Pro-Life Terrorism
Here's a pretty old post from the blog archives of Geekery Today; it was written about 17 years ago, in 2007, on the World Wide Web.
Incompetent pro-life terrorism, to be specific.
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — An eyewitness tells fire authorities about two hooded persons who broke a window and threw a gas can into an abortion clicnic that caught fire Thursday night.
Local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies are investigating a fire at the office of Curtis Boyd, M.D., an abortion provider in Albuquerque.
The fire occurred at Dr. Boyd’s clinic at 801 Encino Place near the University of New Mexico hospital around 11:30 p.m. Thursday.
Albuquerque Fire Department said a witness saw two persons in hooded jackets break a window on the west side of the clinic. The witness called out to them. The two hooded persons then moved to another window on the building’s south side and threw a gas can into the building and a small fire started at that point. The two persons drove away in a square black van.
After several hours of investigating, AFD confirmed that the witness saw an arson in progress. AFD is working closely with ATF and FBI on this case.
According to a statement from the National Abortion Federation, there have been seven murders, 17 attempted murders, 41 bombings, 100 butyric acid attacks, 656 anthrax threats, and 175 arsons against abortion providers since 1977, including Thursday’s Albuquerque incident.
The clinic incurred severe fire damage to one room and smoke damage throughout, but crews say the building is not a total loss. No one was inside at the time. Staff at the clinic is still answering the phone and seeing patients at another undisclosed location.
— KOAT Albequerque (2007-12-07): Eyewitness Accounts Confirm Arson In Abortion Clinic Fire
Meanwhile, peaceful pro-lifers who thank God that nobody was injured
(why? aren’t they mass murderers?) will not speculate
on why the building was damaged by fire
, but they will lament that the fire has in no way diminished Boyd’s enthusiasm for the practice.
The abortion rights movement is in a more precarious position than we sometimes realize. We have spent too long defending an ever-shrinking number of clinics against the repeated harassment, blockades and guerrilla violence of antis. What we desperately need is a forward strategy of building more clinics, along the lines of the courageous efforts to open a new abortion clinic in Aurora, Illinois. The only way to win against this kind of opposition is to give them so many targets that it won’t make much of a difference to lose any given one.
(Via Jill @ feminste 2007-12-10: More Anti-Choice Terrorism.)
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I can appreciate that there may be a libertarian case for a pro-choice stance on abortion. My own conflicts and ambivalence on the issue aside, what I cannot understand is a libertarian advocating support of a government-funded institution that provides abortion services.
Whether we’re talking about the war in Iraq, the border fence down south, or abortion, I find it immoral to force or coerce others into sanctioning something that they may find morally repugnant.
Can you explain?
Bob,
I’m not sure what you expect me to explain. I don’t advocate government funding for abortion clinics, and I don’t see anything in this post which would suggest that I do advocate that. What I advocate is building more abortion clinics, as part of a broad strategy of resistance against the campaign of harassment and violence that has been directed against abortion providers. I didn’t say anything about how that should be funded, but you can infer from my previously stated positions that I think it should be funded voluntarily. If I said (as indeed we should), it doesn’t follow from that that I’m advocating that the government fund it. Even though, in point of fact, almost all small liberal arts colleges, even though they are nominally private, receive some funding from the federal government.
If you’re referring to my brief kind words for the people who opened a Planned Parenthood clinic in Aurora, Illinois, and to Planned Parenthood’s policy of taking funds allocated by federal and state government for family planning, then I agree that the government should not be subsidizing reproductive healthcare, and that Planned Parenthood should not lobby governments for those subsidies. However, as you may know, most of Planned Parenthood’s funding comes from private donations and fees for services, not from Title X or other government subsidies. They are a private nonprofit, and are less dependent on government subsidy than many healthcare providers; describing them as a is more than a bit misleading. If you want to talk about why I think that abortion providers, or better yet all healthcare providers, should stop lobbying for government subsidies, we can talk about that, but I don’t really see how such a discussion would have been on-topic in the post. What was salient was the fact that (1) they opened a new abortion clinic in the face of fierce harassment and political obstructionism from antis, and (2) they showed a lot of courage in so doing. Thinking that they were courageous and that they were right about the benefits of opening up a new clinic doesn’t mean that I agree with everything that they say or do.
OK.
Yes, I didn’t explain before, but it was from the Planned Parenthood citation that I made the inference.
Thanks for explaining.
And of course, I should have read more of your previous posts on the topic before blathering on your blog, so apologies. I’ll certainly do that now.