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Excellent post! You bring up some points I've been struggling with, as of late actually. At what "point" do we say, "Ok, I have to let this abortion thing go"? Let me elaborate.

If we believe that abortion is the murder of a baby (which I do), then where do we stop in our defense of that baby? In other words, is there ANY justification for the "lunatic fringe" on the abortion debate that actually "take the law into their own hands" and KILL abortion doctors?

If not, why not? Is it because "killing is always wrong"? Would it have been wrong to kill Adolf Hitler, if given the chance? If the practice of abortion is not comparable to the atrocities the Jews suffered in WWII, then doesn't that say something about what we're REALLY saying the babies aborted are "worth"?

These are the questions I struggle with, currently, when talking about abortion. REST EASY though, all fellow FReepers and lurkers, I'm NOT another "Eric Roberts" or whatever his name was, that's suspected of bombing abortion clinics or killing abortion docs. I have no intention of going out and killing abortion docs, or bombing clinics, or any of that, because OBVIOUSLY the line has to be drawn before that.

All I'm really asking is, given this obvious line we can't cross, how can we still fulfill our moral obligation to protect the lives of the unborn, without doing such actions? In other words, what other things can we do that satisfy our moral obligation to the unborn just as well?

Any thoughts would be appreciated, thanks.

These are the questions I struggle with, currently, when talking about abortion.

The reason why we don't take the law into our own hands in this case is that the act of doing so would, in the long run, result in more babies being aborted, because the act of killing an abortionist would diminish the likelihood of the criminalization of abortion. The reasons are prudential.

A wartime analog would be the following. During WWII the allies cracked the German code. Churchill knew where the Germans would attack. He could have put this intelligence to use instantly but instead he chose to postpone the use of this intelligence until it would provide the maximum benefit to the allies. In the meantime, however, he had to sit quietly and allow English cities and military targets to be destroyed.

In other words, what other things can we do that satisfy our moral obligation to the unborn just as well?

Violence is never an answer. The early Christians had this same problem as they tried to navigate through a Roman society filled with abortion, infanticide, homosexuality, gladiatorial fights (thousands murdered weekly), and most of all persecution. They triumphed precisely because they did not use violence...