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'Right to Life', but Not for the Living

Copyright © 1998, 2003 by David E. Ross

Once again, the "Right to Life" movement demonstrates its lack of interest in life for the living. Their agenda ends at birth. Dr. Barnett Slepian was murdered this weekend because he performs abortions. Since Dr. David Gunn was shot in 1993, a total of three doctors and four other individuals associated with abortion clinics have been murdered by gunshots or bombs. What happened to their rights to life?

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No, I will not publish the link to the "Christian Gallery" Web site. I will not waste my time trying to locate it. And if I already had the URL, I would not extend further publicity to their terrorist agenda by posting it.

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Immediately after the news about Dr. Slepian broke, several "Right to Life" leaders fell over themselves denouncing the murders. Hypocrites! Their rantings about "baby killers" and "murderers" encourage violence against those doctors and other health-care workers who help women end their pregnancies. This is no different from how the homophobic hatred spewed by such "moral" leaders as Senator Lott, James Dobson, and the Southern Baptist Convention fomented the murder of Matthew Shepard. No, the "Right to Life" leadership might not have supplied the rifle or pulled the trigger in the death of Dr. Slepian; but when you preach hatred, you reap the rewards of hatred, which are generally violent. In any case, the denunciations of the actual murders sound false when you consider the lack of any denunciation of the "Christian Gallery" Web site and its list of doctors targeted for violence or death.

(Alert: Religious dogma ahead!)

Claiming to protect human lives by stopping abortion, the "Right to Life" movement has it backwards. Health-care workers who help women end their pregnancies are humans, but the fetuses about which the "Right to Life" movement cares so much are merely potentially human. Until it receives a soul with its first breath of air, a fetus is incomplete and cannot be human. The doctors who perform abortions — breathing and thinking — have souls and thus higher priority for their rights to life than any fetus. Yes, I know this is only the belief of my own religion; but the idea that a mass of undifferentiated cells shortly after conception has a soul and is a truly human life is also a narrow belief of certain religions that is not universally shared with all religions. How dare the "Right to Life" movement insist that I follow their religion and not my own!

25 October 1998

Dr. Slepian believed in life. As an obstetrician, he delivered many healthy babies to women who wanted to be mothers. He claimed that he performed abortions because he wanted to protect the lives of women who would otherwise risk death at the hands of "back-alley butchers". By giving those women safe, competent abortions, he assured them that they would survive to have children later. He did indeed choose life.

In the meantime, Dr. Slepian's murderer is a coward, who shot his victim in the back.

26 October 1998

James Kopp was sentenced in May of this year to 25 years to life in prison for murdering Dr. Slepian. He was tried after being extradited from France, which delayed extradition until receiving official assurance from the U.S. that Kopp would not face capital punishment.

Loretta Marra and Dennis Malvasi, who hid Kopp from arrest, were freed from jail after being held more than two years waiting for trial on federal charges of conspiracy to harbor a known fugitive. The two pleaded guilty and were sentenced to time served.

7 November 2003

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