Revolution #181, November 1, 2009
Law & Order's Obscene Verdict on the Assassination of Doctor George Tiller
To Revolution:
On May 31 of this year, Dr. George Tiller, a caring, dedicated abortion doctor whose mantra was "trust women," was gunned down in a church in Wichita, Kansas. Dr. Tiller was murdered by someone they call a "pro-life activist"—a reactionary, woman-hating lunatic.
The murder of Dr. Tiller was a watershed moment in the great societal chasm over abortion rights. In the wake of Dr. Tiller's murder, small numbers of activists took a determined stand in defense of his life, his clinic, and his work. But the nationwide eruption of urgently needed protest and outrage did not happen. And among those in Congress and the White House who are officially pro-choice, and who in some cases issued quiet statements of dismay, not a damn one went to Wichita for Dr. Tiller's funeral, much less called on people to take to the streets to demand an end to these murders of abortion doctors.
Now comes an episode of the TV cop show Law & Order with an obscene verdict on all this. The Law & Order episode that aired on Friday, October 23, was a transparent commentary on the murder of Dr. Tiller: the Law & Order team investigates the case of a murdered abortion doctor who was a provider of late-term abortions (as was Dr. Tiller); who had been the victim of repeated threats and even been shot before (as was Dr. Tiller); and who is gunned down by an anti-abortion fanatic in church (as was Dr. Tiller).
And through this, the episode promotes a false and deadly equivalency between the assassination of a caring, late-term abortion doctor... and performing abortions.
*****
Framing the episode is a defining incident that is a profound distortion of reality: An abortion doctor accidentally delivers a live baby, and then purposely kills that living baby (with the consent of the mother). Through this manufactured and untrue incident, a false equivalency is supposedly defined between abortion—late-term abortion in particular—and murder.
The key players in this episode of Law & Order act on and promote the lie that abortion is equivalent to murder. A woman district attorney, who declares that she was inspired by Roe v. Wade, is scripted as being so repulsed by the actions of the abortion doctor that she refuses to prosecute the murderer. In fact, she basically undermines the prosecution's case through turning over evidence to the defense (this on a show that week-in, week-out, promotes "bending" the constitutional rights of defendants by justifying illegally acquired evidence and withholding evidence from defense lawyers).
In a closing argument to the jury, another DA preaches that those who believe "life" begins at conception (or "viability") and those who believe "life" begins at delivery, must share common values. But conflating "life" in general, with human life, is a moral fraud. All "life" is not the same. All of us, every day, destroy millions of lives when we wash our hands, weed a garden, eat a meal, or have surgery. Human life is a particular and precious form of life, with particular moral implications. And it has a distinct starting point—the birth of a human baby that is no longer a fetus, dependent on a woman for its existence.
The reality is that for millions and millions of actual, living women in America (yes, millions), abortions have allowed them to have a life—or at least as much of a chance of a life for women as there is in this society. And conversely, where abortions are not legal, available, or affordable, or where women are physically and psychologically prevented from having an abortion, not having the option of an abortion means dreams of careers, school, relationships, lives... ruined.
*****
In a closing message, at the end of the episode, the Sam Waterston character (DA Jack McCoy) says that he used to think that people's moralities were coherent—that "right to life" people would oppose war, and that pro-choice people would support the human rights of the unborn. But then, he sighs, there is no such moral consistency here.
This is a false and extremely harmful moral equation. Yes, the "right to lifers" are complete hypocrites. These are people who claim to care about the lives of babies, but who think it is treasonous to argue that poor children in this country have a right to medical care, or to oppose the slaughter of children by U.S. drones and troops in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. But it is not hypocritical, in fact it is completely consistent to support the basic rights of living humans, and as part of that, the rights of women to have abortions—to choose whether or not to bear a child.
The moral relativism over abortion promoted with a vengeance in this episode of Law & Order, regardless of intent, is not just false. It is very dangerous. It impacts only one side of the culture war on abortion. Christian fundamentalists who happen to catch this episode of Law & Order are unlikely to be thrown into moral angst by Sam Waterston's character's musings on the incongruity being "right to life" and pro-war. Their morality does not have to withstand such tests of formal logic (it doesn't have to make any sense). Nor does it have to withstand the test of reality, and the interests of humanity. It is based on a literal interpretation of the draconian and oppressive strictures of the Bible: "The Bible says it/I believe it/That settles it." The way people will be pried out of this lunacy is direct intervention with reality and truth.
But while this moral relativism falls on deaf ears among the anti-abortionists, it has a paralyzing impact the other side of the culture war over abortion—criminally immobilizing those who should have been in the streets after the murder of Dr. Tiller, and who should be in the streets now defending the courageous abortion providers who risk their lives to serve women.
* * *
This episode of Law & Order aired at a time when Barack Obama calls for conciliation and "common ground" between woman-hating killers and those who support a woman's right to an abortion.
That conciliation has led to a situation where, as Revolution newspaper has put it: common ground is killing ground.
What is urgently needed, instead, is moral certitude, passion, and determined resistance to attacks on abortion.
—Alan Goodman
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