Some misguided antiabortion activists (they are not “pro-life”) have taken part in clinic bombings and violence against abortion providers. These actions are immoral, but also, they work in the abortion industry’s favor.
Abortionist Dr. Zachary Harris said the following when his clinic was firebombed:
“I think all that does is simply add to the public perception that the antiabortion people are crazy and will stop at nothing… They’re a bunch of lunatics and every time there’s something like that, it evokes a little more sympathy from the community toward what we’re doing. I think it’s totally counterproductive.”
Carole Joffe. Doctors of Conscience: the Struggle to Provide Abortion before and after Roe Versus Wade (Boston, Massachusetts: Beacon press, 1995) 163
Perhaps part of the reason why so many people look down on the pro-life movement and are unsympathetic to its claims is that misguided activists have engaged in violence. How can anyone take the pro-life movement seriously when individual pro-lifers are doing things that disrespect life? The lives of abortion patients and doctors are as important as the lives of the unborn babies.
Violence against abortion providers distracts from the very real baby that is the victim of violence in abortion.
Below are diagrams of the two most common abortion procedures – a suction abortion, performed in the first trimester, and a D&E abortion performed in the second and early third.
