Rhetoric and Abortion “Violence”

This week’s raging debate about whether rhetoric incites violence is fascinating and all too familiar. Over the decades of legalized abortion, a few have decided to take the law into their own hands and vandalize abortion clinics and even kill abortionists. Wisconsin Right to Life and National Right to Life have immediately and publicly condemned such actions as inconsistent with our mission to protect human life and empathized with those who have been victimized. That has not stopped proponents of abortion from vociferously claiming that our opposition to abortion “incites” such violence. In effect, they are trying to silence our efforts to inform about the plight of unborn children in the womb, or vulnerable adults. Of course, they ignore the violence done to the child in an abortion procedure.

Attempting to politicize a tragedy is old hat to Wisconsin Right to Life. We respectfully suggest that focus be correctly placed on condemning acts of violence and the individuals who perpetrate them, not trying to paint an entire movement with the same brush.

– Barbara Lyons