic is, largely unwittingly, consistent with Roe v Wade. When challenged with the idea of an unwanted pregnancy I have heard men state "Not my problem - she can get an abortion." When legislating from the bench or the legislature, leaders must consider the second and third order effects. Nine months of pregnancy creates an indelible bond but the effect of Roe v Wade is to erode links between father and child. The true test of this is whether dead beat dads are predominantly pro-choice. They are at least living that standard with their inaction.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/39038726@N04/sets/72157619136003386/
Whilst the rhetoric of the abortion issue has continued for all these years, and occasionally escalates to violence, I find it rather curious that we are meant to feel guilty over this man's death. Why is it, that we have heard so little from the Muslim community or the Black community, or the Government, or the Army about the two Arkansas recruiters, one of whom was killed, this past Monday? Shouldn't at least one or two of those groups of folk be aplogising for their violent rhetoric? beating their chest in a mea culpa for their collective guilt?
On Blacks and Muslims offering condolences to the Army Recruiter:
http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/06/04/obama.arkansas.shooting/index.html?section=cnn_latest
http://www.mpac.org/article.php?id=823
The Christian Pro-Life community at large should not feel guilty. You're missing the point.
P.S. for everyone as tired of the Army recruiter talking point as me, feel free to use those links liberally!
Slán.
But neither should anyone have to die by digoxin to the heart and dismemberment. And to those who ask, yes, I am consistantly pro-life. I do not believe in war...I do not believe in capital punishment...I do not believe in euthanasia...I do not believe in policies that create obscene wealth nor obscene poverty...and, no, I am neither a communist nor a socialist ;) .
I live in Ohio. I live quite near the town where another late-term abortion provider works; in fact, the Dr that developed D&X or dilation and extraction was developed. I think we all know that means of abortion. It involves removing brain tissue...the very brain that began functioning and putting out discernible waves at 56 days after conception...and collapsing the skull to facilitate removal of the child from the womb. Ohio is one of those states where abortion is legal up to one's due date. Imagine the schizophrenia of medical care that aborts children at the same age it also tries to save. It is all dependent on the whims of the Moms; in Ohio, Daddy has no legal say unless he gets a court order.
be real
and men shouldn't have a say until they can carry their own fetuses to term
Another sentence that disturbs me is his reference to Roe, saying basically, the court's decision is the reason this will never go away, as long as those photos of dead fetuses are staring us in the face.
It almost sounds as if he's blackmailing the court system over the law. Implying that we better change Roe or more people "knocked off".
If they think they have a great cause like the Holocaust or Slavery, then let them sing songs of tribute to their murderor, the way people sang songs to John Brown, for example.
Why they don't? Because they don't have a great evil or a great cause, and educated Americans don't see third trimester abortions, for the most part, the way they keep blanket asserting without anything to back them up.
IOW, that's why their assassin is just an assassin.
Because their cause is not what they say it is. And they know they're FOS.
This sentence really disturbs me. My sense is that moral/political/religious "theorists" have a responsibility to write words that people can take at face value. I assume that if someone writes a polemic calling for any means necessary to stop some perceived evil, the writer has actually thought about what that implies. Sounds to me like Schaeffer was happy to get people really riled up and filled with moral outrage and the sense that abortion "should" be stopped by any means, but for some reason thought action would not emerge out of that. He ignored the conditions he was helping to create through his language. Responsible moral/political/religious theorists don't do that.
These people now display cult behavior on a daily basis. There will be no stopping them without treating them as such.They're no different than the KKK or Jonestown.
I refuse to give them a name, as it gives credence where none is deserved.
"These people now display cult behavior on a daily basis. "
Proud Liberal... isn't that an especially big liberal no no? Judging a whole group of people because of the actions of a few?
I'd like to point out, however, a couple of rhetorical traps this author continues to fall into. For one, he alleges, outright, without any substantiation that people are just horrified by this implied nightmare of third trimester abortions - as illustrated to any thinking person looking at a photograph of an aborted fetus from that stage of pregnancy.
He makes absolutely no mention of the medical conditions giving rise to third trimester abortions and he completely ignores the Constitutional issues and protections that women are just as entitled to as men in the United States of America.
A photograph is not prima facie evidence of something horribly wrong that has occurred. And physicians are NOT taking healthy women with healthy viable fetuses and butchering babies.
Why don't you just tell people a wild story like poor folk in the mountains of South America believe about Jewish people? That they kill and cook babies, practicing canabalism? And that everyone knows it.
So get real, man. Come down to Planet Earth.
If Mr. Schaeffer has on his conscience worry over words he or as he believes others have spoken, words that left the will and purpose of our Lord God as taught and having wisdom with knowledge for all mankind, then certainly it is best to repent and change your ways.
Certainly it is true as the Bible prophesies that many false (antiChrist) Christians or those referred to wolves in sheeps covering that will be found teaching and prophesying error to lead many astray in the last days, my concern that he not become one among them.
What the Bible does say on this subject, is that in the end days it will become much like Sodom and Gomorrah, wars and division, nation against nation, family member against family member, even the earth reacting to the error of polluting and destructive ways of man.
I see no problem with Christianity (Christ-like), nor teaching within the will and purpose as Gods inspired word is written in the Bible. I will not stand by and listen to error being taught, but as Gods word has required, that rather I should expose those words denegrating God and the Christ-like that are baseless in truth.
easy to listen and believe what Orielly an Hannity says.
Reportedly, he has a funeral-sized crematorium on the property. And people that stand outside and pray report that there are days when ashes actually fall on them... I've seen the pictures with the ashes on their coats." Bill said he didn't believe this was enough to prove the allegation. Culp further claimed that an Associated Press reporter had also witnessed it, but The Factor has yet to verify this.
By the time of the show that night, challenger Paul Morrison had defeated Phill Kline by 16 points, throwing the criminal investigation of Dr. George Tiller into uncertainty. But O'Reilly promised, "We're going to try to stop [Tiller]... we're not going to let up... believe me, we will stay on this story. This is horrendous."
Bill summarized in a heartfelt Talking Points Memo on Friday, November 10th: "If we as a society allow an undefined mental health exception in late-term abortions, then babies can be killed for almost any reason... This is the kind of stuff that happened in Mao's China and Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Soviet Union... If we allow this, America will no longer be a noble nation... If we allow Dr. George Tiller and his acolytes to continue, we can no longer pass judgment on any behavior by anybody."
Keep watching. There will be more.
People say you can't govern what a woman does with her own body. Well, why can you force me? I work hard and in dangerous conditions and the money I make is taxed. Some of the Taxes go to support 90 year old people lying in a bed with no awarenes of their surroundings. I can't opt out of helping these people and I can't order their euthinasia.
You can't be forced to support life. i.e. If you awakened one day and found you were connected to another person by an IV line and their blood going into you was being purified by your kidneys and liver. No one would accuse you of murder if you disconnected yourself from the IV and the other person died. You didn't volunteer to help the other person and the process was causing you physical discomfort and you couldn't go to work,,, I mean it was Really inconveinient. The other person will live for a little while and someone else may be found to support them before they die.
Well, late term abortion is not like that. In this case, you unplug yourself and tell the doctor to dismember the other person(but don't let me see it)(and i'll see you at church tomorrow).
Any questions?