Topic: Pro-Life, My Ass
Date: October 26, 1998
By Mike Brown
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Copyright © 1998 Mike Brown
Reprinted here with permission from the author

This is one of those times when I almost regret the moral choices I have made. When I decided that, underneath this unshaved, ear-ring wearing head their was the mind of a pro-lifer, I thought I was joining the ranks of the sensitive, and the sensible. I'd watched all the other "life" activists (plant life, animal life, et al), and while I disagreed with their ideology, I was repulsed by their methods.

Saturday morning rolls around, and an e-mail from a friend demonstrates that once again, the pro-life movement is going to be lambasted with criticism, because some pinhead has taken it upon himself to drop an abortion provider in Buffalo, NY, with a single bullet to the back. The sniper didn't even have the courage of his convictions to do the act face-to-face, electing instead to do the horrific deed with a high-powered rifle through a window, hiding like a coward in the shadows of the backyard.

I have no idea what this person thought was going to be the result of this foray into the world of repugnance, but certainly no good will come of it. That Dr. Slepian's family has lost an income earner, a father of four, and a husband - that is the chief loss. The community has lost someone, the medical community has lost someone, the nation has lost someone. But no matter what the Doctor did for a living - nothing in this world could justify his cowardly, cold-blooded murder.

I was recently corrected when I referred to the person who did the shooting as "pro-life", when in fact he is simply "anti-abortion". He is also a vile, inhuman creature who I consider no more fit to live than he considered Barnett Slepian.

I can't fathom a mind so devoid of common sense that it would devise something so senseless. What is this idiot thinking? How does he reconcile his activities with his "pro-life" position? How does he sleep at night, knowing that he is viewed as a monster - not just by abortion advocates, but by those he seeks to assist, pro-lifers like me? Does he think he's doing this for the greater good of mankind? Is he doing it for God?

All good, and entirely rhetorical questions, for which the answers are meaningless.