Why aren’t more anti-abortion types like Eric Rudolph?
You may have noted that Eric Rudolph, the guy who bombed the Olympics in 1996 and a Birmingham abortion clinic in 1998 (killing one and maiming another) has pleaded guilty in order to avoid the death penalty (and you can contemplate the irony of the “pro-life” warrior passing on a chance to make a real point with his own execution on your own time). [Stories.] Obviously I’m glad this loon is behind bars, and obviously he and I have some differences of opinion on the abortion issue.
(Insert huge “but” here.) That said, there is a logic to his way of thinking, and I have wondered for years how it is that so many other Christians who share his beliefs manage to avoid the path of violent resistance he chose. In his court statement yesterday:
Rudolph issued the statement laced with Bible verses to justify bombs packed with roofing nails and screws, saying the attacks were eye-for-an-eye retribution for a society and a government that sanctions abortion.
“Because I believe that abortion is murder, I also believe that force is justified … in an attempt to stop it,” Rudolph wrote in the statement handed out after he entered his pleas. [Story.]
Rudolph, like the rest of those in the anti-abortion movement, believe that a fetus is a living human being. Literally, they see a fetus that’s six months from being born as being morally the same as a six month-old infant. Okay, let’s grant that for a second.
Now, say that there was a group of people going around from town to town murdering six month-old infants, and doing so in the broad light of day with the sanction of the authorities. Every day, several hundred or several thousand infants are murdered – ripped apart – in your town and towns like it all across America. And you feel this is a crime against the law of your god. In this case, would you do what Eric Rudolph did? Would you kill those who were committing these unconscionable murders?
If you did, who would blame you? (I’m going to be honest here – if I felt, as do anti-abortion activists, that fetuses were the same as children who’d already been born, I’d be hard-pressed not to take violent action, if that was what was required.)
Well, according to the beliefs of the legions who call themselves “pro-life,” this is more or less exactly what’s happening. But they choose not to take up arms against the murderers. Why?
This isn’t an attack on anybody’s beliefs – it’s a legitimate question. A lot of honest people are acting (or failing to act, in this case) in a way that looks to me to be inconsistent with what their beliefs would suggest they ought to be doing, and I’d like to hear them explain their rationale. I think we all have conflicts between what we believe and what we do about it sometimes, and we all fight the battle to resolve the resulting cognitive dissonance (to use the Psychology term). It would be interesting and informative if I could hear – from the horse’s mouth, as it were – how this group works its way through this conflict and what other principles are brought to bear in making the decision not to join Eric’s Army.
Given how I feel about things, Eric Rudolph can either rot in jail or hang tomorrow. The only difference is how soon his train departs for Hell. However, his actions seem perfectly consistent with his beliefs, and though I don’t agree with him, I can respect that. I can certainly respect it a lot better than I can those who sit around and cheer for him quietly because he’s doing what they think is right, but who lack the courage of their own convictions, the courage thatwould be required to get out and sacrifice for what they think is right.
lullaby pit 
I find there is an amazing level of hypocrisy with people who consider personhood beginning at fertilization (even before implantation in the uterine wall) and that a “pre-natal person” should have more protection and rights than when they just turn post-natal.
I think the fervor comes from the idea of protecting an innocent that can’t protect themself. There is a significant indoctrination that Christians are persecuted and are the underdogs of society (ya, right) and so the extension to protecting the unborn is an extension of that identity. I don’t understand why there isn’t a similar identification with homeless people especially suffering from mental illness as co-persecuted but there isn’t.
I don’t know if this diatribe helped with any insight – it has been the only thing I have been able to figure out that has helped my brain hurt a little less on this topic.
I guess it comes from some twist on the founding Puritan ethic, which tends to blame people for whatever happens to them. Maybe. I’m sure it’s a lot more complex than that, but it’s not a bad place to start looking….
What I hate is that these types of people believe it is their duty to place their values upon everyone else. I am not standing on a street corner encouraging people to give up their god-beliefs and that all single, young, pregnant women should have abortions. A woman’s right to choose is between her and her doctor and no one else. I’m sick of religious types sticking their nose where it doesn’t belong and taking action that they think is right based on their religion. Sure, his actions are understandable in the context of his beliefs, but it doesn’t mean it’s right. People just need to stop imposing themselves upon everyone else.
Good thoughts. I have less qualms about some of the consistency issues other people have, though – killing to save a life isn’t somehow weird to me at all, unless you believe that ALL lives are equally worthy of saving. To me, that means accepting that a mass murdering child rapist is morally in the same boat as his innocent victims, and I don’t buy that for a second.
I’m glad to hear some people weighing in here with some principled reactions, though. I tend to worry less about what people believe so long as it’s clear that what they belief is the process of informed consideration.
I’m as pro life as they get and I think Rudolph is a total whack job.
Great post.
Aloha,
Jeff
I question that arguement, only because my stating that, you are doing the same thing that you hate. Hmmmm…. The guy is whacked, fanatical (IMHO), and I’m glad he’s off the street. And, I’ve also held an aborted 24 week fetus. I’m always curious the basis for people’s opinions. Rambling now over.
I’d like to consider the question you actually asked. Why don’t pro-life people all become lunatic murderers if they think that babies are being killed? 1) Because that would be completely inconsistent with being pro-life. Rudolph is crazy – that’s why this inconsistency isn’t a problem for him.
2) Many pro-life people are Christian and while the New Testament has one sentence opposing abortion, it has no sentences at all about your right to kill people. A better question – one I can’t answer – is why some pro-life people are pro-death penalty.
3) You ask what would people do if someone was killing babies. That led me in two directions: the U.S. infant mortality rate and the holocaust question. The U.S. does not have the lowest infant mortality rate. Why? Because we don’t care to provide mothers-to-be with inexpensive access to health care; because we don’t provide free drug treatment to pregnant drug users; because we allow a serious housing shortage to continue throughout our country; because food is not a right. Our system is killing babies and we don’t do anything about it.
The holocaust question (as if one person is responsible): see Pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s dilemma. He was close enough actually do something. Despite his beliefs in nonviolence, he did make an attempt on Hitler’s life. I am currently reading his works to see how he got to where he did.
I was going to write a big rebuttal, but please, explain how it is you think I am doing the same thing I hate about religious types.
Good thoughts. I have less qualms about some of the consistency issues other people have, though – killing to save a life isn’t somehow weird to me at all, unless you believe that ALL lives are equally worthy of saving. To me, that means accepting that a mass murdering child rapist is morally in the same boat as his innocent victims, and I don’t buy that for a second.
I’m glad to hear some people weighing in here with some principled reactions, though. I tend to worry less about what people believe so long as it’s clear that what they belief is the process of informed consideration.