This debate has gone sour
March 17, 1993
Enough is enough. With the shooting and murder of Dr. David Gunn last week, it has become painfully clear that the debate over abortion needs to be concluded.
Pro-lifers have become increasingly violent the past few years by fire-bombing clinics, harassing doctors and vandalizing their property. While it is respectable and even admirable to fight for what one believes in, in a court of law, terrorism cannot be tolerated. Pro-life organizations that have carried out such acts as fire-bombing clinics, or have recklessly encouraged such acts are no better than the terrorists who bombed the World Trade Center.
Abortion is supposed to be a legal operation in this country. The law considers abortion to be a legal medical option, yet women who choose it must increasingly jump through a series of bureaucratic hoops.
The Supreme Court supposedly had decided the issue with Roe vs. Wade. However, with the encouragement of former president Ronald Reagan, and the occupation of the Republican Party by the religious right, the debate flamed up in the 1980s as never before.
As the pro-lifers won court battles and abortion was restricted, they became encouraged, but there was never total victory or total defeat.
The trend toward violence only will increase. Unfortunately, with every legitimate victory the pro-lifers achieve in the courts, the more radical elements among their numbers seem to be encouraged to carry out their acts of terror.
There is a growing frustration on both sides of the issue, pro-lifers who want the last decisive court win, and pro-choice forces who would like to see their position solidified once and for all.
The Supreme Court must end this legal limbo, the stalemate which surely will cause more violence must be ended. If the Supreme Court does not once and for all decide the issue which killed Gunn on the eve of “the storm of the century,” then the issue of abortion surely will become the storm of the next century.