Man Drives Suv Into Planned Parenthood Clinic

[Giolla]

[quote name='Ziggamafu' post='1758782' date='Jan 22 2009, 07:40 PM']I've often found it difficult to rationalize why violence is not justified in the case of the abortion mills. It would have been acceptable to use violence in Germany to shutdown Auschwitz, correct? How is this any different except that the numbers are higher, the victims are more innocent, and the damage more severe? I understand the repercussions of using violence, of course. I'm not advocating it; I'm merely asking the honest, sincere question of why, for some reason, the principles of just war / aggression are (seemingly) not employed in the case of the baby-murder mills.[/quote]

I understand what you saying to degree but in the long run its like the death penalty. I think those who have and give abortions should be imprisoned or rehabbed but not killed.

[sweens8403]

[quote name='HisChildForever' post='1758786' date='Jan 22 2009, 07:46 PM']In theory I suppose it is justifiable. But the wisest way to approach this severe matter is through peace. Why? Because we want violence (abortion) to stop, and would be contradicting ourselves if we used violence to stop violence. [b]I can hear the pro-choice people now: "They say it's wrong to terminate a pregnancy and yet they run around torching our buildings and harassing our employees?"[/b][/quote]

I wonder though, wouldn't torching empty buildings or destroying machines used in abortion be akin to harrassing supply lines of your enemy? No lives would be lost, just property. You however hinder their ability to fight or in this case locally hinder their ability to murder children. Food for thought.

[BG45]

[quote name='MithLuin' post='1758773' date='Jan 22 2009, 07:23 PM']Hmmm. When was the last time there was a shooting or bombing at an abortion clinic? Wasn't it a bunch of years ago - mid-90s or something? The timing, so shortly after Obama became president, is probably not incidental.

So sad. It's not enough just to believe in a good cause - you have to use good means to acheive it. Violence, being quick and easy, is not the true answer.[/quote]

Not 100% sure, but I'm pretty sure it was the terrorist Eric Rudolph who also bombed the Atlanta Olympics. Whose capture, as he was a Christian, barely made a blip on the national news...unless I'm forgetting someone, which is always a possibility.

[Apotheoun]

When governments pass legislation that is contrary to the moral law (e.g., laws allowing abortion and euthanasia, or laws promoting homosexual activity) there is a danger that violent and irrational actions will occur in response to government sanctioned injustice.

Edited January 23, 2009 by Apotheoun

[Saint Therese]

Abortion is the direct work of the evil one.

Edited January 23, 2009 by Saint Therese

[thessalonian]

It sounds like this guy does have issues in the latest news. He has been hospitalized 12 times but his distress is certainly not without reason.

"He saw all these little babies that made it and he heard all these horror stories about the babies that made it in the trash can making noise. It made him sick," Georjean said holding back tears. "He worries about these babies that get aborted and he obsesses on it."


Some of what he was dealing with, i.e. hearing the cries of babies in trash cans would disturb anyone. Here is the latest report.
[url="http://kstp.com/article/stories/S756876.shtml?cat=1"]http://kstp.com/article/stories/S756876.shtml?cat=1[/url]

[Ziggamafu]

Well...again, can anyone provide a justified basis for the disconnect between Auschwitz and the abortion mills? The legalization of abortion is not a mere "unjust law", like laws hampering freedom of speech. Do we not have a right to - by any and all means - stop the murder of our children? I merely see a disconnect, and I am merely asking if anyone can provide an explanation.

[thessalonian]

It is a question I cannot answer other than with "feelings" about it being wrong to take such matters in to our own hands. That somehow seems unsatisfying.

[MithLuin]

It would have been justifiable for the US gov't to bomb (or attempt to free) a concentration camp - just war applies specifically to [i]governments[/i], not to individual actions.

Even if an action is just, there is the matter of 'taking it into your own hands'. Attempting to stop abortion? Sure. That's what protesting in front of the clinic is all about. Deciding that those who take babies lives must die - ummm, since when do we get to exact divine justice? That is not for us to decide. We can [i]call[/i] someone a murderer, but we cannot try or condemn them as one, personally, on our own. Becoming a vigilante is to step outside the law and determine for ourselves what is right or wrong.

We complain when people do that about religion; why should it be any more acceptable in terms of legality and justice?

I mean, Batman is a very likable character, but there are some serious flaws with the idea that he can just beat up and harass people whom he identifies as 'criminals'. There is a great scene in 'Me, Myself and Irene' that makes that point...he trashes the car of a young, healthy man who parks in a handicapped spot...only to see the owner of the car (an elderly handicapped man) come out of the business. Ditto with 'The Oxbow Incident' - a posse decides to condemn and hang three men for murder...without going through the usual steps to verify guilt or innocence. There are flaws in our justice system, surely....but there are a lot more flaws in throwing the system out and living by, "in those days there was no king in Israel; every man did what was right in his own eyes."



Destroying a building when there is no one inside is much more tempting, of course, but again - are you [i]sure[/i] the cleaning staff isn't there? What if someone happened to be in the building when you blew it up? Wouldn't you feel pretty terrible if you killed an innocent person who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time? And even if you are sure no one will be injured...do you personally really have a right to destroy someone else's property? Can you go torch someone's house just because he's a condemned mass-murderer?

God doesn't ignore evil. Anyone who doubts that need only read the first chapter of Isaiah - but [i]he[/i] will punish injustice. We are to do what we can to fight it, to take up the cause of the orphans, but not to the point of exacting revenge.

Change hearts. Change people. Change lives. Only then will the abortion clinics go out of business.

[Ziggamafu]

If you walk down a street and notice a mother taking her three year old by hand and lifting her up into a wood-chipper, do you have a moral right to stop the murder from taking place by any means necessary? Or are you morally restricted to prayer, while you walk by? I'm not questioning if you have the obligation to physically stop the murder, just if you have the right to. It seems obvious to me that you do have the right to stop the murder from taking place. Now what if the government legalized the practice of throwing children into wood-chippers and businesses sprung up to serve that purpose for a fee. Where is the disconnect between this and the legalized opportunities for entrepreneurial baby-murder?

Edited January 23, 2009 by Ziggamafu

[philothea]

[quote name='Ziggamafu' post='1759254' date='Jan 23 2009, 11:49 AM']If you walk down a street and notice a mother taking her three year old by hand and lifting her up into a wood-chipper, do you have a moral right to stop the murder from taking place by any means necessary? Or are you morally restricted to prayer, while you walk by? I'm not questioning if you have the obligation to physically stop the murder, just if you have the right to. It seems obvious to me that you do have the right to stop the murder from taking place. Now what if the government legalized the practice of throwing children into wood-chippers and businesses sprung up to serve that purpose for a fee. Where is the disconnect between this and the legalized opportunities for entrepreneurial baby-murder?[/quote]
Did you see Don John's discussion of this a few months back? He made basically the same argument. If we [i]really believed[/i] what was going on in there was murder, we'd stop it, by any means necessary.

If there was a facility devoted to murdering toddlers when their mothers got too annoyed with them, Christians would not put up with it, no matter if it was legal or not.

I'll see if I can find a link.

[Ziggamafu]

[quote name='MithLuin' post='1759223' date='Jan 23 2009, 11:40 AM']Destroying a building when there is no one inside is much more tempting, of course, but again - are you [i]sure[/i] the cleaning staff isn't there? What if someone happened to be in the building when you blew it up? Wouldn't you feel pretty terrible if you killed an innocent person who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time? And even if you are sure no one will be injured...do you personally really have a right to destroy someone else's property? Can you go torch someone's house just because he's a condemned mass-murderer?[/quote]

The principle of double-effect would be employed, here. The action (blowing up a building) is morally neutral. The intent (defending the innocent, saving lives) is morally good. The unintended effect (unforeseen loss of life) is evil, but it is not a means to the good effect. The action, for the proportionately grave reason of saving more lives, would be morally defensible. Kind of like flying over enemy lines with the mission to bomb a munitions supply critical to the enemy's defense, strategically surrounded by innocent prisoners. Dropping a bomb is neutral, intending to blow up a munitions supply in a just war is good, and the bad effect (the death of the prisoners) is not itself a means to the good effect.

Also:
We are not to wait for some supernatural punishment to fall on those who plague the world with evil; otherwise we would not have law enforcement and prisons. Typically, God exacts justice through human mediums. Furthermore, there is a difference between revenge and defending the innocent.

[thessalonian]

If someone is going to shoot someone outside my house and I have a gun in my house I think I would be morally justified in defending them in any way I could with my gun. It's not as cut and dry as taking maters in to our own hands. Lives are being taken. Who is defending these unborn babies? Noone. I'm not saying it is right. I just have a hard time condemning the guy yesterday.

[Ziggamafu]

[quote name='philothea' post='1759265' date='Jan 23 2009, 01:05 PM']Did you see Don John's discussion of this a few months back? He made basically the same argument. If we [i]really believed[/i] what was going on in there was murder, we'd stop it, by any means necessary.

If there was a facility devoted to murdering toddlers when their mothers got too annoyed with them, Christians would not put up with it, no matter if it was legal or not.

I'll see if I can find a link.[/quote]

Didn't see the link. There was no resolution, then? Or did everyone agree with that conclusion?

[philothea]

[quote name='Ziggamafu' post='1759271' date='Jan 23 2009, 12:09 PM']Didn't see the link. There was no resolution, then? Or did everyone agree with that conclusion?[/quote]
It's [url="http://www.phatmass.com/phorum/index.php?s=&showtopic=84647&view=findpost&p=1651616"]here[/url].

I don't recall if the topic got picked up elsewhere, but there's the main argument and I didn't see anyone seriously refute it.

[sweens8403]

[quote name='thessalonian' post='1759268' date='Jan 23 2009, 01:08 PM']If someone is going to shoot someone outside my house and I have a gun in my house I think I would be morally justified in defending them in any way I could with my gun. It's not as cut and dry as taking maters in to our own hands. Lives are being taken. Who is defending these unborn babies? Noone. I'm not saying it is right. I just have a hard time condemning the guy yesterday.[/quote]


When I took my CPL (Concealed Pistol License) course the police officer who taught it did say that citizens with valid CPL's who come upon a situation where someone's life is in mortal danger that person is legally allowed to use lethal force to stop the aggressor. He did warn though that each of us in that class take extreme caution in doing this because it can get pretty hairy pretty quick, legally speaking. The trouble with that situation is that it can be difficult to determine who actually started the fight. When speaking of abortion it is a bit clearer who the aggressors are. Still, extreme caution is to be taken.

[MithLuin]

If you saw someone trying to put a toddler in a woodchipper, you would tackle them. Lethal force would not be necessary to prevent the murder.

Whenever police officers use lethal force, an investigation is started to see if they were justified in doing so - if the conclusion is that the officer were in the wrong, he is disciplined, or maybe even dismissed from the force. It isn't something you just [u]do[/u]....


I don't know. I know it would be very wrong to [i]kill[/i] someone in defense of a [i]pro-life[/i] cause. Part of me knows that you have to convince a woman to carry her child to term, not [i]force[/i] her to do so. I guess there is no way to remove the child from the custody of an unfit parent...if the child in question is still in utero.

I guess I am less than impressed with other people who use vandalism to advance their cause, so I don't think it's the way to go about changing society. Because that is the goal - changing the nation, changing the way people think and live. I don't think taking a can of red spraypaint and scrawling "Baby Killers" across the doors of an abortion clinic in the middle of the night is a way to do this. And if that would be childish and ineffective, certainly blowing the place up or killing the doctor would be worse - much, much worse.



There were two cases in 1993. In March, an abortion doctor in Florida was fatally shot. In August, a doctor in Kansas was shot in the arm by a woman, but survived. Both incidents are mentioned in [url="http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=19931024&slug=1727696"]this article[/url]. In 1994, another man killed both the abortion doctor and his escort in Florida. I know that the man in the last case claims he did nothing wrong because he was acting to prevent the deaths of babies. But...that doesn't make what he did right. Paul Hill was executed by lethal injection in 2003.

[quote]Two receptionists were killed at Boston-area abortion clinics in 1994 by John Salvi, who committed suicide in prison two years later.

[In 2003], James Kopp was convicted of killing an Buffalo, N.Y., abortion doctor in 1998, while fugitive Eric Rudolph was captured and charged with a 1998 bombing that killed an off-duty police officer at an Alabama abortion clinic.
[url="http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,96286,00.html"]Fox News[/url][/quote]

1998 [i]was[/i] awhile ago - 10 years. I can't recall any violence in the interim; but that doesn't mean it didn't happen.

[url="http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0309/02/se.18.html"]HERE[/url] is a transcript between two people discussing whether or not murdering an abortionist is acceptable - and I have to say, there really is no way to justify [i]murder[/i] - just because you hope you might save a baby, that doesn't make it justifiable.

Edited January 23, 2009 by MithLuin

[sweens8403]

I advocated no such behavior. This is what that police sergeant told my class about the use of lethal force.

Again like I said, with the cultural and political biases being what they are I'm sure they will throw the book at anyone who does anything of the sort.

[MithLuin]

I was referring to [b]Ziggamafu's[/b] scenario, not yours. Sorry for the confusion.

Apparently, there was a bomb planted 2 years ago, but it didn't go off: article [url="http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSN2719258620070428"]HERE[/url]. It says the last time a bomb actually went off at an abortion clinic was 2001. In 2004, laws were enacted to prevent some of the more aggressive protesting; don't know what impact (if any) that would have had on extremists.

[CatherineM]

I hadn't realized that the last bomb was in 2001. That's interesting. I wonder if 9-11 had an affect on that. I remember reading something written by an IRA guy who said after 9-11 they lost their desire to bomb, or something like that.