Yesterday, a security guard at a Melbourne abortion clinic was shot and killed.
Not surprisingly, our most vocal anti-abortion lobby - The Right to Life group - was quick to come out and deny any connection between themselves and the gunman.
However, statements such as
in the press release issued by RTL, are not going to win the organisation any converts or sympathy.
This is Australia Ms Tighe. The security guard was carrying out his normal duties, in a clinic which performs a legal medical procedure. It damn well should be surprising to you and your organisation that people who share your pro-life views would take such extreme measures to protest “the nature of what occurs in these places”.
While I’ve often considered your organisation’s tactics of holding prayer vigils outside abortion clinics and waving placards depicting aborted foetuses as somewhat tasteless, I find myself appalled that you can’t resist the opportunity to use this incident as a propoganda exercise - you might as well have come out and said “it wasn’t one of us, but what do these people expect?”
You had a golden opportunity Ms Tighe to educate the community about your objectives, and the legal means by which those objectives can be achieved. You could have expressed sincere condemnation of the action taken by the gunman - you could have organised a prayer vigil for the security guard who lost his life for fuck’s sake. You could have come out of this looking credible and compassionate for a change. But you couldn’t resist the opportunity to take a sly dig at the opposition, could you?
I’m glad you aren’t on my side of the abortion debate Ms Tighe. I suspect that more than a few pro-lifers are wishing you weren’t on theirs.
I can’t help but thinking their justification to the death of this man is more than slightly similar to a rapist saying “Well, she was wearing a tube top and a miniskirt, she was asking for it!”.
Sick.
The organisation should be renamed The Right to Life (as long as you’re on our side, otherwise we don’t give a flying rat’s clacker what happens to you)
Why do I have this urge to find RTL’s headquarters and start protesting there?
Goddamn it woman, while I support your right to peacefully demonstrate for something you believe in (and that does not include physical or verbal harrasment of those using the clinic), you have no fucking right to take the death of an innocent man and use it for your own ends.
[George Carlin] Don’t you find it mildly ironic that the people who are against abortion are the ones you wouldn’t want to fuck in the first place? [/George Carlin]
If I were a member of the family of the slain man, I would make it my life’s work to set about harassing Ms. Tighe to the fullest extent allowable by law. That is, after I got over my grief at losing a family member and having his death virtually called righteous by this person of questionable intelligence.
(Wanna hear a Freudian slip? I mis-typed her name as “Tight” originally.)
[George Carlin]
Pro-life? They’re killing doctors. What kind of pro-life is that? “We’ll do everything we can to protect the fetus, but if it grows up to become a doctor, we just might have to kill it.” Pro-life. When they say they’re Pro-life, they’re talking about their right to decide who should live or die.
[/George Carlin]
It amazes me that these “Right to Life” people continuously use words like “Holocaust” and “Genocide” to describe what’s going on in these clinics, and then have the nerve to act surprised when one of their feeble-minded followers actually takes them seriously and kills someone.
I think if the shooter was a “feeble minded follower” he’d say something about abortion by now. He’s not said anything. It could be something unrelated to the clinic, like maybe he thought the security guard was sleeping with the shooter’s wife (unlikely, but not impossible).
Very sad case.
The fact that he hasn’t said anything is actually why I assumed it was a anti-abortion protester. Anti-abortion extremists typically do not co-operate with police and courts since they naturally feel that they are following a higher law, but is a positive identification really necessary to prosecute this guy? (The news article seems to imply that it’s important). If he doesn’t want to give his name to speed up the court process, can’t the case just be tried as a straightforward murder without the political/social overtones? I think this would actually be better, IMHO. Let him be tried as an ordinary thug and not as some kind of religious martyr. I think we’ll find out his real motives soon enough after he’s spent a few months in jail alongside real murderers.
I felt “feeble minded” was an appropriate description for a killer who was willing to immediately discard one of his faiths highest laws (“Thou shalt not kill”) when it became inconvenient, but it was not the first choice that occurred to me.
The article I read earlier today (which is different from the one being linked to now) mentioned that his lack of identity would not prevent prosecution. Just so you know, NutWrench.
I saw the Tighe woman on TV and she said (words to the effect, that is) “perhaps he had a family member killed there, and that was why he had done it”. This hasn’t been quoted in the press and I think it is an even worse quote.
The self-righteous few who demonstrate outside the clinic every morning, trying to embarrass women visiting there, were back there today. I know these people see themselves as crusaders, suffering persecution for the cause.
I think they have contributed to and incited this murder.
And shamefully, there are religious leaders who support them.
Are there anymore details on this case yet? I just read the bit about the guard’s mother, how very sad.
I searched http://search.news.com.au/ but have not found a new story. Any Australian Dopers, can you tell me where to search?
TDG, here are two of the leading newspapers in Melbourne: The Age and The Herald Sun. IIRC, both of them are following the story with great interest so you should be able to find lots of information there. Hope this helps.
Thanks Kayeby, I read the current articles but I don’t understand why an anti-abortion activist would kill a guard. I can kind of perversely understand why he would kill the medical personnel, or the people who make the appointments, but a security guard?
I hope he starts talking soon. This case is just too weird.
My understanding was that the gunman shot the security guard and intended to shoot others, but was attacked by two men before he could get any further. It makes sense that the guard would be the first to stop an armed man from entering the clinic, and thus be the first casualty.
I hope the gunman starts talking soon as well - I can only imagine how terrible it must be for that man’s family.
Sorry, upon reading my post, I realised it could be read as sympathy for the family of the gunman rather than the security guard. IIRC, his funeral will be this morning - I hope the RTL people have enough taste to stay well clear of his funeral.
More bits of this awful case are getting into the news.
“Police sources said the <murder suspect> took a bag containing a rope and a container filled with flammable material to the clinic.”
Some much for my brief, mis-placed hope that this was a personal crime rather than a whacko with bigger goals.
I’d just like to remind y’all that most of us in the pro-life circuit are against abortion doctors being killed. It’s the wingnuts (such as the one who’s the subject of this thread) and their supporters who make us look so bad. I am pro-life, but I don’t think the solution is anywhere near “kill everyone involved with abortion.” Nor do I approve of (for what that’s worth) what these sick fucks do.
