One of the scariest segments of the religious right is that obsessed with stopping abortion at all costs.
Last year’s assassination of Dr. George Tiller in his Wichita, Kan., church brought the anti-abortion movement into the national spotlight. An excellent feature in Ms. Magazine debunks the claim by many anti-abortion activists that Tiller’s murderer, Scott Roeder, was simply a “lone wolf”.
Writer Amanda Robb explains how Roeder fit in the overlapping circles of anti-abortion fanatics. Robb takes that explanation to its logical conclusion, asking whether others in those circles should be held responsible for Tiller’s murder.
Police, prosecutors and the military define a cell as a circle of individuals— usually three to 10 people—who are joined in common unlawful purpose. A Military Guide to Terrorism in the Twenty-First Century, a U.S. Army training manual, describes a cell as the “foundation” of most terrorist organizations. Most often, and most effectively, these cells are networked, “depend[ing] and even thriving on loose affiliation with groups or individuals from a variety of locations.”
In international terrorism cases, in organized crime cases, even in drug trafficking cases, conspiracy charges can be filed when two or more people enter into an agreement to commit an unlawful act. In fact, of the 159 people convicted of international terrorism by the U.S. since 9/11, more than 70 percent were sentenced for conspiracy (or for “harboring” terrorists). Once a person becomes a member of the conspiracy, she or he is held legally responsible for the acts of other members done in furtherance of the conspiracy, even if she or he is not present or aware that the acts are being committed.
The government does not have to prove that conspirators have entered into any formal agreement. Because they are trying to hide what they are doing, criminal conspirators rarely do such things as draw up contracts. Nor does the government have to show that the members of the conspiracy state between themselves what their object or purpose or methods are. Because they are clandestine, criminal conspirators rarely discuss their plans in a straightforward way. The government only has to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the members of a conspiracy, in some implied way, came to mutually understand they would attempt to accomplish a common and unlawful plan.
Given the broad latitude in proving conspiracy, you’d think the same legal theory could have been used in prosecuting slayings of abortion doctors. Yet to date, only the individual murderers of abortion providers have been charged and prosecuted. No charges have been brought against any individuals for conspiracy to commit those murders.
It’s important to understand that not all religiously motivated terrorism is committed by Muslims. And you don’t have to kill dozens of people, or yourself, to be a terrorist.
It seems that most people opposed to abortion are motivated by religion, and even though I am not religious, I don’t find this topic as black and white as do many. I can see the logic behind the theory that killing one person to save thousands is ethically justified. If there was a consensus that abortion was murder, and it was therefore illegal, Roeder’s argument would obviously be much stronger. I think Tiller’s killing was cold-blooded murder and Roeder is where he belongs: behind bars. But on some level, I can understand the point of view of those who sincerely believe abortion is murder and should thus be stopped by any means necessary.
I would respect their position much more if they were just as fiercely opposed to other forms of murder, such as capital punishment and the killing of civilians in immoral and unnecessary wars.
Regardless of your position on the morality of the issue, we live in a society and a nation governed by laws. Even if you think Roeder’s actions were morally defensible, they were illegal, and he deserved to go to prison.
One could also make the case that killing Dick Cheney before he ever became Vice President, or at least before he could help lead the nation to war, could have saved hundreds of thousands of lives. Nonetheless, it would still have been murder, and anyone committing such an act would have rightly ended up in prison.
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