It seems that the above elements represent a fairly comprehensive and well supported list of what is usually involved in terrorist activity. Given the fact that at least such a list is possible, why the passionate debate and accusations such as those incited by the words of Karen Hughes? Brian M. Jenkins thinks that much has to do with the idea that "branding foes as terrorists implies a moral and political victory." Given the hysteria and public distaste for terrorism and terrorists, convincing them that a particular group or another are "terrorists" carries a great advantage to that group's opponents.

Acceptability of Accusation

    In view of the serious implications and heinous aspects of the above elements associated with terrorism, one would think that groups would hesitate to call each other terrorists, but this has not been the case. Planned Parenthood, in its website, under the heading Terrorists and Extremist Organizations, has listed 14 leading Pro-Life organizations, clearly describing these groups as dangerous, radical, and terrorist organizations to be feared and stopped. Sister Mary Anne Flannery, Chair of the Communications Department at John Carroll, saw fit to call The Cardinal Newman Society and all who criticized her support for the presentation of the scandalous V Monologues as being "terrorists". Finally, our beloved!! John Kerry, the saddest definition ever found for the term "Catholic", has often called religious groups against abortion as being "radicals" and "extremists", which most in society practically equate with being terrorists. So, you see, it has apparently become quite acceptable to label one's foes or critics as being terrorists. I am sure that this is in no small part due to the valiant, noble efforts of our liberal friends who champion free speech and the public exchange of opinions and feelings at every (?) turn! In view of these facts, one must become confused by the abortion lobby's deep offense at the words of Karen Hughes!

Turning the Tables

    To decide if the notion that abortion is a terrorist act is a reasonable one, let us apply each of the above elements of terrorism to that industry.

• Premeditated, repeated violence against the innocent….This first one is too easy to merit much commentary given the millions of abortions ending the lives of innocent babies. A 9/11 a week, six times the Holocaust, you choose the measure. If ripping someone apart or burning them alive is not violence, then we need new dictionaries!

• Conducted by semi- or clandestine groups or people… At first glance this element seems to not apply, but let's delve a bit deeper. While the abortion lobby conducts its "work" openly thanks to Roe v. Wade, Planned Parenthood's document "A Special Joint Regional Session: Effective Service Delivery in a Post-Roe World: A Wake Up Call" is basically a strategy for conducting abortions even if they should be outlawed! Also, there are many ways to be "clandestine", including hiding behind facades, lies, and myths to conduct one's work. Planned Parenthood has often said that its primary purpose is sex education and the reduction of unplanned pregnancies and abortions, but the facts show that it has done everything within its power to perpetuate, facilitate, and mainstream teen sex, prevention of parental consent, contraception, and the abortions which these things statistically lead to. So, you see, the abortion lobby must hide behind its claims in order to do its work. Its real purpose, profit, must be hidden beneath noble claims of greater good betrayed by the ton of facts, evidence, and statistics which the lobby also conceals. I would say that "clandestine" applies here also.

• For criminal, political, or social reasons….It is obvious that abortions are a hot political potato, a powerful element in an attempted social change toward secularism and away from traditional values, and a fluid criminal concept as well, since it is not criminal but for a few votes from radical judges. Even the abortion lobby fears that it may one day become illegal again, thereby proving how perilous its "legality" really is.

• Designed to influence an audience and further a particular agenda… Planned Parenthood spends millions yearly on promoting its views among the young, presenting such things as vulgar arts and crafts, pornographic cartoon characters, bowls of free condoms, "I Had an Abortion" T-shirts, Does Size Matter? Rulers, sex manuals for children promoting masturbation, infiltrating The Girl Scouts and the YWCA, and using teen recruiters and "counselors" to find and encourage potential customers. Planned Parenthood's Nobody's Fool 2004 Conference was described by Jim Sedlak of The American Life League as simply a "thinly veiled attack on parental rights, public morality, and the health and well-being of our children."

    On the political front, Planned Parenthood spearheads efforts to block parental involvement laws, supports the Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA) which seeks to protect abortion rights even if Roe is ever overturned, opposes the Abortion Non-Discrimination Act of 2003 (ANDA) which seeks to protect those health care facilities which refuse to provide abortions, opposes any abstinence only educational funding, supports the Cairo Consensus, which promotes population control, and supports a huge bill co-sponsored by John Kerry, Hillary Clinton, and others, which has been described as a "sin-soaked bill" meant to promote sex education and contraception programs. At the "Exposing The Planned Parenthood Federation of America's Evil Empire" Conference on April 22nd of this year held at the National Press Club in Washington D.C., The PPFA's use of its pro-abortion, pro-contraception, pro-sex education agenda to destroy the moral fabric of our society was discussed. Despite the fact that the majority of Americans in all levels disfavor abortions, Planned Parenthood makes every effort to present its agenda as representing the majority view, claiming that "America is Pro-Choice". I would say that influencing an audience and furthering a particular agenda is clearly something the abortion lobby has dabbled in!

    The effect of all of these marketing attempts is that despite the fact that most Americans on all levels disfavor abortion, the abortion lobby, aided by the liberal media and entertainment industry perpetuates the myth that America is Pro-Choice and that Pro-Life groups are the extremist, radical minority. The effort to make abortion and Pro-Choice mainstream cannot be better exemplified by the passive acceptance and even support for these concepts among supposedly spiritual, Christian, and even Catholic arenas. In addition to the obvious example of Kerry and his ilk, one should note that the theme song of the popular and supposedly spiritually based Joan of Arcadia television program is a song by Joan Osborne, the very outspoken and public supporter of Planned Parenthood. When a show which claims to deal with God has a blasphemous theme song sung by a very public supporter of Planned Parenthood, it is easy to see that the abortion lobby has largely achieved its goal of making abortion acceptable even among those claiming to believe in God.

• Where the victims are not the main targets but represent a greater target or barrier to a greater goal... Despite the horror inflicted on them, the poor, innocent victims of abortions are merely pawns in a much larger game. First, the abortion lobby is about making money off abortions, to the tune of nearly 1 Billion dollars since 1977 for Planned Parenthood alone! Second, the access to abortions is critical to the liberal, radical agendas of secularism, feminism, atheism, relativism, and all of the other destructive forces in society. Third, much of this is also about political power to further these agendas, and abortions are a great part of this equation. Sadly, the abortion lobby is not out to kill, but uses killing as the means to the goal of profit while other forces use this evil as the means to promoting their various philosophies and views. The blood of these innocents is spilled not for its own right, but as a means to a myriad of evil and despicable ends all cloaked under the mantle of freedom, personal rights, reproductive freedom, women's rights, the protection of children, and whatever other lies can be sold as legitimate reasons to treat particular humans as not being human at all.

• Which can be domestically or internationally seeded…..Although much of this country's abortion lobby is domestically centered, there are connections to such organizations as the UN and its population control efforts and evidenced by such efforts as opposing legislation in other countries against those who promote or conduct abortions. Obviously, the abortion lobby has an international aspect which is ever-present.

  Terrorists or Pawns?

      Another hotly debated issue in this equation is the role of the front line, trenches players of the abortion industry. It is one thing to decry abortion as a form of terrorism and even the abortion lobby as advocating such terrorism, certainly a mouthful for many, but it is quite another to declare an abortionist or a woman having an abortion a terrorist.

      The Pro-Choice crowd took the words of Karen Hughes to this level immediately, realizing that such an interpretation would increase sympathy on their side and perhaps make Hughes look like a cross between a crazed fanatic and a mindless microphone for the Pro-Life crowd. Certainly the abortionist is the hired gun for the abortion lobby and carries a good supply of the moral responsibility for his or her actions. Likewise, the mother terminating her pregnancy cannot be free of responsibility as well. Considering the political, social, media, and economic impetus of the larger abortion industry and lobby, I would classify that industry and lobby as the better candidates for the label of terrorism in view of their unadulterated, ultimate profit motive concealed beneath a façade of social, political, and economic concern for the potential patient/customer.

      As for the abortionist, I would view them as the akin to the group leaders or trainers who provide the weapons and training of terror at the ground level. Like the group leader or trainer, the abortionist takes the message of the larger group and applies that philosophy to the actual act of violence. I see the mother having the abortion as akin to the suicide bomber. While a simplistic view labels that bomber as the actual terrorist, he or she is more often a hypnotized robot indoctrinated to raise the act of violence to some noble or greater cause. Just as the suicide bomber destroys his or her physical body in the furtherance of that perceived cause, so does the mother destroy her moral self in the furtherance of the greater cause which she has been duped into believing by the abortion industry. Just as many such bombers are also victims of the deceptions and distortions of larger terrorist causes, so too these mothers are victims of the deceptions and distortions perpetuated by the abortion lobby. Both the greater terror network and the abortion lobby prey on people in desperate situations or confusion to further their causes. Both that network and that lobby parasitically induce the bomber and the mother to do the real dirty work of killing innocent victims. Both the bomber and the woman have been duped into thinking that they are doing some greater good or serving their own best interest by their actions. There are many instances where both bombers and mothers have changed their minds midstream and walked away from inflicting death, overcoming the spell of their respective terror and abortion networks.

      In short, while the innocent fetus is certainly a key victim in abortion, the aborting mother is also a victim, for she must live knowing what she has done. Those who boast about such barbaric actions are either hiding real inner pain, confused, or simply morally lost. The life sentence of aborting one's child does not take a back seat to the capital punishment for being unwanted inflicted on the unborn innocent. In the end, both mother and child are true victims of a lobby and an industry drunk in their own economic, political, and social power and profit - or, simply put, terrorism at its vilest!

  Conclusion

      Much has been made of the connection between abortion and terrorism. Those in favor of abortion cry defamation whenever such views are expressed and demand apologies despite the fact that many of their own do not hesitate to call their opponents terrorists, radicals, extremists, and other similar terms. Although a consensus of what comprises terrorism is not easy, a number of common ingredients can be identified and applied to this debate. This application illustrates that it is not at all unreasonable to see that the abortion industry has many common elements with the ingredients often cited as comprising terrorism. In order to fend off such claims, that industry pretends that the unborn are not living humans, that abortions are merely last-ditch efforts to save the mother from health, social, or economic calamities, and that in any event a woman has the right to do whatever she wishes with her body.

      Research contradicting each of these claims has been repeatedly presented thereby exposing the abortion issue is merely a question of profit, selfishness, and arrogant defiance of moral absolutes in a society increasingly willing to surrender or ignore its moral fabric for individual or secular reasons The definition of terrorism may shift with the sands of political and social convenience and whim, but the blood of innocents is the same no matter what words, terms, or spin are put on any act of barbaric violence against the helpless. It is clear that the violence advocated by the abortion lobby and industry leaves three victims: the child, the mother, and the society which allows this evil to continue. We are left with each side in the abortion debate calling each other extremists, radicals and, yes, terrorists. In the end, whether a Rosary or an abortionist's scalpel will be deemed an instrument of terrorism in this lost society will be determined in November.

  Gabriel Garnica

  
  Editor's Note: Heaven is once again under attack by those who would seek to ignore and overthrow God's majesty and authority. Gabriel Garnica, educator and attorney, submits regular insights and commentaries to remind and help guide readers toward a deeper and more assertive faith. Touching on topics and issues ranging from personal faith, doctrine, education, scripture, the media, family life, morality, and values, Gabriel's notes are music to traditional ears but unpleasant tones to those who have bought into the misguided notions so prevalent and spreading in today's Catholic world.

  For Gabriel's past columns, see ARCHIVES of Gabriel's Clarion