Citation

Kissling F. Conscience 1999; 20(3): 19-20.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1999, Catholics for a Free Choice)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

12178908

Abstract

This editorial reports that leaders of the antiabortion movement have visited Northern and Southern Ireland to share their protest tactics with colleagues. This paper also comments on the irony of the issue of violent actions of antiabortion activists. Joe Scheidler and Patrick Mahoney, both militant American antiabortion leaders, may have spoken of saving lives in the island but they will sow the same divisiveness and a climate of hate they have helped create in the US. These leaders, particularly Scheidler, have ties with the most violent member of the movement, Michael Bray. Bray has served in prison for the bombing of ten abortion clinics in Washington, DC. He believes that any action undertaken in opposition to abortion is justified and condones the murder of doctors and nurses who provide abortions. A most realistic evidence of abortion violence in America is the one committed against Emily Lyons. She was maimed and blinded in one eye by a bomb blast that shattered an Alabama abortion clinic in 1998. These examples should serve as warning to the citizens of Ireland about the presence of the leaders in their country. Political and religious leaders should provide condemnation of their violent ways in the strongest possible terms.

Language: en