The question posed in the title is the first one, where it asks "Is it wrong to murder an abortionist?"
The overall question posed though is even more thought provoking.... Is abortion, in your view, murder?
If abortion is murder, the most efficient thing you could have done to prevent such murders this month was to kill George Tiller.
That is the beginning paragraph and from reading just that, one would think the writer, William Saletan, was condoning the murder of George Tiller.
You would be wrong.
What Saletan is doing is looking at the issue from both vantage points before coming to his ultimate question.
Describing Tiller from one angle:
The people who do late-term abortions are the ones who don't flinch. They're like the veterans you sometimes see in war documentaries, quietly recounting what they faced and did. You think you're pro-choice. You think marching or phone-banking makes you an activist. You know nothing. There's you, and then there are the people who work in the clinics. And then there are the people who use the forceps. And then there are the people who use the forceps nobody else will use. At the end of the line, there's George Tiller.
Describing Roeder, the man who killed Tiller from the the same angle:
The people who kill abortion providers are the ones who don't flinch. They're like the veterans you sometimes see in war documentaries, quietly recounting what they faced and did. You think you're pro-life. You tell yourself that abortion is murder. Maybe you even say that when a pollster calls. But like most of the other people who say such things in polls, you don't mean it literally. There's you, and then there are the people who lock arms outside the clinics. And then there are the people who bomb them. And at the end of the line, there's the guy who killed George Tiller.
The full piece leads in to the conclusion of the piece, with the main question being asked:
If you don't accept what he did, then maybe it's time to ask yourself what you really believe. Is abortion murder? Or is it something less, a tragedy that would be better avoided? Most of us think it's the latter. We're looking for ways to prevent abortions—not just a few this month, but millions down the line—without killing or prosecuting people. Come and join us.
Thought provoking and please remember, for the record, this is a hot button topic and personal attacks against those commenting, whatever their views, will be deleted immediately.
Stick to the topic if you plan to comment at all.
For those that are not quite sure what Late-Term abortion aka Partial Birth abortion is, here are photos illustrating the procedure.
.
