Pro-Life Response to Murder

In light of Scott Roeder's first degree murder of abortion provider Dr. George Tiller and recent claims from his jail cell that, "I know there are many other similar events planned around the country as long as abortion remains legal," pro-choice groups are using the opportunity to link Roeder with anyone opposed to abortion. The Washington Post reports,

Nancy Keenan, president of NARAL-Pro-Choice America, said Roeder's comments "continue to escalate that kind of activity, that kind of violence. Quite honestly, I think it's imperative for anti-choice groups to tone down that rhetoric and keep the more extreme elements in their movement form copying Scott Roeder."

Pro-abortion groups would love nothing more than to use these tragic attacks to try to gain the moral highground and suppress the only voice that the aborted have. While every major pro-life group has denounced the killing of Dr. Tiller, Melinda Penner gives good reasons why the pro-life movement is against the killing of abortionists,

Some ask, "If you consider abortion murder, doesn't that incite the killing of abortionists?" This question needs to be answered clearly and directly and here is the answer. No. It simply does not follow that if one believes that abortion is murder then he would advocate killing individual abortionists. In fact, it's not only wrong, it's counterproductive to ending legalized abortion.

...It's always wrong to take a human life without proper justification. Abortion is such a wrong because it takes the life of a valuable, innocent, human being without good reason. Therefore, it is morally obligatory for civilized people to campaign vigorously against such a wrong and use appropriate means to end it.

In opposing this evil, one is justified in using only the degree of force necessary to stop any harm that it is within his power to prevent. Therefore, one is never justified in using lethal force when other measures are available.
Since there are no imaginable circumstances in which lethal force is the only means available to end the harm of abortion, then lethal means are never justified.

Killing abortionists is, therefore, also an example of taking human life without proper justification. To do so would be to violate the basic principle of life that pro-lifers are committed to defending.

Penner adds in another post,

If an action such as killing an abortionist leads to the death of more innocent children, that is an immoral thing. If more children die, it's immoral. Killing abortionists doesn't do anything to end abortion and innocent babies dying - it actually extends it by damaging the moral force of the pro-life argument to bring a final and legal end to abortion.

Those who kill abortionists (there have been eight such killings in the U.S.) probably think they are saving some lives of unborn children. One person compared killing an abortionist to shooting a sniper at a playground. Isn't it justified to take out the sniper? These are very different circumstances and killing an abortionist cannot be justified in the same way.

One difference in the circumstances is that in the playground comparison there is only a specific group of children on the playground to save and one sniper who isn't likely to be replaced by another; it's not comparable to the industry of legalized abortion. There are other "snipers" operating, and many more children now and in the future are in danger, not just those on that "playground." Shooting this "sniper" doesn't prevent more snipers from continuing to work long into the future. It's all of those threatened lives we have to keep in view, and any action that extends legalized abortion and thus sacrifices more lives of innocent children is immoral and cannot be justified on pro-life logic.

Another serious difference in this analogy is that someone taking out a sniper would be operating under the law to stop someone from operating outside of the law. The reverse is true for killing an abortionist, so it's the law that has to be changed, not just individual "snipers." Otherwise abortionists keep operating under protection of the law. We live in a country of laws and are morally obligated to work within those to change a legal but immoral circumstances.

...Our actions should not undermine and weaken the system so that we possibly lose our freedoms to change the law and also undermines a system that protects us. We have an obligation to God to obey the laws and work within the system of laws to include unborn children under that protection.

I share the sentiment of Robert P. George who wrote on the day of the murder,

Whoever murdered George Tiller has done a gravely wicked thing. The evil of this action is in no way diminished by the blood George Tiller had on his own hands. No private individual had the right to execute judgment against him. We are a nation of laws. Lawless violence breeds only more lawless violence. Rightly or wrongly, George Tilller was acquitted by a jury of his peers. "Vengeance is mine, says the Lord." For the sake of justice and right, the perpetrator of this evil deed must be prosecuted, convicted, and punished. By word and deed, let us teach that violence against abortionists is not the answer to the violence of abortion. Every human life is precious. George Tiller's life was precious. We do not teach the wrongness of taking human life by wrongfully taking a human life. Let our "weapons" in the fight to defend the lives of abortion's tiny victims, be chaste weapons of the spirit.