To kill or not to kill Tiller

Will Saletan attributes great import to the fact that pro-life leaders have condemned Scott Roeder, the man accused of murdering abortion doctor George Tiller. The leaders’ lack of support for Roeder, he argues, exposes their hypocrisy: claiming that all fetuses and embryos are human but acting as if they aren’t:

The reason these pro-life groups have held their fire, both rhetorically and literally, is that they don’t really equate fetuses with old or disabled people. They oppose abortion, as most of us do. But they don’t treat abortionists the way they’d treat mass murderers of the old or disabled. And this self-restraint can’t simply be chalked up to nonviolence or respect for the law. Look up the bills these organizations have written, pushed, or passed to restrict abortions. I challenge you to find a single bill that treats a woman who procures an abortion as a murderer. They don’t even propose that she go to jail.

A few pro-life leaders probably are guilty of intellectual and political hypocrisy. But most, I think, are not. They act out of prudence, a belief that condoning or endorsing revolutionary violence of the sort practiced by Roeder will harm their cause rather than further it.

Surely they’re right to do so. For one thing, the pro-life position is not a philosophical slam dunk. You have to explain the facts of human biology, which admittedly is easier to do in the era of widespread and high-powered sonogram machines. And you have to explain a major philosophical distinction, that between the basic natural capacity that all humans, born and unborn, possess and that between the immediately exercisable capacity that all born humans except those who are asleep or in a coma possess. That’s not easy to do, especially in the visual age in which we live.

For another thing, pro-life leaders’ reluctance to prosecute women who abort their children is surely borne of political prudence. They know that Americans dislike abortion but dislike prosecuting abortion-minded women even more.

Considering the possibility that your opponents are acting out of prudence doesn’t seem to come naturally. But it should always be considered, whether it’s abortion or gay marriage or gun control. Otherwise, you are simply projecting.