Abortion and ‘Hot Words’

In his column (Editorial Pages, March 8), “Abortion: Hot Words Incite Violence,” Edwin Yoder Jr. misses the point in trying to build a case for the culpability of anti-abortionists in the violent actions of extremists in the anti-abortion movement.

If people of strong convictions can be blamed for the unthinking and immoral actions of a few espousing a similar position, then all the men and women who have had the courage and wisdom to speak out against injustice would, in turn, share blame for all of the extremist actions done in the name of their cause.

Such a world view, as expressed by Yoder, is not only provincial and prejudiced, it is also self-serving. If the situation were reversed and Yoder was being condemned for his ardent support of a cause that had the misfortune of having a lunatic fringe group committing terrorist actions for it, he would be among the first to protest. Instead, he has blinded himself to the reality that lunatics are accountable to only themselves . . . until they are caught.

Still, Yoder has distorted the issue, the real issue.

Anti-abortionists do not secretly long for a violent solution. They abhor violence. Anti-abortionists do not hold the law (as a whole) in contempt. On the contrary, they have peaceably endured, what is for them, the most reprehensible of crimes--the sanctioned murder of millions of innocent people--while working to reverse the legal decision that allowed abortion on demand.

Anti-abortionists have dedicated themselves to a noble cause--not unlike the great struggle to assure civil rights for blacks. Their cause is no less heroic than the struggle of conscientious Germans who risked death at the hands of the Nazis to try to save the lives of imperiled Jews.

Indeed, this is another holocaust. And for whatever reasons he chooses, Yoder is turning a deaf ear to the cries of the innocent.

If anything be true, Yoder and others who share his world view are culpable--they bear the stain of innocent blood of unborn, murdered children on their hands, their hearts and their minds.

KETIH J. CURRAN

Los Angeles

Yoder is right. Verbal militancy is to a degree an endorsement of physical militancy. He is, in essence, saying the same thing Jesus did when he identified sin as a matter of the heart. And we all have to search our hearts in opposing wrong, so we don’t fall prey to the very tactics that motivated our outrage in the first place.

This of course is not a justification for quieting those who express moral outrage in other ways. There is a place for outrage, and the legality of an evil certainly shouldn’t accord it an overabundance of respect. I’m sure Yoder himself has expressed outrage on a number of practices that are presently legal under this Administration. The support of wrongs in El Salvador may be a case in point.

Jesus once destroyed property (not people) as an expression of outrage. (Mark 11:15-19) We cannot fight evil with evil. But there are times when it is just as great a sin to do nothing.

CYNTHIA BALLUCK

North Hollywood

I was pretty disgusted with the Yoder article and the accompanying MacNelly cartoon.

The article seems to imply that any public advocacy of the right to life for unborn babies, a cause that I and millions of my fellow Americans believe in, must necessarily lead to bombing of abortion facilities, threats against justices, or other violence committed by a few deranged cranks, and fanatics.

We responsible pro-lifers, and that’s the vast majority of us, deplore such violence, and seek to persuade others of the rightness of our beliefs only by peaceful means. I hope that you at The Times realize that we pro-life people have a right to our views, too. Don’t try to silence us by unfair association with kooks and cranks.

MICHAEL A. WOLF

Oxnard

Yoder concluded his appeal for civility from anti-abortion activists with the warning that “angry words and violent acts are never strangers for very long.” True enough, especially when fanatics are involved.

However, if abortion is viewed as a violent act, which indeed it is if the unborn are to be included in the human family, then it is more true to assert that violence begets violence and evil begets evil.

Anger is an appropriate response to the policy of unrestricted abortion, if that policy is perceived to be murderous. Violence, as a response, may not be appropriate but it is certainly possible, as history makes very clear. Injustice has never been taken lightly by human beings and violence has always been one of the alternatives chosen to combat it. Indeed, America was born out of a violent revolutionary response to injustice. Right or wrong, that’s the way it is, and that’s the way it always has been.

Yoder’s tendency to lay the blame for violence on the angry words of anti-abortionists is off target. The blame should lie with abortion itself, because abortion is itself violent.

MICHAEL V. MERLIN

Downey

By Yoder’s logic, those who talk tough defending abortion and castigating those who oppose it must share in some way responsibility for acts of violence perpetrated by the abortionists. I would be the first to condemn any acts of violence coming from either side of the abortion issue, but I have to ask the question, is the bombing of abortion clinics somehow more violent than the slaughter of unborn children?

KARL COLGREN

Irvine

Yoder contends that an overdose of harsh rhetoric on the abortion issue from fervent pro-lifers is responsible for raising up bombers. What he really seems to be suggesting is that the few of us who are rational who happen to believe that abortion is morally criminal should be careful to mince our words, so as not to make them understandable--and therefore inflammatory--to the lunatic fringe of the pro-life movement.

I don’t swallow that for a minute, and neither should anyone as libertarian as Yoder. Calm words tend to be more convincing then harsh ones, it’s true, and the sensitivity of the issue of abortion demands that compassion and sorrow be mixed with the anger that some of us feel. But the day that there cease to be “hot words” on any hot issue is the day that it’s time to sneak across the border and seek shelter in a different country.

CHRIS WILLMAN

Westchester