Actually mere physical reality is what allows people to break most civil laws. People’s moral sense is what they use to determine whether their actions are wrong or right, no matter what the law happens to be.
I wouldn’t worry about anarchy, though. Violence, and the means to bring that violence to bear in an orderly and coordinated fashion, is very solidly in the hands of the controlling government authority. It’ll keep order quite well. The only problem is that the order it keeps may or may not be just. It is certianly the HOPE that democracy will help achieve a more just enforcement of more just laws, but it is in no sense a guarantee. We certainly hope that democratic institutions will provide a peacible outlet for people’s concerns, but when they fail to recognize basic and very serious claims that people believe in, those people will often work outside of the system. Democracy demands a certain level of civic agree-to-disagree similarity, and sometimes it, as a system for resolving disputes, just cannot cope. There are problems too big and unforgiving for it to resolve.
I don’t. There was no pressing need to kill him, certianly not the sort of pressing need he, at least, believed there was to kill that doctor.
William S. on Slate had a headline that went:
State kills man for killing doctor who killed babies. He also noted that people were threatening to kill state officials for killing Hill. And if they were successful in doing so, then other state officials would undoubtedly kill them. Whoo boy.
The Civil War was necessary to free the slaves in America. So apparently violence was necessary.
All four are instances of people breaking the law for what they considered morally justified reasons. Hill, and the French Resistance, employed violence in doing so. rjung was arguing that this would necessarily lead to anarchy. It didn’t, although it certainly contributed to the violence in the Civil War and WWII.
The only relevant distinction between the French Resistance and Hill is whether or not you agree with the moral principle they used to justify their violence. The French fought against the Nazis at least in part because the Nazis killed large numbers of innocent people. Hill murdered the abortion doctor and his bodyguard (and wounded the abortionist’s wife) because he believed that the abortion industry kills large numbers of innocent people. The only way I can see to justify the violence of the one and condemn the other morally is to argue that one was correct in its principles (the Nazis really did kill a lot of innocents) but Hill was not (abortion doesn’t really kill anyone).
I suppose you could argue against violence in pursuit of some justified end on practical grounds. Thus even those who believe that abortion = murder would refrain from actions that would do more harm than good to their cause, like murdering abortion doctors, because it alienates moderates and thus works against their desired ends.
One side trying to force the other to admit that some horrible end is a logically inescapable conclusion of their premises doesn’t usually help the discussion, IMO. Murder of abortionists is no more logically compelling than neo-naticide. In the same way, you can be anti-slavery without justifying Harper’s Ferry, as Guinastasia does above.
I would like to see some responses from pro-choicers to it.
What would you do in Diogenes’ hypothetical situation? You believe that abortion is morally justifiable - well and good.
Do you believe that neo-naticide is equally justified? Or are you in the same boat as pro-lifers if neo-naticide is allowed? Are you morally compelled to get a gun and begin shooting?
If you can think of a reason not to, does that same reason apply to pro-lifers now? How about capital punishment? If it is wrong, why aren’t you out shooting officials who sign death warrants?
No, I don’t consider what the Nazi’s did to the Jews, Gypsies, Homosexuals, and Communists to be murder. By definition that equates to genocide or wholesale slaughter, which is much worse than murder.
This is a symmantic argument though. Nothing can excuse the definite murder commited by Hill. And for those comparing him to Dr. King and Ghandhi?!?!? WTH? I don’t seem to remember either of those men assassinating people they disagreed with. Breaking a law in protest of a law is one thing. Assassinating an individual who disagrees with you is something wholly different.
I cant reply to the OP coz everytime i start to write it comes out as a discussion of whether abortion is right or wrong.
Surely he will only become a martyr if we keep talking about him - which is probably what he wanted anyway.
I think it would be morally justfied to use deadly force to prevent the (legal) murder of a newborn baby. I would support anyone else doing it. I would not do it myself because of personal cowardice. I would not want to go to prison and toss any salads.
Killing a judge who signed a death warrant would be completely ineffective. It would not prevent any executions so it can’t be justified on that account. Capital punishment is a killing done by a state, not an individual. You can’t kill a state and no amount of violence can prevent an execution.
Anyway, I oppose capital punishment not because I necessarily think it’s murder or because some people don’t deserve to die but because I think there is too much room for human error, bias and corruption in the system. There is too much chance of an innocent person being executed. I also don’t find it personally satisfying for someone who causes a great amount of human trauma (e.g. Timothy McVeigh) to simply get a little shot and go to sleep. I would rather that they had to live a long time and actually pay for their crimes. Death is an escape, imho.
If killing of newborns were made legal, I would feel a moral and ethical obligation to defend those newborns from those who wanted to kill them. I would not necessarily take up arms, but that would be because of my own fear of killing, plus a fear of reprisals.
In other words, I think I would be too scared to do anything about it. That wouldn’t absolve me of what I perceive as an obligation to do something about it.
This has been a fascinating thread with some good arguments raised all around. I would not equate Hill with the French Resistance. Being invaded by a foreign power is generally considered to be a morally valid reason for going to war, in the case of the French they merely continued this war after the army surrendered. (Sort of like the Iraqis are doing now).
Gandhi and King are revered because they went about things the way that civilized human beings do. They used non violent civil disobedience to right wrongs. Hill, on the other hand, was nothing more than a pint-sized BinLaden.
No, I was arguing that if you carry the argument to its logical conclusion – that it’s okay for people to break any law if they feel it’s ethically correct to do so – then that way lies madness. Subtle difference, but it’s there.
I think lemur66 makes a good point. The doctor didnt go out door to door and and randomly perform abortions. Women come to him, of their own free will, to have them done. So if this guy thought abortion was murder, why didnt he kill those women??
This man was no hero…he was cold blooded killer, and I think its a shame he couldnt be killed twice.
The key issue right now is NOT whether it’s right and wrong, but whether murder is justifiable if you believe that abortion doctors are committing murder.
As I pointed it out, it would most certainly be justifiable to kidnap women to prevent them from aborting until they carry to term.
However, the doctor is no less culpable because people bring their fetuses to him of their own “free will.” That’s irrelevant to whether what he’s doing is wrong and should be stopped.
Remember, this wasn’t just nothing, then murder. While there certainly ARE many other other avenues of trying to stop abortions, they HAD been tried already, and were so far failing to stop the abortions.
I believe it would be ethically supportable to kill someone who was about to perform an abortion against the will of the mother, if killing the abortionist were the only way to prevent it. I don’t believe this circumstance is likely, but it would be an act that would directly lead to saving the life of an unborn human being.
I don’t believe that killing abortion doctors has necessarily led to the reduction of a single abortion, however. More than that, even if I had absolutely no compunction about killing an abortion doctor (I’m not saying that’s the case), I don’t believe the practice would lead, on balance, to fewer abortions overall. The public tends to find the practice distasteful. It tends to mobilize the opposition.
There is absolutely nothing inconsistent or hypocritical about a pro-life belief that is not coupled with an affection for strafing the local abortion clinic with machine gun fire, not from where I’m sitting.
It’s very hard to find doctors willing to train to perform them anymore. While we don’t have any way to prove what amount of this is attributable to the fear of attack, I don’t think it’s impluasible to say that it has had a real impact on the people who would otherwise train or offer abortion services.
Unless mobilize means: suddenly decide to qualify for medical school, and spend 8 years training to be a doctor, and specialize in Ob, I’m not sure what you think all this opposition can do to make doctors want to offer abortions.
I didn’t mean that at all. I meant that the public, not surprisingly, tends to react to acts like murdering abortion doctors negatively. It shifts opinions toward the pro-choice side to the extent people think this is indicative of the whole pro-life philosophy, a philosphy that seems radical and oppressive if defined by this act. Many in the pro-choice camp use isolated acts like this to paint just such a picture of the pro-life movement.
People approved of Bush’s handling of the economy when his overall approval after 9/11 spiked. His handling of the economy hadn’t changed noticeably. But my point is that the public associated the nationalistic enthusiasm they felt for its President with other aspects of his performance–for no rational reason. There are people who hear about doctors getting murdered and suddenly they develop a distaste for the pro-life movement overall–again, for no rational reason. IMO, the murder of abortion doctors (ignoring for the moment any other ethical issues) on balance does not help the pro-life cause. To the extent that’s true, than this killing may ultimately lead to more, not fewer, abortions.
People, who defend Hill, conveniently overlook the fact that Hill did not kill just one man who performed abortions. In order to get to the dr., he killed the doctor’s bodyguard. And he obviously was unconcerned that the doctor’s wife was in danger since she was wounded.
That tells me that he was willing to kill anyone, who stood between him and the doctor, in order to kill the doctor.
I do not believe in the conventional Christian hell (fire and brimstone, etc.), but I do believe that souls go to an afterlife. IMO, Hill’s reward will be to spend eternity, in outer darkness, separated and distanced from “God”, surrounded by murderers just like himself. I guess, for someone like him, who thinks of himself as an extension of God, that would be hell.
While true, how would that increase abortions? While the political winds may blow all over the place, I’m not sure I see how it would affect the number of people providing abortions, or the demand for them.
It affects the possibility of a ban on abortions. The political climate, to the extent is is reflective of a move away from pro-life, will have a great deal to do with the timing of any ban.
If, like me, you hold hope for an abortion ban, then acts that could push the change out further on the horizon may ultimately mean more abortions, not fewer.
But the historical facts point the other way: far fewer abortions, and without doubt some of that is in part attributable to a shortage of clinics and doctors.