Reason mag: ‘Why is killing abortionists wrong?’

“One of the stupider things I’ve seen about the Tiller murder.” I’ve got to agree with you on that, Mollie.

George Tiller was one of the few doctors in the nation who provided the late-term abortions, and yesterday he was gunned down while attending church. Now, I don’t know how a good, God-fearing Christian could perform late-term abortions. But I can find no biblical justification for murdering someone who does. Still, Reason magazine’s Hit & Run blog asks “Why is killing abortionists wrong?”—and argues that it just might not be:

Nor is it sufficient to note that killing Tiller was against the law. When the law blesses the murder of babies, it is hardly worthy of respect, any more than laws blessing the enslavement of Africans or the gassing of Jews were, and violent resistance against such enactments surely is justified in principle. Operation Rescue founder Randall Terry implicitly condemns Tiller’s murder, saying, “We grieve for him that he did not have time to properly prepare his soul to face God.” Yet Terry continues to call Tiller a “mass murderer” and insists “the pro-life movement must not be browbeaten by Obama or the child-killers into surrendering our best rhetoric, actions and images.”

No, but condoning one murder for the sake of saving others is moral relativism. It seems ridiculous to even take the Reason blogger’s argument seriously. Unless he is talking about a real war between pro-lifers and pro-choicers—not one that is political or cultural or religious or even medical, but one fought with guns and explosives—than his entire argument completely falls apart.