I am Kyle's self-indulgence

I know I'm a couple of weeks late on this, but the murder of George Tiller has got me thinking again about the whole abortion issue.

First of all, there was a cartoon from This Modern World that isn't that great as a whole, but makes an excellent point in the last two panels:

I think that we as a nation need to realize that demonizing someone as a murderer isn't merely political rhetoric. It has serious consequences in the way the members of our society behave, and I do think that people like Bill O'Reilly bears some responsibility. No, he did not tell anybody to commit murder, but if Tiller had not been made infamous by the right-wing media he would not have become a target.

Am I suggesting we need to restrict conservative pundits' right to free speech? Of course not. I defend the right of everybody to say what they think, no matter how repulsive. But just because we are free to say something something doesn't mean we should, or that we are not responsible for its effects.

But that's not all. Thinking about this made me realize something even more disconcerting. It's likely that the man who killed Tiller believed he was justified in doing so because he genuinely believed Tiller was guilty of murder. That got me thinking: If somebody really believes that abortion is murder (and many people do), and that killing of millions of unborn children in the United States is an atrocity on par with the Holocaust (and again, many people do believe this), then killing abortion doctors IS a reasonable response.

But if you ask any pro-life activist, he or she will tell you that this man was wrong to do what he did, which would suggest that killing an unborn child is not as serious a crime as murder.

Here's another example: Pro-life individuals were asked on the street, If abortion were made illegal, what should be done with women who have abortions? It's hardly the most scientific of studies, but the responses do reveal something interesting: a great number of these people believe that the woman should bear no punishment for murder. Either these people are willing to let women get away with murder, or they don't truly believe that abortion is on par with taking a person's life.

All of this leaves me unsure of where I stand on abortion. However, it does make me think that there must be some common ground where pro-life and pro-choice people can agree.