'Pro-choicers' victims of their own rhetoric

In the past several weeks, the public has faced a barrage of news and information on the killing of Amherst, N.Y. abortionist Dr. Barnett Slepian.

I'd be neglectful if I failed to mention that most of the news coverage was hardly fair. Canada's so-called "pro-choice" movement, along with their American counterparts, immediately said they were sure who pulled the trigger, that the cause of the bloodshed was the evil pro-life movement.

The fact that members of the pro-life movement (indeed anyone who really believes in the sanctity of all human life) dare utter the word fetus, human and killing in the same sentence, proves without doubt that they are cold-blooded killers, according to the "pro-choice" folks. Henry Morgentaler and company lament that the "rhetoric" of the pro-life movement has incited folks to take up arms. Never mind that their own dose of rhetoric - calling pro-lifers every name from killers to terrorists - is hardly conducive to well thought-out debate.

This amazing "logic" has been repeated so many times in the last few weeks that nothing surprises me anymore. I'm still amazed that here in the People's Republic of British Columbia, our very own attorney-general (who has now taken to calling opponents of abortion "anti-choice") has not seen fit to establish a network of concentration camps where all the evil right-to-lifers can be contained.

Only a matter of time

By far the most insightful analysis of the situation came from Los Angeles Times columnist Cal Thomas. Thomas wrote that the killing of Slepian was a product of the "culture of death."

Basically, we in society dehumanized the fetus in order to allow for its destruction. It was only a matter of time before "pressure builds to remove protections on human life at other stages."

He continued, "The New York Times would have us believe that ‘extreme' pro-lifers are to blame for the shooting of Slepian. In fact, it has been The Times and other defenders of any and all abortions that have contributed to the cheapening of life and the belief by some fanatics that they can play God, dispensing vigilante vengeance and ‘justice.'

"Advocates of choice speak of the ‘legality' of abortion as if this is supposed to end all discussion, debate, or even nonviolent civil disobedience (called ‘harassment' by those who defended similar tactics to advance their past and present agendas). But law detached from a moral code is an insufficient standard by which to order a society. Were it sufficient, then certain practices in our past (such as slavery, which is again receiving attention in the movie Beloved) could be defended on the basis of their one-time legality."

There you have it folks: if there is anyone to blame for the shooting of Barnett Slepian, it is the "pro-choice" movement. They who have trashed the concept that the unborn child is a human being with the basic freedom, the right to life, which deserves protection; they who now agree with us that "it" is indeed a human being (but may be destroyed in the name of "choice"); they who have popularized the notion of disposable human beings, whether unborn, sick, elderly, or "inferior" to the rest of society in some other arbitrary way.