Safe, Legal, and Rare

This item is about the silly hyperventilating about the recent murder (or, as I'd be more apt to put it, the "murder") of the mass-murderer, George Tiller.


Consider this profoundly silly comment by Robert P. George, on National Review's "the corner" blog: Gravely Wicked (since it's probably not obvious to you, Gentle Reader, that "profoundly silly" characterization is meant to mirror the "gravely wicked" Since 'wicked' is a moral term, I'd considered saying "profoundly foolish," but I finally settled on the non-moral characterization of "silly").

Or consider this profoundly misguided reaction by NRO's Kathryn Jean Lopez to Operation Rescue's press release concerning the abortionist's death: The Wrong Release.

This is one fact: all elective abortion is murder. This is another fact: the elites who rule us *condone* such murder; sure, they have their varying reasons for why they actively support or passive enable the abortion regime, but the end-result is the same. And this is one more uncomfortable fact: many of us "regular people" *condone* such murder; sure, we have varying reasons for why we may actively support or passive enable the abortion regime, but the end-result is the same.

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A thought-experiment about the "gravely wicked" charge:
Let us suppose that there is a chain of private schools; quite exclusive in their enrollment policies, but also quite inexpensive in their tuition; and of which everyone in the nation realizes that by any objective standard they deliver an exceptional education. Naturally, we will see at once that everyone will be clamoring to get their children into one of these schools.

Now, let us further suppose that after some number of years it comes to light that the *reason* these schools are so exclusive in their enrollment policies is that they're carefully pre-screening the parents before revealing to them a certain heretofore secret policy of the schools: that each year at each individual school, one incoming student is chosen to be a human sacrifice. As in, ritually killed; dead. Thus, at least one parent of all the students enrolled in these schools was aware of this and had agreed to it beforehand.

Then, let us further suppose that after this horrific news becomes public knowledge, it is learned that it's all quite legal. How this enormity became legal doesn't matter to this thought-experiment; what matters is that it is legal by the laws of the land -- and that the politicians and other elites (and those who like to imagine they themselves are among the elite) have no intention of changing that.


So, since we are a "nation of laws, and not of men" (never mind that that hasn't actually been true for many years), and since (as Mr George asserts) "[n]o private individual [has] the right to execute judgment against" the staff of these schools, then ... what? Well, if Mr George, and Miss Lopez, and all the other hand-wringers are correct in their reasoning and assertions, then we must all stand by and allow these yearly human sacrifices, these "legal" murders, to continue indefinitely.

And, if all such namby-pamby Churchianity enablers of the abortion regime (inadvertent, perhaps, but enablers nonetheless) are correct, then, when eventually some individual -- say, the divorced father (who thereby had no say in the matter of his child's enrollment) of one of this year's human sacrifices -- does "take the law into his own hands," then we all must condemn him, and we are duty-bound to help bring him "to justice," but never them, really.


So, Gentle Reader, does the reasoning really work? If you reject this reasoning as applied to these hypothetical schools, how is it that you accept it as applied to the mass-murder going on daily in our nation? Where is the difference? What am I missing?

If you reject this reasoning as applied to these hypothetical schools, then why would it be morally permissible for someone, even someone not related to one of the murdered children, to execute the staff of these schools -- even though the State will do nothing about the yearly murders -- and yet it is not morally permissible for someone to execute an abortionist, also condoned (and even subsidized) by the State, who may well murder daily?

Was Antigone wrong, after all, to defy the legal command of Creon, the king?
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As I said earlier today to a man who is both pro-abortion and rather blasé about the death of this particular abortionist:

So, apparently, we're both 'pro-choice' about the killing of abortionists.

You know, in the "While I, personally, wouldn't kill an abortionist, I support others' right to do so" way.

Or, maybe it's the "While I am personally opposed to the termination of abortionists, I simply cannot impose my personal morality upon those who make the difficult personal decision to terminate an abortionist" way.

But, surely, all persons of good-will can come together on common ground to work toward making the termination of abortionists "safe, legal, and rare."

One out of three ain't so bad, is it, no matter which side of the fence you're on? The killing of abortionists *is* rare. This is what, perhaps the ninth or tenth since the 1973 Roe v Wade judicial usurpation?

Update:
According to the National Abortion Federation, from 1977 until now, there have been 7 prior murders (or "murders") of abortionists in the US and Canada. So, what's the score? Eight to something like 50,000,000?

Most news reports are saying things like this:

...
Dr. Tiller’s death is the first such killing of an abortion provider in this country since 1998, when Dr. Barnett Slepian was shot by a sniper in his home in the Buffalo area. Dr. Tiller was the fourth doctor in the United States who performed abortions to be killed in such circumstances since 1993, statistics from abortion rights’ groups show.
...