Man Drives Suv Into Planned Parenthood Clinic

[philothea]

[quote name='Ziggamafu' post='1759254' date='Jan 23 2009, 11:49 AM']If you walk down a street and notice a mother taking her three year old by hand and lifting her up into a wood-chipper, do you have a moral right to stop the murder from taking place by any means necessary? Or are you morally restricted to prayer, while you walk by? I'm not questioning if you have the obligation to physically stop the murder, just if you have the right to. It seems obvious to me that you do have the right to stop the murder from taking place. Now what if the government legalized the practice of throwing children into wood-chippers and businesses sprung up to serve that purpose for a fee. Where is the disconnect between this and the legalized opportunities for entrepreneurial baby-murder?[/quote]
Did you see Don John's discussion of this a few months back? He made basically the same argument. If we [i]really believed[/i] what was going on in there was murder, we'd stop it, by any means necessary.

If there was a facility devoted to murdering toddlers when their mothers got too annoyed with them, Christians would not put up with it, no matter if it was legal or not.

I'll see if I can find a link.

[Ziggamafu]

[quote name='MithLuin' post='1759223' date='Jan 23 2009, 11:40 AM']Destroying a building when there is no one inside is much more tempting, of course, but again - are you [i]sure[/i] the cleaning staff isn't there? What if someone happened to be in the building when you blew it up? Wouldn't you feel pretty terrible if you killed an innocent person who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time? And even if you are sure no one will be injured...do you personally really have a right to destroy someone else's property? Can you go torch someone's house just because he's a condemned mass-murderer?[/quote]

The principle of double-effect would be employed, here. The action (blowing up a building) is morally neutral. The intent (defending the innocent, saving lives) is morally good. The unintended effect (unforeseen loss of life) is evil, but it is not a means to the good effect. The action, for the proportionately grave reason of saving more lives, would be morally defensible. Kind of like flying over enemy lines with the mission to bomb a munitions supply critical to the enemy's defense, strategically surrounded by innocent prisoners. Dropping a bomb is neutral, intending to blow up a munitions supply in a just war is good, and the bad effect (the death of the prisoners) is not itself a means to the good effect.

Also:
We are not to wait for some supernatural punishment to fall on those who plague the world with evil; otherwise we would not have law enforcement and prisons. Typically, God exacts justice through human mediums. Furthermore, there is a difference between revenge and defending the innocent.

[thessalonian]

If someone is going to shoot someone outside my house and I have a gun in my house I think I would be morally justified in defending them in any way I could with my gun. It's not as cut and dry as taking maters in to our own hands. Lives are being taken. Who is defending these unborn babies? Noone. I'm not saying it is right. I just have a hard time condemning the guy yesterday.

[Ziggamafu]

[quote name='philothea' post='1759265' date='Jan 23 2009, 01:05 PM']Did you see Don John's discussion of this a few months back? He made basically the same argument. If we [i]really believed[/i] what was going on in there was murder, we'd stop it, by any means necessary.

If there was a facility devoted to murdering toddlers when their mothers got too annoyed with them, Christians would not put up with it, no matter if it was legal or not.

I'll see if I can find a link.[/quote]

Didn't see the link. There was no resolution, then? Or did everyone agree with that conclusion?

[philothea]

[quote name='Ziggamafu' post='1759271' date='Jan 23 2009, 12:09 PM']Didn't see the link. There was no resolution, then? Or did everyone agree with that conclusion?[/quote]
It's [url="http://www.phatmass.com/phorum/index.php?s=&showtopic=84647&view=findpost&p=1651616"]here[/url].

I don't recall if the topic got picked up elsewhere, but there's the main argument and I didn't see anyone seriously refute it.

[sweens8403]

[quote name='thessalonian' post='1759268' date='Jan 23 2009, 01:08 PM']If someone is going to shoot someone outside my house and I have a gun in my house I think I would be morally justified in defending them in any way I could with my gun. It's not as cut and dry as taking maters in to our own hands. Lives are being taken. Who is defending these unborn babies? Noone. I'm not saying it is right. I just have a hard time condemning the guy yesterday.[/quote]


When I took my CPL (Concealed Pistol License) course the police officer who taught it did say that citizens with valid CPL's who come upon a situation where someone's life is in mortal danger that person is legally allowed to use lethal force to stop the aggressor. He did warn though that each of us in that class take extreme caution in doing this because it can get pretty hairy pretty quick, legally speaking. The trouble with that situation is that it can be difficult to determine who actually started the fight. When speaking of abortion it is a bit clearer who the aggressors are. Still, extreme caution is to be taken.

[MithLuin]

If you saw someone trying to put a toddler in a woodchipper, you would tackle them. Lethal force would not be necessary to prevent the murder.

Whenever police officers use lethal force, an investigation is started to see if they were justified in doing so - if the conclusion is that the officer were in the wrong, he is disciplined, or maybe even dismissed from the force. It isn't something you just [u]do[/u]....


I don't know. I know it would be very wrong to [i]kill[/i] someone in defense of a [i]pro-life[/i] cause. Part of me knows that you have to convince a woman to carry her child to term, not [i]force[/i] her to do so. I guess there is no way to remove the child from the custody of an unfit parent...if the child in question is still in utero.

I guess I am less than impressed with other people who use vandalism to advance their cause, so I don't think it's the way to go about changing society. Because that is the goal - changing the nation, changing the way people think and live. I don't think taking a can of red spraypaint and scrawling "Baby Killers" across the doors of an abortion clinic in the middle of the night is a way to do this. And if that would be childish and ineffective, certainly blowing the place up or killing the doctor would be worse - much, much worse.



There were two cases in 1993. In March, an abortion doctor in Florida was fatally shot. In August, a doctor in Kansas was shot in the arm by a woman, but survived. Both incidents are mentioned in [url="http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=19931024&slug=1727696"]this article[/url]. In 1994, another man killed both the abortion doctor and his escort in Florida. I know that the man in the last case claims he did nothing wrong because he was acting to prevent the deaths of babies. But...that doesn't make what he did right. Paul Hill was executed by lethal injection in 2003.

[quote]Two receptionists were killed at Boston-area abortion clinics in 1994 by John Salvi, who committed suicide in prison two years later.

[In 2003], James Kopp was convicted of killing an Buffalo, N.Y., abortion doctor in 1998, while fugitive Eric Rudolph was captured and charged with a 1998 bombing that killed an off-duty police officer at an Alabama abortion clinic.
[url="http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,96286,00.html"]Fox News[/url][/quote]

1998 [i]was[/i] awhile ago - 10 years. I can't recall any violence in the interim; but that doesn't mean it didn't happen.

[url="http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0309/02/se.18.html"]HERE[/url] is a transcript between two people discussing whether or not murdering an abortionist is acceptable - and I have to say, there really is no way to justify [i]murder[/i] - just because you hope you might save a baby, that doesn't make it justifiable.

Edited January 23, 2009 by MithLuin

[sweens8403]

I advocated no such behavior. This is what that police sergeant told my class about the use of lethal force.

Again like I said, with the cultural and political biases being what they are I'm sure they will throw the book at anyone who does anything of the sort.

[MithLuin]

I was referring to [b]Ziggamafu's[/b] scenario, not yours. Sorry for the confusion.

Apparently, there was a bomb planted 2 years ago, but it didn't go off: article [url="http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSN2719258620070428"]HERE[/url]. It says the last time a bomb actually went off at an abortion clinic was 2001. In 2004, laws were enacted to prevent some of the more aggressive protesting; don't know what impact (if any) that would have had on extremists.

[CatherineM]

I hadn't realized that the last bomb was in 2001. That's interesting. I wonder if 9-11 had an affect on that. I remember reading something written by an IRA guy who said after 9-11 they lost their desire to bomb, or something like that.

[Ziggamafu]

I still see no doctrinally justifiable means to condemn the clinic-bomber's actions, when considering the nature of the evil being attacked and the principle of double-effect that is employed in the process. The only basis of attack that seems substantive is the negative image it broadcasts of Christians. But is fear of our image and the repercussions toward our religious rights really worth our whistling dixy as we walk by the toddler being thrown into the wood chipper?

Mith, when you responded to the analogy of the wood-chipper, you referenced the idea of whether or not lethal force was necessary. That would seem irrelevant in those scenarios (I assume most of them) in which the bombers intend only the destruction of the facility, rather than the death of the baby-murderers. Moreover, since the government supports and sanctions the murdering of babies and any profit associated with it, of course there would never be a just consideration of whether or not lethal force was "warranted".

I don't know. I know it is a taboo subject, but I also know that I have yet to see an argument against the bombers and their ilk that is both doctrinally and practically consistent.

[Fidei Defensor]

[quote name='Ziggamafu' post='1759806' date='Jan 23 2009, 09:20 PM']I still see no doctrinally justifiable means to condemn the clinic-bomber's actions, when considering the nature of the evil being attacked and the principle of double-effect that is employed in the process. The only basis of attack that seems substantive is the negative image it broadcasts of Christians. But is fear of our image and the repercussions toward our religious rights really worth our whistling dixy as we walk by the toddler being thrown into the wood chipper?

Mith, when you responded to the analogy of the wood-chipper, you referenced the idea of whether or not lethal force was necessary. That would seem irrelevant in those scenarios (I assume most of them) in which the bombers intend only the destruction of the facility, rather than the death of the baby-murderers. Moreover, since the government supports and sanctions the murdering of babies and any profit associated with it, of course there would never be a just consideration of whether or not lethal force was "warranted".

I don't know. I know it is a taboo subject, but I also know that I have yet to see an argument against the bombers and their ilk that is both doctrinally and practically consistent.[/quote]
He hit me first. That's always my justification.

[thessalonian]

I guess this guy worked as an assistant in a nursery for a number of years. If you listen to some of the interviews of his mom she did a wonderful job of making a pro-life statement out of this who thing that I believe will bring good out of it. She expressed how tormented he was thinking about those babies after being involved with premies in his job at the nursery.

[Slappo]

[quote name='Ziggamafu' post='1759806' date='Jan 23 2009, 08:20 PM']I still see no doctrinally justifiable means to condemn the clinic-bomber's actions, when considering the nature of the evil being attacked and the principle of double-effect that is employed in the process. The only basis of attack that seems substantive is the negative image it broadcasts of Christians. But is fear of our image and the repercussions toward our religious rights really worth our whistling dixy as we walk by the toddler being thrown into the wood chipper?

Mith, when you responded to the analogy of the wood-chipper, you referenced the idea of whether or not lethal force was necessary. That would seem irrelevant in those scenarios (I assume most of them) in which the bombers intend only the destruction of the facility, rather than the death of the baby-murderers. Moreover, since the government supports and sanctions the murdering of babies and any profit associated with it, of course there would never be a just consideration of whether or not lethal force was "warranted".

I don't know. I know it is a taboo subject, but I also know that I have yet to see an argument against the bombers and their ilk that is both doctrinally and practically consistent.[/quote]


With the double effect principle there is also the fact that the good enacted must take place prior to or at the same time as any evil taking place. The reason, it seems to me, this wouldn't work in regards to bombing a facility with doctors in it is that the good taking place (prevention of future abortions) takes place after the undesired death of the doctor and possibly any women and children within the building at the time it is bombed.

Now... blowing up an empty clinic on the other hand could be a different story. It seems to me that this might even be justifiable. Although again my gut reaction is for some reason "no you can't".

I'm not sure if you were referring to bombing full or empty buildings.

[MithLuin]

Yes, exactly - we can't know the future, which is why you can't act with 'good intentions' or by calculation. You can't throw the weak people out of the lifeboat in the hopes that the remaining people will have enough food/water to last until they are rescued, because you don't know if you will be rescued in one hour or 14 days or never. And even dying of thirst on a liferaft is not as bad as becoming a murderer first.

One of the items I linked above was a transcript between the spiritual advisor of the man in Florida who was executed for killing an abortion doctor and his driver, and another pro-life pastor. The first claimed that 32 babies were saved by the gunman's action, and the other pastor quickly pointed out, "You don't know that." The women could have gone to another abortion clinic the next week, for all he knew, so that his heinous action may not have actually saved any lives at all.

The Sisters of Life were on EWTN today, explaining their ministry at the Walk for Life in San Francisco. I noticed that they specifically mentioned that all work against abortion should be peaceful and non-violent. They work by meeting the women where they are, finding out what they need (whether that be a place to live or someone to share a cup of coffee with) and provide that. Somehow, that sounds a lot more Christ-like than blowing up buildings.