Is it ok to bomb an abortion clinic?

Great Debates
1

This is not the same as "killing the people that work in an abortion clinic. Bear with me. I am talking about destroying a place that performs abortions without hurting anyone. Lets say that you thought abortion was killing babies and you knew a place was killing babies. then wouldnt you have the moral obligation to stop the babies from being killed. not writing letters or protesting. but keeping one more baby from being killed.

MY point (finally):
It seems to me that people who think abortion is wrong dont really believe it is killing babies or there would be a lot more incidents at abortion clinics. I mean if you could take your 1 week old baby to a place that would kill it then there would be an uproar. It seems to me that the abortion issue is just a coffee table argument. If you really believed that the thing inside the woman’s body was a human then could you keep her from smoking,drinking, medication…?

same question pertains to the death penalty. right now people just wave signs outside the place frying the poor bastard. then they go to mcdonalds and have a mcnugget meal (upsized).

2

All right, I’ll try to take this question seriously.

Suppose that one does believe that abortion is the killing of a human being. Therefore, one should oppose abortion. But, is blowing up clinics and threatening people the answer? No. Blowing up clinics will not stop abortion. It is an ineffective tactic, it cannot work. It is counterproductive, since it will harden people’s hearts against the pro-Life movement.

If one is pro-Life, then you have to combat abortion in other ways. You have to change the way people think about abortion. You have to change the way people think about pregnancy. You have to change the way people think about sex. Abortion cannot be stopped unless you change the minds of the people who decide that they want an abortion. And you have to do this before they become pregnant, you have to do this before they decide to have sex and risk pregnancy.

Destroying buildings will not accomplish this.

3

Just wanted to say that the original question appears very serious to me…

4

Q: “Is it ok to bomb an abortion clinic?”

A: No.

5

Um. no.

other than the general ‘it’s against the law’ stuff, on a practical matter, bombs and fire have these other issues - like causing potential harm to firefighters etc, are difficult to control, so they’re not a particularly effective weapon. (not to mention potentially ticking off other less radical supporters). Plus, of course, insurance payments would kick in and a new place would be built. Not to mention the concept that many places that offer abortions also offer other services, so while you’re busy bombing the abortion providers service space, the dialysis folks may also be displaced.

Better tactic (and used) is going after funding for such places. Less potential fall out, more potential to actually work.

6

No it is not ok to bomb just the building. It is terroristic act, arsen, destroying property, endangerment, and a host of other felonies. And then how will you know if the building is really empty? It is an act of violent that could end in death.

7

Here’s a little song I wrote about this very topic last year:
Let’s Go Bomb an Abortion Clinic
(by tracer)

*Ev’ry day, sev’ral thousand
Little cute, helpless babies
Are all killed while they’re in the wo-omb still.
Don’t they know that getting pregnant
Is God’s mandated punishment
For getting laid against His holy will?

We can’t let them get away with this,
They’ve got to pay the price;
The time has come to act,
The time is past for being nice!

Let’s go bomb an abortion clinic!
Make the world once more Huckleberry Finn-ic.
With some primer cord and some C4,
We’ll keep them from killing anymore –
Let’s go bomb and abortion clinic!
Come with me, don’t be such a cynic!
Stop the killers by killing them ourselves.

I’ve been all through the bible, but
I can’t find a place where it says
Abortion explicitly is wrong.
But my pastor says that Moses
Only meant unborn babies by
That “Thou Shalt Not Kill” thing all along.

And if it’s good enough for Moses, well,
It’s good enough for me!
God help the doctors I send to Hell
For all eternity!

Let’s go bomb and abortion clinic!
We’ll keep them from committing a mortal sin-ic.
We’ll park a rented truck out front
Like that Oklahoma City stunt –
Let’s go bomb an abortion clinic!
Come with me, don’t be such a cynic!
Blast them all, they deserve it for their crimes.

With the fear of getting blown up
They won’t dare go near a clinic,
So they’ll have to keep their babies like God said.
Now you may begin to wonder
'Bout all those unwanted children
With a mother who would rather they were dead.

Well, frankly, I don’t give a damn
About them once they’re born.
God says we’ve got more bombs to plant,
We’ve got no time to mourn!

Let’s go bomb an abortion clinic!
While they’re still inside with their next-of-kin-ic.
And don’t worry if one of our caste
Or an unborn baby’s in the blast –
Let’s go bomb an abortion clinic!
Come with me, don’t be such a cynic!
Kill them all, and let our God sort them out!

Boom boom boom boom, ka-blam!*

Thank you, thank you, I’ll be here all week! Tip your waitresses! (But don’t knock 'em up!)

8

Bravo, Bravo. :slight_smile:
Anyhow, if you destroy one clinic, women will simply take their business elsewhere ontil the owner rebuilds.

Actually, the validity of the pro-life campaign hinges on the idea that abortion=murder. It’s just that the overwhelming majority of those people have neither the will nor the ability to use violence to enforce their beliefs.

The only effective long-term method to reduce abortions is to reduce the demand for abortion.

9

Did you say “poor bastard” referring to someone who’s been sentenced to death? Please.

10

RoboDude wrote:

<tracer bows deeply>

You have no idea how hard it was to come up with words that rhymed with “clinic”. :wink:

11

Mr Carpenter said:

I am reminded of the anti-war radicals who blew up an ‘empty’ math building that housed some military services as well (ROTC? weapons studies? can’t remember for sure) at University of Wisconsin - Madison in the dead of night during the sixties - and accidentially killed a grad student who was working late. The excuse ‘we thought it was empty’ did not fly with the authorities…

12

It’s not okay. People who destroy buildings for a cause are not okay. People who destroy for religious/social differences are not okay. Our nation was terrorized by people who thought destroying the WTC for a cause was okay.
It’s not okay.

13

It is terrorism, justinh. And I think the country has seen quite enough of that.

14

No,it is not okay.

If you oppose abortions and are a woman, don’t get one. If you oppose abortions and are a man, get a vasectomy. If you just want to tell other people what to do, get a shrink.

15

I agree that bombing abortion clinics is wrong, but…

“If you oppose abortions and are a woman, don’t get one”? That’s kinda like saying, “If you don’t like rape, don’t rape anyone.”

So are you telling us that we shouldn’t tell other people what to do? Alternately, are you telling these people that they must do as you say and seek psychological help?

16

In a way I think the OP made a good point but the question should be:

When is terrorism justified?

If the anti-abortionists really really believed that thousands of babies were being killed across America each week, shouldn’t they be even more up in arms about it than they are?

We would (presumably) all agree that the French Resistance in WWII were a “justified terrorist group”. They were “terrorist” in the sense that they killed members of the ruling Government and planted bombs.

They did this because they thought their cause was a just one.

And we supported them because we agreed their cause was a just one.

Bin Laden objects to all non-muslim (which, in practice, means American) presence in the Arab and Muslim world. To him, Americans are non-muslim and therefore heathen.

He thinks that most of the muslim countries (especially Saudi) are basically under US control and are therefore not ultimately under Islamic control.

In a way, he’s right about this. America buys a lot of oil off the Arab countries.

Those Arab countries also benefit from this exchange however (they do get paid, after all).

But it is undeniable that America has a big say in the politics of many Arab countries. Those countries have an interest in pleasing America and America has an interest in not displeasing them.

America generally supports Israel but, in a way, it would make more sense, and pay America more, to support the Arabs since they have all the oil.

The fact that America supports Israel, even though it is contrary to its financial benefit, could be evidence that America isn’t quite as evil as OBL would like to believe.

But anyway, for whatever reason, he believes it. He may be mistaken but, according to his belief-system, any influence that is non-islamic is the work of Satan.

He’s wrong, of course, but where do you draw the line between justified terrorism and unjustified terrorism?

Is it just a question of how many people you can persuade to follow you?

17

Yes, they should be. Why aren’t they more outraged? Perhaps for the same reason that people (both pro-life and pro-choice) aren’t more outraged about child abuse, or widespread hunger, or racism. People often don’t feel as strongly as they should, regardless of the cause.

As for whether such outrage should involve bombing clinics, I think that one of the radio broadcasts available at http://www.strradio.org answers that question. Check out the February 4, 2001 broadcast. (Note: The article talks about “killing abortionists,” which isn’t quite the same thing, but the same logic would explain why the vast majority of pro-lifers choose NOT to bomb abortion clinics.) A follow-up to the same question is also raised in the March 18, 2001 broadcast on the same page.

18

That was the 1970 bombing of UW-Madison’s Sterling Hall, which housed the Army Mathematics Research Center. I have heard this event refered to as the moment that marked “the end of the Sixties”.

The “New Year’s Gang” responsible for the bombing did not wait around to give excuses to the authorities; they fled to Canada. All but one were eventually captured and have since served their time. My high school history teacher told us that his girlfriend’s friend suspected him of secretly being the never-located fourth member of the gang, Leo Burt, and had even worked out a timeline of events to support this notion. But I’m pretty sure that my teacher had nothing to do with the Sterling Hall bombing, even though he was a UW student at the right time.

And this has been “A Moment in History” with your host…

19

Yeah, as a matter of fact, I’m against rape, and I don’t rape anyone. Of course abortion is not a crime, so this analogy falls apart there. My point was, if you are against something, enough with getting all preachy and superior about it, but set an example with your own personal behavior.

And yes, I think that people who hector other people with their own morals need therapy. It worked for me. Except I wasn’t much into telling other people what to do.

20

DPWhite, I agree that some abortions are not crimes, but how do you feel about women who irresponsibilly have many sex partners and don’t use birth controls and keep aborting their fetuses? They are murderers in my book.