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Como alguien que estudia el movimiento antiaborto, esta época del año siempre tiene una importancia particular. Ayer se cumplieron 48 años desde que el Tribunal Supremo dictó su decisión en Roe c. Wade. La Marcha anual por la Vida tendrá lugar el próximo fin de semana, aunque este año la gente se reunirá en línea en lugar de en Washington, D.C.

Además de pensar en el legado de Roe v. Wade y el debate en curso sobre los derechos reproductivos, también he estado pensando en el papel del movimiento antiaborto en los acontecimientos recientes. En la última semana, empecé a ver artículos que detallaban la participación de activistas antiaborto en los eventos en el Capitolio el 6 de enero. Uno de ellos describió la presencia de activistas antiabortos en la insurrección. Otro señaló que un legislador de Virginia Occidental que participó en el motín comenzó a acosar clínicas de aborto. Otro explicó la larga historia de extremismo del movimiento. Obviamente, el movimiento antiaborto no fue el principal motivador del motín del Capitolio y muchos pro-vida lo denunciaron. Todavía hay suficientes similitudes y cruces para hacer que sea concerniente. La historia del extremismo antiaborto es una de las que estoy muy familiarizado con: como estudiante de posgrado, escribí mi primer trabajo de investigación sobre el terrorismo antiaborto y posteriormente investigué la escalada de las tácticas de acción directa del movimiento, que culminó con las grandes manifestaciones de la Operación Rescate a finales de la década de 1980 y principios del decenio de 1990. Hay antecedentes preocupantes en el movimiento antiaborto: retórica y táctica que presagió la violencia que vimos el 6 de enero, así como las consecuencias de retórica incendiaria descontrolada. Realmente no debería sorprender que algunos activistas antiabortos participaron con entusiasmo en los eventos en el Capitolio, dada la propia historia del movimiento de violencia, intimidación y retórica inflamatoria. Podemos rastrear esta historia desde hace varias décadas. En la década de 1980, el movimiento antiaborto se sintió frustrado. Ayudaron a elegir a su campeón pro-vida, Ronald Reagan, pero a pesar de algunas victorias legislativas, el aborto seguía siendo legal. Roe v. Wade no se había revertido, y toda la legislación propuesta para agregar una enmienda constitucional que prohibiera el aborto había fracasado. Un contingente cada vez mayor dentro del movimiento está recurriendo a una acción directa no violenta para oponerse más decisivamente al aborto, y tal vez desahogar la frustración ante el lento ritmo del cambio.

La retórica que rodeaba el aborto también estaba reñida. ¿Qué pasó con la raza humana de Francis Schaeffer? ha presentado al público imágenes crudas y advertencias terribles sobre los efectos del aborto en la sociedad y los ha convencido de la urgente necesidad de adoptar medidas. Los activistas antiaborto duplicaron esta retórica y frecuentemente compararon el aborto con el Holocausto. Si usted está comparando el aborto con el Holocausto, es fácil justificar la intensificación de la acción para detener los abortos, utilizando las tácticas que sean necesarias. En esta narración, los derechos a la vida eran los defensores justos de la causa más justa. Junto con imágenes espeluznantes supuestamente ser fetos abortados y una buena dosis de desinformación, esta retórica intensificó la sensación de urgencia para muchos en el movimiento.

Motivada en parte por esta retórica ampliada, la acción directa en las clínicas pronto dio lugar a una mayor violencia en los decenios de 1980 y 1990, incluso a los bombardeos de clínicas y a los asesinatos de médicos y personal. Los bombardeos y los asesinatos fueron la gran noticia. En realidad, fueron la culminación de años de pequeños actos de violencia: incendio provocado, vandalismo, acoso y acecho, por nombrar sólo unos pocos. Un verano en los archivos, pasé semanas leyendo informes y testimonios de primera mano de médicos y personal de Planned Parenthoods y otras clínicas para mujeres de todo el país. Su testimonio hablaba de los peligros cotidianos que enfrentaban, el acoso en sus clínicas y sus hogares, los actos de incendio provocado y otros actos de vandalismo, y el traumático peaje que sufrió. Una vez más, no debería sorprender que personas vinculadas a ese movimiento estuvieran presentes en el Capitolio el día 6 y encontraran formas de justificar su acciones ese día. El movimiento antiaborto y sus partidarios han confiado desde hace mucho tiempo en retórica inflamatoria y desinformación. Y con demasiada frecuencia algunos activistas han usado esa retórica para justificar la violencia. Es un legado preocupante, uno al que hay que enfrentarse y lidiar con él. Ha habido una tendencia a rechacar en lugar de examinar verdaderamente cómo la retórica y las tácticas del movimiento podrían haber cruzado la línea y contribuido a la violencia. Para muchos en el movimiento, los fines siempre justifican los medios.

Durante mucho tiempo he pensado que las personas que se oponen al aborto han usado esta posición política como una especie de tarjeta libre de la cárcel — nada más importa en realidad, siempre y cuando una persona tenga la postura «correcta» sobre este tema. Los partidarios del movimiento abogan por la pureza de sus motivos y la rectitud de su causa, pero pasan por alto las formas en que su retórica puede conducir a la violencia y al legado del extremismo en muchas partes del movimiento.

Allison Vander Broek

Allison Vander Broek is a historian of American religion and politics. She recently graduated from Boston College with her doctorate in history. Her dissertation, Rallying the Right-to-Lifers: Grassroots Religion and Politics in the Building of a Broad-Based Right-to-Life Movement, 1960-1984, explored the origins of the right-to-life movement in the 1960s and its rise to national prominence.

14 Comments

  • RLG says:

    Wow, Allison. What an article and what an insight. This takes us right back to the Holy Wars of the past (recent and distant), often with Christians of different stripes facing off against each other but also including large populations of different religions fighting for dominance. Isn’t it good to be a Christian today? Maybe so, maybe not. Thanks Allison for shining a light into the dark corners of Christianity. “Onward, Christian soldiers!”

  • Gloria McCanna says:

    Thanks for this history lesson on the actions and beliefs surrounding the so called right to life movement. A good one to keep on file.

  • Nolan Palsma says:

    Alison
    The last paragraph sums it up for me. “I’ve long thought that people opposed to abortion have used this political position as a kind of get-out-of-jail-free card — nothing else really matters as long as a person has the “correct” stance on this one issue. The movement’s supporters argue for the purity of their motives and the righteousness of their cause, but overlook the ways their rhetoric can lead to violence and the legacy of extremism in many parts of the movement.”
    That one issue is an obsessive for some. It is mind boggling! I get the sense that some of those who are against abortion feel that it is only contraception. There is more to the story. Thanks for the article!

  • Tom says:

    Just one thing I would appreciate knowing from Allison: are you pro-life or pro-choice? You might say it doesn’t matter, but to my mind that fundamentally affects the lens through which I read this piece and others you’ve posted.

    Then, a couple of comments – I could go on a very long time, but won’t:
    + 65,000,000 human lives snuffed out seems like a apt comparison to the Holocaust. Based on the simply arithmetic, you might say it’s 10 times worse.
    + Abraham Lincoln and John Brown were both right about slavery even if John Brown’s approach to resolving the issue was both wrong (probably) and ineffective from a practical political perspective.
    + you paint with a very broad brush here; be careful. Unless you are ready to apply the same thinking to this summer’s racial justice uprisings and the associated rioting.

  • Pamela E. Adams says:

    Allison, I agree with you and I am a strong anti-abortionist person. I have one adopted child and half of my grandchildren are my grandchildren through adoption. One of my biological sons has adopted four children in addition to his five biological children. That makes eight of sixteen grandchildren. I agree that abortion is wrong but so are so many other things in this world. We are doing many sinful things but to just focus on one and to exclude other actions is WRONG from a Biblical view point. Let us fight against abortion but also fight against the other sins that are predominant in our culture.

  • Ronald Dykstra says:

    Allison,
    Your title speaks volumes. “The Legacy of Antiabortion Extremism”. Broad brush is an incredible understatement. How about checking the bio’s of those arrested for involvement with the pro-life movement before labeling the entire event as pro-life extremism? And amen to Tom’s comment on the comparison of the Holocaust with our horrific abortion numbers. My heart aches for the thousands of patriotic people mis-labeled and mid-judged by this article.

  • Mary Jo Liesch says:

    Thank you! I am so grateful to all the writers in this blog.

  • Ken says:

    Allison, your title is apt despite the naysayers. You were faithful in looking at the extremism of a position.
    Further, I find it sad that those who are outraged by the 3,000/day deaths by abortion too often cannot muster any outrage about the complete failure of our nation to deal with the coronavirus, which at the moment is taking 4,000 lives per day. Ditto the outrage regarding issues like gun control, capital punishment, war, and so on.
    And, finally, I’d be curious what the gender breakdown is regarding extremists opposing abortion. Are they predominately male, as were the capitol extremists?
    Oh, and if it matters, I’m pro-choice/pro-life. I strive to live my life in such a way that people will choose for life, in any and all circumstances.
    Thanks for your column.

  • Steven Skahn says:

    I share your revulsion at those who use the anti-abortion issue to justify violence. But I think that a weakness in your discussion is that it fails to identify the real problem. Having strong feelings about abortion is not the problem. Nor is thinking that the issue can be in some ways can be compared to the Holocaust. I think Francis Schaeffer did a wonderful thing in awaking the evangelical community to the importance of this issue. The problem is not that developing strong feelings about abortion is getting on some slippery slope that leads to violence. The problem is arises when we fail to–using a sermon title of Schaffer’s–do “The Lord’s Work in the Lord’s Way.” Those who use justify violence in opposing abortion have stopped following Jesus.

  • Gary VanHouten says:

    Thank you, Allison.
    “The antiabortion movement and its supporters have long relied on inflammatory rhetoric and misinformation.”
    Boy, you got that right!

  • Dean Koopman says:

    This article firmly establishes the paradoxical minimization of humanity that has engulfed all sides of the abortion argument.
    One side (pro-abortion) invalidates the humanity of children up to and now beyond childbirth while the other (pro-life) rejects the humanity of those who would do and support such acts. All the while our government diminishes our liberties in the name of domestic tranquility while enraging all of us through a teeter-totter of conflicting Executive memorandums a the political parties rise and fall in approval.
    One final corollary to the paradox.
    How has no contributor to this blog not questioned the reduction of Francis Schaeffer’s scholarship and preaching to mere “rhetoric”?
    Apparently for humanity to be devalued, everything else must have been devalued first.

    • Tom says:

      Agree with you wholeheartedly Dean! I did not mention in my comment above because then the ‘comment’ becomes an entire essay, but three other things occurred to me while reading this.
      First, the rule that when the tool you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail – translated to this essay, I guess if you’ve invested much of your life into investigating the wrongdoings of the pro-life movement, then you see those wrongdoing expressing themselves everywhere no matter how far the stretch – this case is a major stretch; just guessing that the “articles that detailed antiabortion activists’ involvement” appeared in left-leaning, pro-abortion publications (unless someone can prove me wrong).
      Second, she acknowledges the frustration of the pro-life movement in accomplishing change in the 1980’s, but does not acknowledge that it was the Supreme Court that took the issue out of the political process in a poorly reasoned decision; thus the powerlessness that results in an extremist response.
      Third, abortion and the value of life IS the fundamental moral issue of our time, just as slavery was in the 1800’s. I have long felt that one of 30 to 40 years from now, we will find ourselves in one of two situations: either we will value human life and abortion will have been, perhaps not abolished, but much diminished; or, it will have become normal to kill off the old and sick, euphemistically telling ourselves that it is for their own good when the reality is there’s just too much trouble and cost in caring for them. We will not be somewhere between those extremes, and if you think this cannot happen, then pay some attention to what is already happening in Canada and in parts of the United States.

  • Ann Conklin says:

    Thank you for your research and insight, Allison.
    To those using the term “pro-abortion” in the comments, I would ask you to reconsider your word choice. Words matter. I am aware of no one who is pro-abortion. Many faithful people are, however, pro-choice AND anti-abortion. The two are not mutually exclusive.

  • Michael says:

    Can someone point me to thoughtful, fact-filled, resources on the faith community’s conversation on abortion? Because typically, either side is so bent on scoring points, there’s mainly a lot of heat and little light shone on this fraught subject. Do we agree on the statistics in these days of alternative facts? Are there places where one can find accurate abortion numbers; when in the pregnancy they are done (by percentages); do anti-abortion laws enacted help curtail abortions or do they simply drive them underground (and make more dangerous); where is the conversation on when “life” begins (from the moment of conception or ??? and who holds to these different views and why); do abortions go down more in Democrat or Republican administrations; and so on. Is there a relatively straight-forward, non-biased place a discerning Christian can get this kind of information? Please?

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