By Rev. Frank A. Pavone
The shooting of abortionists is wrong. It is also unnecessary. We do not need
guns to fight abortion. The weapons we have are truth and love: the truth which
reveals the dignity of life and the ugliness of abortion, and the love which
provides life-giving alternatives to mothers tempted to have abortions.
Pro-lifers use these weapons every day, and they work. Statistically, for every
50 hours of one person's pro-life work, a life is saved…[pro-lifers] who have
turned to violence have forgotten the power of truth and love. They have
forgotten that peaceful, direct action does work.
I am saddened by the shooting of abortion providers because I keep thinking
of several special people I know who used to provide abortion but have stopped
doing so and have repented of their evil deeds. They have turned to God, asked
forgiveness, and now speak out against abortion. They could have never had the
joy of conversion if they had been shot.
Joy Davis provided abortions for 12 years in Alabama and Mississippi. When
she came to see the wrong of her actions, to whom did she turn? She went to the
very people who demonstrated in front of the abortion mill. When I asked her
why, she told me, "I knew that they knew my pain, and really cared about me." It
wasn't bullets. It was care.
Dr. Bernard Nathanson, a leading abortionist, turned away from abortion on
scientific grounds. He was an atheist. He no longer is. In a talk in Irvine this
past April he explained, "Lecturing to pro-life audiences…I began to feel an
infusion (and that's the only way I can describe it) of love and spirituality
coming from these audiences, from all of you into me…and gradually, the hard
shell of atheism began to crack." Love did that, not bullets.
I can cite other examples as well. Joe Scheidler's Pro-Life Action League has
regular gatherings of former abortion providers who have seen the light and
speak out at these conferences. All violence is wrong. The response to the July
29 tragedy is not to further protect the abortion industry, but rather to reject
all violence, including abortion itself. The response is for America to rise up
and bring an end to the 4400 tragedies a day which we call abortion. The
response is simply to choose life.
Father Frank A. Pavone is the national director of Priests for Life.
