Nice Killers
David Mills on Respect for Abortionists
Last month, the newspapers reported that the man charged with killing an abortionist in Buffalo in 1998 has admitted doing so, though he said he only meant to wound him. While he was on the run from the law, some pro-life leaders claimed that he had been framed, and his case became a minor cause for the culturally alienated wing of the pro-life movement. (I do not mean “culturally alienated” as an insult, because a degree of alienation is inherent to being pro-life in a pro-choice culture.)
The confession confirmed for the pro-choice movement the image they wanted of their pro-life opponents: fanatical, sometimes violent, resentful, marginal, and gullible. The murder did what murder does, which is harm the good.
In the story in the Catholic news service Zenit, the leader of a local pro-life group said that “we were deeply saddened by the death of Dr. Slepian, whom we had come to know and respect as a man, even while disagreeing strongly with his views about abortion.”
I think there is something very wrong with this description. Many pro-lifers speak this way about abortion’s advocates and practitioners, hoping to keep the talk civil and win friends among the uncommitted, as they ought to do. But to talk of respecting an abortionist is to say something a man should not say, because it is untrue and will lead others astray.
The man is an abortionist. This means that he kills defenseless unborn children for money. He makes a living from murder. He exploits the desperation of some women and the moral callousness of others. And the leader of the local pro-life group announces to the world that he respects the abortionist as a man.
Not Respectable
A respectable man is one who tries to live by a certain basic or minimum adherence to the moral law. He is to be respected for this: listened to and trusted, treated as an elder among the people, accepted as one to whom you will say, “you may be right,” when you disagree with him.
Respectability is a very low standard. The respectable man does not have to be a saint, but he cannot be a notorious and evil liver, as the old Book of Common Prayer put it. A respectable man can go to hell, and in fact can go to hell in part because he has relied on his respectability. A respectable man can fail. You will test him before letting him face great temptation. But he will never openly, willfully, repeatedly, and for mammon do a wicked thing.
That is what the abortionist does. He is a man for whom our Lord died, and for whose conversion we should pray, but he is also a man who has molded his life around the regular repetition of a mortal sin, which he commits because people pay him to.
No, he is not respectable, and a man who takes seriously the moral law should not respect him. To respect him is to tell others that he may be respected, which is to tell them that his work ought to be accepted (if not approved) and his views may be taken seriously and treated as moral possibilities. It is to lead them into an error of judgment that may well have quite practical results. This is arguably immoral.
David Mills has been editor of Touchstone and executive editor of First Things. He edits the opinion page of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
A Journal of Mere Christianity—Delivered to Your Door
- Essays on theology, culture, and the Church
- Contributors from across the Christian traditions
Six print issues (one year) of Touchstone, plus full online access and PDF downloads for only $39.95.
Get a one-year full-access subscription to the Touchstone online archives for only $19.95.
bulk subscriptions
Order Touchstone subscriptions in bulk and save $10 per sub! Each subscription includes 6 issues of Touchstone plus full online access to touchstonemag.com—including archives, videos, and pdf downloads of recent issues for only $29.95 each! Great for churches or study groups.
Transactions will be processed on a secure server.
more on abortion from the online archives
26.1—Jan/Feb 2013
on Abortion as a Matter of National Welfare by W. Ross Blackburn
19.1—January/February 2006
on Death & Seven of the Last Words of Socrates by Graeme Hunter
30.3—May/June 2017
on the Misuse of Property Rights to Justify Slavery & Abortion by Robert Hart
more from the online archives
14.6—July/August 2001
The Transformed Relics of the Fall
on the Fulfillment of History in Christ by Patrick Henry Reardon
19.10—December 2006
Workers of Another World United
A Personal Commemoration of Poland’s Solidarity 25 Years Later by John Harmon McElroy
calling all readers
Please Donate
"There are magazines worth reading but few worth saving . . . Touchstone is just such a magazine."
—Alice von Hildebrand
"Here we do not concede one square millimeter of territory to falsehood, folly, contemporary sentimentality, or fashion. We speak the truth, and let God be our judge. . . . Touchstone is the one committedly Christian conservative journal."
—Anthony Esolen, Touchstone senior editor
