Hypocrisy In Action

I don't want to talk about abortion. I want to talk about hypocrisy.

Dr. George Tiller, a doctor who performed abortions, was shot to death in church today. There has been a show of support on twitter by anti-abortionist individuals for whomever shot him.

This point of view strikes me as amazingly hypocritical. I do not want to debate the abortion issue (and please note any comments coming out for one side or the other will likely not be published) but let us examine the anti-abortion position. If one is anti-abortion, one usually counts oneself as "pro-life", to make your position sympathetic. The "pro-life" tenet is that life begins at conception; the termination of such a life is murder; murder is bad. It is a pretty simple three-step point of view, and it's simplicity is its great strength. This is a point of view that is typically held by those of the Christian persuasion, though other groups are certainly represented in the "pro-life" crowd.

Murder is bad. Church is good. Tiller was murdered in a church. Can the person who did this not see how this was such a monumental undermining of their position?

Ah, but the Millsians would point out that this is the greatest good for the greatest amount of people, which is certainly a viewpoint one could hold, but utilitarianism is kind of antithetical to the whole "rights of the individual" thing that we North Americans have going on. It is also argued by some of the twitter crowd mentioned in the article, that this is like someone going back in time and killing Hitler. It's a ludicrous argument though - who is to say that Tiller didn't abort a fetus that would have otherwise started all out nuclear war?

Of course, we assume that the "pro-life" crowd is the group that did away with Dr. Tiller. Of course, 98% of the "pro-life" crowd is non-confrontational and "normal" - that is to say, people who would probably not murder someone, or condone or accept someone who did.

I'd like to write more, but the whole topic is just making me sick.