Focus on Fanatics Is Unwarranted

The staff makes several valid points in its discussion of the attacks on the Brookline abortion clinics. Turning to violence is not an acceptable response, even to the great evil of abortion. The events that took place in Brookline on December 30 are tragedies.

It is tragic that the pro-life movement, which opposes abortion through non-violent activities such as prayer vigils and marches, will be linked in the public wind with killing--the very thing that pro-lifers oppose with such determination and courage.

The staff engages in the same misrepresentation of the pro-life camp that it decries when it focuses on the "fringe" in the movement that "harasses and intimidates women entering clinics." If a woman is "intimidated" by an elderly bishop leading a quiet prayer vigil, perhaps it's not the protesters that are bothering her. Perhaps it's her conscience.