Topic: Abortion
Quote: The Killing of George Tiller: A "Pro-life" Murder?\n"Pro-life" as the self-description of the anti-abortion movement has a fundamental flaw at its heart. The moral absolute of "life" is not applied consistently, in my view, by the majority of those in this movement. Many in the "pro-life" anti-abortion movement seem to me to only be pro-life in the case of abortion -- unlike those who hold an ethic of life across a range of moral issues, not only abortion but also war and the death penalty, This makes "pro-life" in regard to abortion not only an inconsistent ethic, but an unstable one.\nNothing exposes this fundamental inconsistency and instability in the ethic of life as a description of the anti-abortion movement more than "pro-life" murder.\n.... Violence has been a part of the anti-abortion movement from the beginning, from the overt violence of the murder of other abortion providers to the covert violence of harassing women trying to get to clinics for reproductive services.\nViolence is a logical outcome of the extreme self-righteousness of those who claim the "pro-life" label as an absolute and yet who do not have an actual, consistent ethic of life such as the views held by pacifists. Dr. Charles Kimball, a Baptist minister and professor of religion at Wake Forest University, well explains this logical connection in his book When Religion Becomes Evil. According to Kimball, two warning signs that indicate a religious viewpoint is becoming evil are "absolute truth claims" and "the end justifies any means." Violence, in Kimball\'s view, is an evil.
Response: On Faith: The Killing of George Tiller: A "Pro-life" Murder? - Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite\nMurder is murder and abortion is not, to steal a phrase from Rabbi Arthur Waskow:\n
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