the lunatic fringe

Dr. George Tiller, one of only a few doctors who perform late-term abortions, was gunned down in church today as he handed out the church bulletin. That's right. A pro-life terrorist shot and killed a physician in a house of god. The irony would be delicious if it weren't so completely horrific.

Some in the pro-life movement are praising his murder as justifiable homicide and an act of god. They are the same violent extremists who have targeted him for years:

• In 1986, his clinic was bombed.
  
• In 1991, it was blockaded for six weeks.
  
• In 1993, he was shot in both arms.
  
• In March, Kansas prosecutors tried him on charges of breaking an abortion law; he was acquitted.
  
• In May, vandals cut wires to security cameras and made holes in the roof of Tiller's clinic, Women's Health Care Services, a fortified single-story building where abortion foes keep daily vigil.

A history of violence on the antiabortion fringe
Dr. George Tiller's slaying is the latest in a decades-long campaign of shootings, bombings and vandalism carried out by extremists from the mostly peaceful movement.
By Richard Fausset
June 1, 2009
Reporting from Atlanta -- Bombings. Butyric acid attacks. Sniper shootings. Letters filled with fake anthrax. These are some of the tactics used over the years by antiabortion extremists.

The slaying of Dr. George Tiller in his Kansas church Sunday was part of a decades-long history of domestic terrorism aimed at abortion providers, carried out by a small minority of the much broader and generally peaceful movement that opposes abortion.

The National Abortion Federation, which supports abortion rights, has documented more than 6,100 acts of violence against abortion providers in the United States and Canada since 1977. The group classifies as "violent" not only the acts of murder, attempted murder, bombing and arson, but also vandalism, burglary and stalking, among others.

Tiller's slaying appears to be the eighth of an abortion clinic worker in the U.S. or Canada and the fourth of a doctor. A fifth doctor was shot but survived -- as did Tiller in a previous attack.

These illegal tactics -- denounced by many peaceful antiabortion activists -- multiplied in the 1980s, as the broader movement shifted away from pressuring the women who were having abortions to the medical personnel providing them, according to Carole Joffe, a sociology professor at UC Davis.

The shift in emphasis was a smart public relations move for those who oppose abortion, casting women as victims while exploiting public uneasiness over doctors who performed the procedure. Those public sentiments stemmed, in part, from the existence of ethically sketchy, "back-alley" abortion providers in the era before the Supreme Court's 1973 ruling that legalized abortion, Roe vs. Wade.

Clinics and clinic workers were subject to vandalism, bombings and death threats through the 1980s, but it was not until March 1993 that the United States saw the first known political slaying of an abortion provider.

Dr. David Gunn was shot during an antiabortion protest at a Pensacola, Fla., clinic. The year before, a "wanted" poster with Gunn's photo and home phone number had been distributed at a Montgomery, Ala., antiabortion rally sponsored by the group Operation Rescue, according to an Associated Press report.

Five months after Gunn's slaying, Tiller was shot in both arms outside his Wichita clinic by a woman who had praised Gunn's killer as a hero.

In response, Congress passed the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, which President Clinton signed in May 1994. The law outlawed "force, threat of force or physical obstruction" to patients and clinic workers.

Supporters of abortion rights credit the law with stemming some of the intimidation at clinics. But serious incidents continued throughout Clinton's presidency, which was viewed as inhospitable to the antiabortion cause.

In July 1994, Paul Hill, a former Presbyterian minister, shot and killed Dr. John Britton and a 74-year-old clinic escort in Pensacola. In December of that year, John Salvi III shot up two Boston-area clinics, killing two receptionists and injuring five other people.

In January 1998, a bomb planted at a Birmingham, Ala., clinic killed a security guard and injured a nurse. The culprit, Eric Rudolph, a foe of gay rights and abortion, had also carried out a bombing at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, which killed one and injured more than 100.

Rudolph disappeared into the mountains of Appalachia. He became the subject of a protracted manhunt and, in some circles, a folk hero. He was not captured until 2003. He pleaded guilty to a string of bombings and was sentenced to life in prison.

Until Tiller's slaying Sunday, the last known slaying of an abortion provider was in October 1998, when obstetrician Barnett Slepian was killed by James Kopp in Amherst, N.Y. Kopp was convicted of murder in 2003 and sentenced to 25 years to life.

Less lethal tactics have included the release of foul-smelling butyric acid at clinics. In 2001, when the nation was gripped with fear stemming from legitimate anthrax threats, more than 500 clinics received letters with fake anthrax, according to NARAL Pro-Choice America.

Those who support abortion rights maintain that violence and the threat of violence have led to a shortage of abortion providers. According to NARAL, 87% of U.S. counties lack an abortion provider.

death by veganism

I'm a reformed vegetarian (that is, I was a vegetarian for awhile in college, but nowadays, I can't imagine life without a juicy piece of skirt steak at least once a week), but I've never been a vegan. I haven't given much thought to what I'll put in my body when the time comes for me to gestate a living being, other than avoiding excessive alcohol, caffeine, mercury-rich fish, etc. I suppose I'll eat more of certain foods to make sure I'm giving my baby what she needs to develop in a healthy way, and that I'll avoid foods that are not so good. And that's where things get complicated, because there are a variety of responses to what's good and what's verboten, and much of it is culture-specific.

For example, in the US, a visibly pregnant woman having a glass of wine is usually scandalous. (In Europe, it isn't.) But in France, a visibly pregnant woman eating a salad is considered irresponsible, because she's exposing her unborn child to all manner of bacteria on uncooked vegetables. (Eating unpasteurized cheeses while pregnant isn't a big deal there, while in the US, doctors get all in a tizzy.)

The good news: I'm not planning on having a child for a while, so there's no rush to get this all nailed down at the moment.

Op-Ed:Death by Veganism
By NINA PLANCK
Published: May 21, 2007

WHEN Crown Shakur died of starvation, he was 6 weeks old and weighed 3.5 pounds. His vegan parents, who fed him mainly soy milk and apple juice, were convicted in Atlanta recently of murder, involuntary manslaughter and cruelty.

This particular calamity — at least the third such conviction of vegan parents in four years — may be largely due to ignorance. But it should prompt frank discussion about nutrition.

I was once a vegan. But well before I became pregnant, I concluded that a vegan pregnancy was irresponsible. You cannot create and nourish a robust baby merely on foods from plants.

Indigenous cuisines offer clues about what humans, naturally omnivorous, need to survive, reproduce and grow: traditional vegetarian diets, as in India, invariably include dairy and eggs for complete protein, essential fats and vitamins. There are no vegan societies for a simple reason: a vegan diet is not adequate in the long run.

Protein deficiency is one danger of a vegan diet for babies. Nutritionists used to speak of proteins as “first class” (from meat, fish, eggs and milk) and “second class” (from plants), but today this is considered denigrating to vegetarians.

The fact remains, though, that humans prefer animal proteins and fats to cereals and tubers, because they contain all the essential amino acids needed for life in the right ratio. This is not true of plant proteins, which are inferior in quantity and quality — even soy.

A vegan diet may lack vitamin B12, found only in animal foods; usable vitamins A and D, found in meat, fish, eggs and butter; and necessary minerals like calcium and zinc. When babies are deprived of all these nutrients, they will suffer from retarded growth, rickets and nerve damage.

Responsible vegan parents know that breast milk is ideal. It contains many necessary components, including cholesterol (which babies use to make nerve cells) and countless immune and growth factors. When breastfeeding isn’t possible, soy milk and fruit juice, even in seemingly sufficient quantities, are not safe substitutes for a quality infant formula.

Yet even a breast-fed baby is at risk. Studies show that vegan breast milk lacks enough docosahexaenoic acid, or DHA, the omega-3 fat found in fatty fish. It is difficult to overstate the importance of DHA, vital as it is for eye and brain development.

A vegan diet is equally dangerous for weaned babies and toddlers, who need plenty of protein and calcium. Too often, vegans turn to soy, which actually inhibits growth and reduces absorption of protein and minerals. That’s why health officials in Britain, Canada and other countries express caution about soy for babies. (Not here, though — perhaps because our farm policy is so soy-friendly.)

Historically, diet honored tradition: we ate the foods that our mothers, and their mothers, ate. Now, your neighbor or sibling may be a meat-eater or vegetarian, may ferment his foods or eat them raw. This fragmentation of the American menu reflects admirable diversity and tolerance, but food is more important than fashion. Though it’s not politically correct to say so, all diets are not created equal.

An adult who was well-nourished in utero and in infancy may choose to get by on a vegan diet, but babies are built from protein, calcium, cholesterol and fish oil. Children fed only plants will not get the precious things they need to live and grow.

Nina Planck is the author of “Real Food: What to Eat and Why.”