Monday, November 8, 2010

The Gathering Storm

The New York Times' headline story from this morning is ominous. Perhaps most dispiriting:

Meanwhile, opponents of the Obama administration’s health care law, business leaders and conservative groups have begun making plans, too, for what they expect will be a series of welcome openings. Among the possibilities: a new flurry of proposed state prohibitions on abortion, same-sex marriage and illegal immigration.

“I feel like a little boy on Christmas morning — which package do you open up first?” said Troy Newman, the leader of Operation Rescue, an anti-abortion group. Already, abortion opponents were considering pressing for new regulations in New Mexico, Iowa and Kansas, where Sam Brownback, the Republican governor-elect, follows Democratic governors who vetoed some abortion limits approved by the Republican-controlled Legislature.


To refer to Operation Rescue as just "an anti-abortion group" is gross understatement. Lest we forget, Operation Rescue is the far right anti-choice group that harassed late-term abortion provider George Tiller for two decades before he was assassinated by Scott Roeder, who claims to have been a member and posted on their website. Newman denies having ever met Roeder, who denies the denial and then some (emphasis mine):

Also that year, Roeder says he went to lunch with Newman and asked him about using violence to stop abortion.

Robb: What did you say to him?
Roeder: Oh, something like if an abortionist—I don’t even know if it was specifically Tiller…was shot, would it be justified? … And [Newman] said, “If it were, it wouldn’t upset me.”


Troy Newman is exuberant for the future. That should tell you all you need to know.

No comments:

Post a Comment