In a post entitled “The Ghost of Reno Rides Again,” pro-life blogger Mark Crutcher provides a much-needed reality check on the “anti-choice inflammatory rhetoric and violence. . . oh my!” myth. Mark writes,
To see how overblown this issue has been, consider just the two years during which the most violence against abortion providers took place. Of the eight total murders that have occurred at America’s abortion mills during the past 36 years, five were in 1993 and 1994 alone. But according to government statistics from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, during those same two years there were 2,154 other people killed in work-related homicides in the United States including seven school teachers, four members of the clergy, 10 lawyers, nine newspaper vendors, seven writers, six realtors, 22 waiters or waitresses, four groundskeepers, five architects, 40 garage or service station attendants, 23 auto mechanics, 21 janitors, 10 hairdressers, four carpenters, and six farmers.
In other words, during the worst period of “pro-life violence” in American history, more farmers and twice as many hairdressers were murdered on the job than abortion clinic workers and abortionists combined. And remember, the five abortion clinic killings during 1993 and 1994 account for all but three of the killings that have happened in the history of the pro-life struggle.
Murder is murder, and murder is wrong. But manipulating situations like the killing of Dr. Tiller through crass emotionalism and pro-choice hate speech is wronger still.
HT: Jill Stanek.
