Hi guys.
People have started burning down abortion clinics in the States.
See below, and please share your thoughts:
I’m sure she’ll get a light sentence, as–in the past–I have heard them claim that they are morally and ethically similar to those resistance fighters in WWII whom attacked concentration camps . . . as they are saving the lives of innocent babies.
Started?
February 23, 1977: A clinic in Saint Paul, Minnesota was set on fire. The fire caused $250,000 in damages and forced the suspension of abortion services for six months.
May 1977: A clinic in Burlington, Vermont was destroyed by a fire, resulting in its closure for seven months.
August 1977: Four bottles of gasoline were thrown through a clinic in Omaha, Nebraska( destroying 75 percent of it.
November 1977: A man broke into a medical building in Cincinnati and set a crib on fire. A Planned Parenthood was located in the building, but no abortions were provided there. The same month, a firebomb was thrown at a clinic and a chemical bomb was thrown at a separate clinic in separate incidents.
January 8, 1978: A suspected arson caused $200,000 in damages at a clinic in Columbus, Ohio
February 19, 1978: A man posing as a delivery man splashed gasoline in a technician’s face before setting a clinic on fire in Cleveland, Ohio.
May 26, 1983: Joseph Grace set the Hillcrest clinic in Norfolk, Virginia ablaze. He was arrested while sleeping in his van a few blocks from the clinic when a patrol officer noticed the smell of kerosene.
July 7, 1984: A bomb detonated at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Annapolis, Maryland. Two people were inside but neither were injured.
December 25, 1984: An abortion clinic and two physicians’ offices in Pensacola, Florida were bombed in the early morning of Christmas Day by a quartet of young people (Matt Goldsby, Jimmy Simmons, Kathy Simmons, Kaye Wiggins) who later called the bombings "a gift to Jesus on his birthday.
December 30, 1985: John A. Brockhoeft firebombed an abortion clinic in Cincinnati . Brockenhoeft later planned to bomb an abortion clinic in Florida.
July 27, 1987: Eight members of the Bible Missionary Fellowship, a fundamentalist church in Santee, California
July 3, 1989: A fire was started at the Feminist Health Center clinic in Concord, New Hampshire on the day U.S. Supreme Court upheld a Missouri law banning funding of public facilities as related to abortion.
Etc. Etc, Etc. This list is long. Anti-abortion violence - Wikipedia.
Considering the fury and vitriol of the uber religious “protesters” outside the abortion clinic I volunteered at, I’m stunned that the above list isn’t many times longer.
Those people are all nuts.
Just curious… Where in the bible does it say abortion is verboten?
Carl Sagan mentioned in Billions and Billions that there is a passage in Leviticus which mentions that one must pay a fine if you accidentally hurt a pregnant woman and she miscarries.
However, if I was a religious man . . . I might interpret repeated references about not giving your children to Moloch as a prohibition against abortion.
Also, there are references to be fruitful and multiply, so abortion contradicts this as well.
Edited to correct mistake in title of Sagan’s book.
Magical thinking is the root of anti-abortion radicalism. From my vantage point, their beliefs arise from the messy business of their assigning the point at which they believe that God must provide a fetus with a soul. There is not a precise point in the biological process of pregnancy, birth, and early infancy when and where this would logically take place. So the clear parting point, to their thinking, is the moment of conception itself, which, they assume, would not take place unless God wanted a human being to be created. It’s all complete nonsense that exists in a vacuum of knowledge of science, evolution, brain biology, etc.
The problem with this assertion being, of course, that a fertilised human egg doesn’t develop the beginnings of a functioning brain until at least 17 weeks post-conception. Without a functioning brain, the concept of a “soul” doesn’t make any sense.
I read somewhere (where escapes me now), that the National Council of Jewish Women may take legal action in the U.S., based on religious freedom, against laws that criminalize all abortion. To deny all abortion is contrary to rabbinic law (in at least two of the major sects of Judaism). For the Conservative sect, if the life of the pregnant person is in danger because of the pregnancy, abortion is required. In the Reformed sect, it is up to the one pregnant to make any decision she wants about continuing a pregnancy.
If they do challenge it in the courts, it would probably end up going all the way to the SCOTUS. The current justices there would likely decide in favor of the case brought by the NCJW since they seem to think upholding religious freedom sacrosanct.
I’m not so sure about that. The court is packed with zealots determined to force their religious beliefs on others. They were more than willing to lie (perjure themselves) about how they saw Roe vs. Wade to achieve their goal. The catholic religion is clear and adamant about no abortions for any reason, the woman is always to be of secondary value. For an ardent catholic to vote any other way could see it as putting their eternal soul at risk. I think it’s abundantly clear that their idea of freedom of religion is their freedom to force theirs on others. I guess we’ll see. I hope I’m wrong.
I hope so too, @Kellii.
Note that the since the 2005, SCOTUS has ruled in favor of religious organizations 85% of the time. Ergo my comment about the NCJW’s chances if they bring a suit.
Do you remember where you found this? I’d love to see what cases they ruled in. The two I’m aware of is where they upheld the right of a cake shop owner to refuse to make a cake for a gay wedding on religious grounds, and the high school coach being allowed to lead a prayer on the field after games. Both are seen as wins for christians and blows to a secular society and both were cheered on by the most zealous among them. I suspect allowing abortions, something opposed by many christians and catholics in particular, will be different.
Of course, if the NCJW affair does go all the way to SCOTUS, and they reject it, it’ll merely expose their cant about “religious freedom” as a bare faced lie, and further make it eminently clear that their decisions in favour of Christians constitute an egregious violation of the Establishment Clause.
That may be the key needed for some action.
oh my gosh. there have been TONS more attacks on churches and pro-life clinics that it is ridiculous to post something that would imply something different. the problem is terrorism against churches, especially catholic churches
Poppycock. But you’ve established a track record here of posting drivel such as this.
I agree that there have been more attacks on churches.
There have been many instances of churches facing violence when they show solidarity with the LGBTQ community.
Pride flags displayed at churches (for example) have been vandalized. See below:
I have a few points to make about the wedding cake issue (and this is a debate forum, so please don’t think that I’m trolling).
I–for one–don’t believe that they should have the right to refuse to make a wedding cake for a gay couple.
Yet I don’t want to be a hypocrite . . . so what happens if White supremacists go into a Jewish (ie: Kosher) bakery, and ask them to make a swastika cake to celebrate Hitler’s birthday? As a Jew, I would support the bakery’s refusal to make the cake . . . so am I a hypocrite?
Having asked this, let’s muddy the waters even further.
In both Hinduism and Buddhism, the swastika is a sacred, religious symbol. In Buddhism, swastikas are the footprints of Buddha himself, and Buddhism is (mostly) a peaceful, non-violent, contemplative religion that’s very inclusive. Please see below:
So . . . should I have the right to refuse to bake a swastika cake for a Buddhist customer because I don’t approve of their religious symbols? Some Buddhists celebrate a holiday called Wesak, which can involve cakes (or other sweets) for the kids.
As an aside, I would imagine that a Buddhist would be likely to want a cake from a Kosher bakery, as Kosher dietary laws prohibit mixing meat and dairy, so a Kosher cake may actually be vegetarian ( I am guessing this).
So . . . am I a hypocrite if make a swastika cake for the Buddhists, but refuse to provide essentially the same cake design to a neo-Nazi?
Or am I an asshole if I refuse to make a swastika cake for the Buddhist, and discriminating against their religion?
Thich Nhat Hahn was a famous Vietnamese Buddhist monk (recently died) who was actually nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize by Martin Luther King Jr., and the swastika is prominent in the religious materials in his home temple in Viet Nam . . . although he never displayed the swastika outside of his country because he was very aware of its connotation to Westerners.