All Our Lives

Last week, police in Madison, Wisconsin arrested Ralph Lang after he accidentally discharged a firearm in his hotel room.

Lang told police that he planned to go to a Planned Parenthood abortion clinic the following morning to find the doctor who was doing the abortions and shoot him in the head, the complaint said.

[…]

A nurse at Planned Parenthood in Madison said she is familiar with Lang, and that she saw him outside the facility last week, according to the complaint. Lang was arrested in 2007 outside Planned Parenthood, telling an officer at the time that the "Bible states that anyone involved in abortion should be executed."

In Lang's motel room, officers found a U.S. map with dots in each state and handwritten words above the northern U.S. border that said "some abortion centers," the complaint said. Also written on the map were the words "Blessed Virgin Mary says Hell awaits any woman having an abortion. Nurse or doctor who helps will one (sic)."

All Our Lives wholly rejects the use of violence against abortion providers, and we are relieved that Mr. Lang was discovered and arrested before he could harm anyone.

Jill Stanek has a post up in response to this Salon article by a woman who had an abortion that doctors believed was necessary to save her life.

What disturbs me the most are the comments on Stanek's post. Why is the immediate response to this story “Let’s see how we can pick it apart, discredit it, and cast the woman telling it as dishonest”? Why not, at the very least, “I’m terribly sorry that she lost her child and had such a traumatic health crisis,” or “The health professionals at that hospital treated her terribly”? Why not assume, at the very least for the sake of argument, that the story is true, and ask how we can ensure that pregnant women can get proper medical treatment that also respects the lives of their children? If we believe that it’s really possible to do both, then we should be able to handle listening to this story and figuring out what needs to change for women like Ms. Kendall to get better care.

I just don’t understand why a woman who lost a child and nearly died has to be cast as an enemy.

Extremist who planned to kill abortion provider arrested

What happened to “love them both”?