Violence works

From dictionary.com:

Terrorism: 1. the use of violence and threats to intimidate or coerce, esp. for political purposes; 2. the state of fear and submission produced by terrorism or terrorization.

I believe that defines the tactics that some anti-abortion extremists in the US have taken to using in their quest to stop the availability of abortions and doctors who perform them. The murder of Dr George Tiller readily comes to mind as it is still fresh in our memory, but there has been a history of violence against doctors who provide abortion services. And it is time to call these acts of violence for what it really is: domestic terrorism.

And right now, the terrorists are winning.

When Devin Miller, leader of the abortion rights group Medical Students for Choice at Virginia Commonwealth University, heard about the slaying of George Tiller, a Kansas physician who performed late abortions, she "took a step back" to ponder her future. The second-year student plans to become an obstetrician-gynecologist or family physician and expects she would sometimes terminate pregnancies. But the May 31 death of Tiller, who was shot in the head at church, allegedly by an antiabortion activist, has left the 23-year-old deeply shaken.

Although nearly one-third of American women will have an abortion by age 45, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a respected New York research organization, the number of abortion providers dropped from 2,908 in 1982 to 1,787 in 2005. Eighty-seven percent of counties in the United States and 31 percent of metropolitan areas have no abortion services.

Let me be clear: I think the label of terrorism has been been abusively overused. It is the prime excuse for neoconservatives to further their agenda, thus I do not apply it liberally. But it would be criminal for anyone to ignore the very visible effects of violence that are targeted at abortion providers in the US for the sole purpose of removing that very important service to women, simply because it is easy to see complex issues like women's healthcare in black-and-white moralistic terms.

I am pro-choice. I also know, from personal experience, that abortion is not a decision that is easily reached, and the psychological effects lasts long after the body recovers. But this decision should be made by the women involved, not by extremists who wield terror because they cannot change the law.

If the situation was reversed, that the anti-abortion activists were the ones being gunned down and the murderers are hailed as heroes and martyrs, much like how Scott Roeder has been labelled by anti-abortion activists, would these activists think that it is justifiable?

I would ike to think that no matter where you stand on the issue of abortion, you would agree that violence is never the best, or even the last, resort, and speak up against it. If not, the terrorists win.