Pro-life terrorism

Posted by Evan Derkacz at 11:35 AM on April 21, 2006.

Yesterday's Focus on the Family newblast featured a statement (I'm having trouble calling it a "story") on a doctor facing a Grand Jury as a result of an abortion he'd performed.

A 19-year-old girl with Down's Syndrome had been raped and, after the abortion, she tragically died. The Kansas Board of Healing Arts cleared him of responsibility a short time later.

Based on nothing but Operation Rescue's reporting, a petition drive has successfully exploited a provision in Kansas law allowing citizens to convene a Grand Jury should they deem it necessary.

None of this is newsworthy, of course; just PR gimmicks designed to conflate abortion with death and misdeeds, to raise the ire of well-meaning people and perhaps to keep the funding valves open.

What is noteworthy, however, is that in every account I've read on this case from the pre-lifers, there's a creepy lack of any discouragement from violence. To begin with, there's no mention that the doctor targeted by this campaign, Dr. George Tillman, had been shot by violent pre-lifer Rachelle Shannon back in 1993.

The Citizen Link report, which makes no mention of the shooting nor anyone who advocates stopping short of violence, quotes Operation Rescue's President Troy Newman:

"It's high time that this man is held accountable for his actions that have caused untold misery and loss of life."

In the LifeSiteNews article it links to, Newman's rhetoric is even more inflammatory and irresponsible: "Christin was raped in Texas and killed in Kansas..."

Operation Rescue's founder, Randall Terry has well-documented links to killer James Charles Kopp before, during and after his conviction.

With a history of inciting violence and a doctor who's already been shot, how much of a stretch is it to charge that this kind of talk borders on terrorism?

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Evan Derkacz is a New York-based writer and contributor to AlterNet.