The movement to outlaw abortion is threatening the freedom of women in America. Those of us who support the right to abortion are angry that the same people who demand the freedom to destroy the environment or infect their neighbors are happy for the government to control women’s reproductive choices.
That’s all the more reason to condemn the arson attack on the Wisconsin Family Action center in Madison, Wisconsin last Sunday.
Besides lighting the fire and throwing a Molotov cocktail that failed to ignite, the perpetrator wrote “If abortions aren’t Safe, then you aren’t either.” No people were injured in the attack, which occurred early in the morning when the office was unlikely to be occupied.
Fringes of the anti-abortion movement have a long history of deadly attacks on abortion providers. These attacks were generally condemned by anti-abortion organizations. This does not not excuse the attack Sunday, which comes in the wake of threats to freedom largely occurring in a legal manner within our democratic system of government.
The Democratic governor of Wisconsin, President Biden, and other politicians from both major parties condemned the arson, as is appropriate.
Planned Parenthood Advocates of Wisconsin (PPAWI) issued a statement condemning “all forms of violence and hatred” that did not specifically reference to the arson. That’s not good enough. Planned Parenthood has not issued any comment I was able to find, which is unacceptable. (I have donated to the organization for decades).
A Bigger Picture
We should not magnify every instance of bad behavior fueled by political anger. In any given week, probably somewhere in America, someone in our population of 330 million is punching someone else over politics or pulling down the other side’s signs. Pointing to these as a sign of the barbaric nature of the other side is not illuminating and serves no good purpose. However, arson is particularly dangerous because it can spread out of control, and any attempt to silence a political organization through physical attacks is dangerous.
The danger posed by extreme action by either side is especially great now that the US has become a political tinderbox. It is all too easy for a literal fire to ignite a figurative one across the country. Even if this one is not the match to light a conflagration, it may spur others to the next act, which could be that match. One way to tamp down the danger is for people who are broadly on the same political side as the attacker to consistently and loudly condemn the attack.
Republicans have shown remarkable blindness – or hypocrisy – in their different responses to the 2020 riots following the George Floyd murder and to the Jan 2021 storming of the Capitol. Virtually everyone on the right that I talked to linked the riots to Democratic rhetoric, even though the riots were nothing like what Democratic leaders were calling for; people smashing windows or looting stores were not doing so because they thought Joe Biden wanted them to. Yet most people on the right that I have talked to refuse to blame Donald Trump for the attack done by people literally carrying flags with his name; not for his lies about the election, not for his calling for the march on the Capitol, not for his refusal to stop the attacks till hours after they began, not for his attempts to use the attacks to pressure Congressmen to vote to block the election, and not for his praise of the rioters.
This is an instance where it is totally counterproductive to fight fire with fire. As the Republican Party increasingly becomes associated with irrationality and threats of violence, the Democratic Party needs to strengthen its brand as the party of rationality and moderation. Obviously the arson in Wisconsin was not an organized effort by Democrats, who are hurt by it, but Republicans and perhaps some Independents will associate it with Democrats anyway.
Pro-Democracy Republicans and Republican-leaning Independents are voters whom the Democrats need to be courting. We need to peel off enough of them from the Republican Party to push Republicans stop their flirtation with fascism. On the specific issue of abortion, we need to tap into the political political sentiment of the country, which is broadly pro-choice but also retains some qualms about abortion and would be turned off by extremism from our side.
Of course, all considerations of politics aside, maintaining a consistent public position against violence is the right thing to do. The whole basis of our political system is the ability to peacefully discuss and negotiate our differences. We need to reject attempts to do otherwise whether it comes against or in favor of our political positions.