SansPretense

According to this AP story, animal rights activists are sharing tactics with anti-abortion demonstrators (I made a few corrections in an effort to clear up any ambiguities the writer of the story implied but failed to emphasize):

Berkeley, CA  TEXAS - In the hills above the University of California’s Berkeley Texas campus, nine protesters gathered in front of the home of a toxicology professor abortion doctor, their faces covered with scarves and hoods despite the warm spring weather.

One scrawled “killer” in chalk on the scientistdoctor’s doorstep, while another hurled insults through a bullhorn and announced, “Your neighbor kills animalsbabies!” Someone shattered a window.

Borrowing the kind of tactics used by anti-abortion animal rights demonstrators, animal rights anti-abortion activists are increasingly taking their rage straight to scientists’ doctors’ front doors.

Over the past couple of years, more and more researchers who experiment on animals kill babies have been harassed and terrorized in their own homes, with weapons that include firebombs, flooding and acid.

Scientists Doctors say the vandalism and intimidation threaten not just themselves and their families but the future of medical research women’s freedom to choose.  Specialists in such fields as addiction, eyesight and the aging brain All clinic workers have been targeted.

…

Accompanying the attacks is increasingly tough talk from activists such as Dr Jerry Vlasak Pope Benedict XVI, a spokesman for the Animal Liberation Front press office Catholic Church. In an interview with The Associated Press, he said he is not encouraging anyone to commit murder, but “if you had to hurt somebody or intimidate them or kill them, it would be morally justifiable.”

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You should read the whole article. All kidding aside, I was curious as to how in the world the journalist writing the story could make the connection between the pro-life (anti-abortion) tactics and those of the animal rights protestors. As a graduate student, I have vastly superior research skills …(more after the fold) and tools available at my fingertips to find and flesh out porn information. So, I made use of the most important of these tools, and found a few articles about controversial pro-life tactics: here, here, here, and here.

Now, I’m impressed. Who in the world would have thought that the pro-life movement is so well-organized and powerful that it would be able to suppress the use of firebombing, flooding, acid, and other forms of vandalizing a home in such a way that I wouldn’t be able to dig up anything? The most I found was that they were showing pictures of a dead fetus to the doctors’ children.

Oh, yes, I know, the writer was merely connecting the protesting in front of the scientists’ houses with similar tactics used by anti-abortion protestors. However, someone reading the article would never know the difference in the tactics. I’m not saying that some anti-abortion protestors don’t go too far, including the ones who resort to violence (which, like it or not, includes the blowing up of abortion clinics). Yet, I have never heard of a prominent leader in the pro-life movement EVER say that it is justifiable to KILL or get violent with an abortionist. The Animal Liberation Front is certainly not representative of the animal rights movement as a whole, but they are prominent enough that this type of stuff has to be taken seriously. They are very much a part of the “mainstream” of that movement.

My main issue is with the AP writer making the connection between the two groups in the first place. It’s a way of legitimitizing the tactics by saying “look at the other side doing the same thing.” One can easily point out that harrassment (and that’s exactly what this tactic is) occurs with lots of protest groups, but nope - we have to connect to a right-wing cause in order to make sure that the sympathetic left has something to point to in order to defend the tactic. It never occurs to the writer that the levels of violence being done by the two groups are orders of magnitude different. One allows the kids and family to “carry on normally”, even playing in the front yard, while the other puts their lives in danger.

So why do pro-lifers and animal rights activists picket homes? Because the tactic works. Of course it works - if I made a person fear for their safety and the safety of their family, I can pretty much convince them to do anything I want. I don’t even have to go that far. I just have to continually disrupt their personal lives to the point that their friends don’t want them around.

That’s what both groups achieve with these tactics. They do NOT bring about real change. They only make those who disagree live in a state of fear. That’s not only a form of censorship, which I detest, it’s also taking away the basic liberties that we are entitled to. The animal rights hippies should all be made to bathe and then shot (sorry, been a long week) protestors should be arrested and jailed for the violence. The pro-lifers should be beaten with their signs until they realize how much they’re hurting our cause. Harrassment of individuals and families should NEVER be tolerated.

If you want to change the world, do it by changing a person’s mind and heart. Convince them that your idea is better. Don’t bully them until they give in and pretend to agree with you. That’s what communists, facists, socialists, emasculating feminists, and Islamic terrorists do….yea, well, even if the Animal Liberation front falls under four of those five categories in some shape or form, my point still stands.

Hat tip to conservative grapevine