Ah, those pro-lifers. Walking, talking, shooting oxymorons.
You can tell the pro-life extremists. They’re the ones who want their enemies – the women and men who support a woman’s sovereignty over her own body – dead by any means at their command.
Hard to get more pro-life that that.
Mike Lee, the brilliant Republican U.S. senator from Utah, went on Elon Musk’s social media platform, X, and posted about the fatal shooting of Democratic politicians in Minnesota, that “(t)his is what happens When Marxists don’t get their way.”
Allegedly, the shooter in Minnesota left a notebook that included some of his “reasoning,” and also a list of future targets of his, 100 percent of whom were Democrats if they were elected officials.
Mike Lee, explain how this relates in any way to Marxists (sorry, Mike, nobody likes the Marxists, so just cut it out), to Democrats, to anyone except Trump-supporting Republican anti-abortion zealots like the shooter.
Yes, there are plenty of abortion opponents who do not include murdering anyone on a different side of that question as an enemy who qualifies for assassination. Swell. Is the bar really that low in our Trump era?
I am on a peace team. We do some accompaniment work occasionally. We’ve helped escort for Planned Parenthood. They had folks on the shooter’s list too. It has never computed for me. Kill in the name of being pro-life?
Then again, there are many other threats to life that “pro-lifers” frequently either ignore or outright support the life-threatening side. I’m thinking about:
- Radioactive material, all of which causes cancer, as well as mutagenic and teratogenic harm. This applies to the nuclear material in uranium mines, uranium processing plants, power plants, bombs and depleted uranium bullets, and waste storage.
- Petrofarming with biocides that cause cancer and birth defects.
- Big Oil, which causes and is accelerating climate chaos, taking more and more lives every year.
- Assault weapons.
- War.
Of course there are many more such anti-life threats that many “pro-life” people support. Am I being a radical idealist here, or just asking us to try to hold what the late Jesuit priest, Father Daniel Berrigan, named a “seamless philosophy” about it all?
Dan was pro-life. He opposed abortion, war, industrial practices that cause great harm, and he repeatedly went to prison for his lack of hypocrisy. His late brother Phil, a Josephite priest and then a radical anti-racism, antiwar nonviolent resister, also held a set of values that were for life without exception, and went to prison even more than his little brother Dan.
Few can live lives of complete adherence to values and principles that do not effectively contradict each other. It is basic decency, however, to at least attempt to practice our places in the world that are not ethically or morally mutually exclusive, to the best of our abilities.
I’m waiting for our “leaders” begin demonstrating such golden rule lives. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you is one version of the Golden Rule. He who has the gold rules is, of course, the opposite other golden rule.
Back in the day, zealots would preach that you need to follow their moral practices or go to hell. I hope we’ve begun to evolve to teach our children that doing right by everyone, practicing nonviolent conflict transformation, is its own reward, right here, right now.
Ceasing the anti-life war preparation, war waging, and industrial processes are the more eternal reward, since life for the many generations to come will be possible only if we do.
Dr. Tom H. Hastings is Coördinator of Conflict Resolution BA/BS degree programs at Portland State University. His views, however, are not those of any institution.
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