Last year, in the aftermath of a shooting that critically injured U.S. Congresswoman Gabrielle Gifford, the news cycle and American politicians entered a protracted debate on the relationship between militant rhetoric and acts of violence. USA Today asked, “Has the nation’s harsh political rhetoric become more than just talk — to the point of being dangerous?”
Some Democrats said yes, referencing an image that appeared on former Governor Sarah Palin’s website that featured cross hairs over 20 congressional districts. Representative James Clyburn (D-SC) argued that miltant political rhetoric might incite “people who may not be clicking on all cylinders” to violence.
Conservative spokespeople bemoaned the “politicization of a tragedy” and made the case that Gifford’s shooter–Jared Loughner– was mentally unstable rather than motivated by political ideology. Unfortunately, by this time conservative bloggers had also jumped on the finger-pointing bandwagon, attempting to paint Loughner as a radical leftist, if anything.
The conversation finally subsided but the damage had been done. It is doubtful that anything fruitful came from that discussion, and everyone who tried to score political points came out looking worse than before.
Now, it seems that a similar conversation is starting.
Francis Grady, who is accused of firebombing a Planned Parenthood clinic in Wisconsin, recently appeared in court. At one point during the hearing, Grady interrupted the Judge to ask, “Do you even care at all about the 1,000 babies that died screaming?” Later, Grady told reporters, “I’m here to do good and not wrong.”
Following Grady’s court appearance, chatter picked up on the liberal blogosphere. Grady has been branded an “anti-abortion terrorist” and his actions are being described as the natural outcome of conservative rhetoric on abortion. Pro-life organizations ought to feel complicit in this violence, we are being told.
This time, I’m inclined to think the bloggers might be right. Here’s why:
Those who wish to outlaw abortion altogether frequently compare Abortion in America to the Holocaust, and this is hardly a fringe sentiment. Eric Metaxas, former Veggietales writer and author of Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy, is as about mainstream as conservative Evangelical Christians come. A couple of months ago, Metaxas gave the keynote address at the President’s National Prayer Breakfast. During his speech, Metaxas tacitly implied that abortion is a modern day equivalent of slavery and the holocaust, and afterwards went so far as to compare the Obama administration’s contraceptive mandate to Germany’s pre-Holocaust policies. Again, this is not fringe stuff. Metaxas is a widely respected conservative figure.
A large plurality if not a majority of Americans, I would have to guess, are ready to join Metaxas in glorifying Bonhoeffer’s involvement in the plot to assassinate Hitler. The Holocaust is, after all, often brought up as the ultimate trump card to pacifism: “Oh come on, you’re telling me you wouldn’t kill Hitler if you had the chance?” Plenty of people imagine that they would turn to violence in the face of the most atrocious genocide in human recollection. Violence would be perfectly acceptable if not honorable in those circumstances.
So for those who genuinely believe that American abortion is the moral equivalent of the Holocaust, why would firebombing a Planned Parenthood not be considered an appropriate course of action? Why would someone hesitate to damage a little bit of property in resistance to the most horrendous evil that can be imagined? Can we really say that Grady’s alleged actions are the doings of a radical lunatic lacking any mainstream moral guidance?
Only time will tell whether or not Grady will be deemed mentally unfit to stand trial, but in this case I think that the bloggers are right. Violence against abortion providers or facilities that perform abortions is hardly a great departure from the ethos instilled by pro-life rhetoric. Pro-life conservatives can no longer speak of abortion as a nation-wide systematic murder equivalent to the Holocaust without being considered at least somewhat complicit in the violence committed against abortion providers and their facilities.
This argument seems to rest on a caricatured portrayal of the pro-life rhetoric and logic. You are assuming that those who compare the moral tragedy of abortion to that of the holocaust also hold that each situation demands an identical response. You also assume that the non-pacifist response to the holocaust is as simple and naive as simply killing Hitler. But these are gross caricatures.
Germans, like Bonhoeffer, who conspired to bring about Hitler’s death were hardly so naive that they imagined that this alone would solve the problem. The attempts on Hitlers life were formulated within the context of a larger political coup which would ensure that one of Hitler’s depraved henchmen couldn’t just pick up where he left off. Killing Hitler was one element of a complex political maneuver which had to work across many fronts to topple the entire Nazi regime.
Thus, a fair and articulate objection to pacifism in light of the holocaust is more along the lines of, “Did not justice, in the face of such a moral outrage, demand the disciplined and intentional use of every available means to bring about the cessation of injustice and, to whatever means possible, the restoration of losses to those who are oppressed? If killing Hitler was necessary to stop the Holocaust, then so be it. But this was not done as a act of facile revenge, as though that alone would make the situation right. It is only permissible because it is necessary in light of the political situation in Germany at that time.”
If this contextually conscious mindset more accurately represents an articulate response to moral outrage, then your parallel between the situations no longer obtains. You would have to argue that firebombing abortion clinics is a necessary part of an intentional and comprehensive plan to bring about the cessation of abortion in America. This would be absurd.
Your post seems to assume that pro-life pundits cannot distinguish between the political situation in present day America and that of Germany under Hitler. There, a despot held absolute authority and military might and thereby barred every non-violent means to justice. Here and now, we still have elections, courts, and a democratic process which can (in theory) bring about legal and political change. In this more stable environment, violence is neither necessary nor is it conducive to bringing about the desired change.
To answer your questions:
“So for those who genuinely believe that American abortion is the moral equivalent of the Holocaust, why would firebombing a Planned Parenthood not be considered an appropriate course of action?”
Because moral evils occur within historical contexts that demand their own unique replies. In modern America, the cessation of the moral outrage is attainable by non-violent means. Therefore, no use of violent means are justifiable or morally appropriate.
“Why would someone hesitate to damage a little bit of property in resistance to the most horrendous evil that can be imagined? ”
Because, in the context of modern America, damaging buildings and other violent means is not only unjustifiable, it is counter-productive to attaining the desired cessation of abortion because it turns voters, legislators and public sentiment against the cause of justice.
Can we really say that Grady’s alleged actions are the doings of a radical lunatic lacking any mainstream moral guidance?
Yes, they are the actions of someone who cannot distinguish between democracy and dictatorship, between the violent totalitarian Nazi regime and the constitutional, democratically elected, representative government. Furthermore, by his to actions, he worked against the cause he so passionately supports and has permanently removed himself from any involvement in actually achieving the end he desires. That seems like insanity, or at least idiocy, to me.
Nathan,
I’m sorry if you feel that you were unfairly brought under the umbrella of what you view as a caricature of the hard right’s position on abortion/nazis. And, I appreciate your willingness to consider the historical and contextual differences between the holocaust and abortion in America.
Let me refine a few points and challenge you on some things.
First, I think it does a huge disservice to everything to invoke the holocaust alongside the issue of abortion. Doing so implies that there exists some sort of systematized, large scale effort to make sure that fetuses are aborted on behalf of some centralized principality. Clearly that’s not the case. One cannot in good faith speak of abortion as if it is anything other than an aggregation of decisions made by individual women.
I did not “assume that the non-pacifist response to the holocaust is as simple and naive as simply killing Hitler.” I asserted that the violent act of killing Hitler would probably be supported or seen as moral by most Americans. Please don’t try to put words in my mouth or thoughts in my head.
More generally, I don’t believe that political context or whether or not an act is part of an “intentional and comprehensive plan” have any considerable bearing on its moral value.
But to tackle what seems to be the meat of your argument–that “In modern America, the cessation of the moral outrage is attainable by non-violent means. Therefore, no use of violent means are justifiable or morally appropriate”–I’ve gotta say that I disagree on a number of levels. It should be plainly obvious by now that there isn’t a snowballs chance in hell of the united states supreme court overturning roe vs wade. The most obvious reason is the legal concept Bodily Domain, which states essentially that someone has the right to be the sole determinant of what happens inside their body. Anti-choice activists could push back personhood as early as they want–even to the point of considering a 2-cell embryo a person–but it wouldn’t change the fact that the 2-cell person would still need the mother’s consent to be a continuous presence within her bodily domain. The argument is more involved than that, but the short of it is that making abortion completely illegal is outside of the realm of possibility considering the nature of American jurisprudence.
It is also extraordinarily unlikely that the hard-right line on abortion (none even in the case of rape or incest) would pass any vote amongst the general populace. To be curt, most people find the idea of forcing a teenage girl who was raped by her father to give birth morally reprehensible. That’s simply a no-go regardless of how icky people think abortion is.
Legal, nonviolent means, I have to assume, are not going to be effective. That doesn’t leave someone who is truly convinced that abortion is the moral equivalent of the holocaust too many options.
It should also be noted that a non-negligible portion of the far-right has already embraced positions and tactics that are both nonsensical and unjustified. If I’ve presented a caricature, then it’s only because far-right opponents of abortion have embraced genuinely cartoonish views. Calculating the age of a fetus starting with the 1st day of a woman’s last menstrual period (as they are proposing in Arizona) isn’t pro-life or conservative, it is a load of nonsense. And, requiring that a woman undergo an ultrasound with a transvaginal probe when a non-penetrative ultrasound would do just fine serves no discernible purpose other than subjecting women to what amounts to rape.
These are the tactics that the hard-right is willing to pursue through legislation, and they’re getting more and more extreme. At some point their legal options are going to exhaust themselves and abortion will still be legal in America. Then, they’re either going to suddenly stop caring about what they view as the worst imaginable evil or start pursuing illegal tactics.
I maintain my position that it is dangerous to compare the legality of abortion in America to the holocaust. The comparison itself is strongly misguided, and the likely result is that, if people truly believe the two to be equal, then they are eventually going to feel a sense of moral urgency that cannot be expressed through legal or non-violent channels.
In any case, those are my two cents. You’re welcome to disagree.
-Jared