Web Letters: A Killing in Kansas

The Bush administration listed anti-abortion related terrorism as a discrete category on its now-defunct Terrorism Knowledge Base (TKB; see also: RAND-MIPT). Unfortunately, it listed only five incidents total of antiabortion-related terrorism (domestic and international). In other words, they never took the problem seriously.

This disastrous $17 million-plus terrorism database (the antiabortion data shortfall was one of many flaws we unearthed in the course of running an audit) was pulled off-line March 31, 2008, but this body of data continues to circulate. More important, perhaps, the attitudes that generated this fatally flawed body of data are alive and well.

Until we demand that the far right and the politicians who court them stop playing with definitions of terrorism and focus on this problem in a robust and serious manner, this sort of lawlessness will continue. Worse, extremists will inevitably become emboldened to target other groups and individuals who are being increasingly defined as "fair game" by the likes of Rush Limbaugh.

Donna Rice-Bassett

Milton, MA

Abortion is not a pleasant topic for anyone. The simple facts are, young women will abort babies themselves if they cannot find a doctor to do it for them. Failure to find a doctor to perform the procedure correctly means that some young women will bleed to death or die of infection. Two lives are lost.

Some families are already so large and so poor that one more mouth to feed means the entire family will go down.

These are tough choices to make and they should not be made by some bureaucrat or church elder a thousand miles away who doesn’t even know you. It’s your body and your life, make your own decisions.

The cold-blooded murder of a doctor who performs abortions is not going to change the simple facts confronting young women who are pregnant. They still need help, and we must provide it for them.

Gary Amstutz
The Democratic Club of Kern River Valley

Lake Isabella, Ca