Yoshie writes: >In the case of anti-abortion activism, the boundary between speech and >action is especially thin and fluid (unlike in the case of pornography >debates). For instance, holding demos in front of doctors' private >residences; verbally abusing the children of the doctors; leaving anonymous >death threats or messages of hatred on answering machines + in mailboxes; >putting the names & addresses of doctors on a website, and then crossing >out the names of the doctors who have been murdered by anti-abortion >terrorists, implying that the rest are also being targeted for >assassination; and so on. The point of their activism is to intimidate >doctors away from offering abortion, and for this purpose, speech + verbal >harassment + menacing (though not necessarily illegal) behaviors are >effective. it's true that it's often difficult to draw the line between speech and action. But it's usually much easier between those who simply talk or write (like my brother the philosopher, who equates abortion with murder in his treatise on the ethics of homicide) and the "Operation Rescue" creeps. When speech is clearly linked to action (as in the examples above), the problem is a "no-brainer": the actions should be opposed. Shouting obscentities at someone in a threatening way (and the like) is a form of assault by the way. It is not constitutionally-protected speech. >Moreover, those who actually attacked or killed medical workers graduated >from shouting obsceneties in front of clinics (unlike other mass or serial >killers who may just one day 'snap' without a prior history of dangerous >behaviors). Is it any wonder that some of those who argue abortion is mass >murder may one day put their theory into practice? But many of them don't, so it seems that we should stick to the idea that it's their actions that are the problem to be opposed, not what they think or say. >I think that if we take the position that there is nothing we can legally >do about threats (until actual instances of murder, assault, firebombing, >vandalism, etc. occur), we need to at least come up with an alternative >strategy to protect medical workers and to make it more difficult for >anti-abortionists to harass + attack them, verbally or physically. >Otherwise, what young doctors (except few saintly ones) would want to brave >not just verbal threats & physical harassment but also possible injury & >death at the hands of anti-abortion terrorists? So, what is to be done? I didn't say that we should do nothing about threats. They're against the existing law and we should push the cops to enforce the laws. My argument is against those who want to shut down anti-aborto speech, like a web site that does not post doctors' addresses & phone numbers. My concerns are with increasing the power of the state, a state which is hostile to the good guys (us) unless we can mobilize countervailing power. BTW, even though I really get a lot out of political discussions like the above, I'd like to see more economics on pen-l. Or should I switch to lbo-talk? Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://clawww.lmu.edu/Faculty/JDevine/jdevine.html
