By Dave Andrusko
Here’s a photo not seen often last week in Texas
I know via email, IMs, and tweets that countless pro-lifers followed the dramatic vote last Friday in the Texas Senate that secured a victory for unborn children and their mothers. Through the incredible debate, which took place in spite of pro-abortion attempts to sink HB 2 in chaos, National Right to Life tweeted and NRL News Today posted stories including at nrlc.cc/14U05Y5, nrlc.cc/15HM8h2, nrlc.cc/14U0l9v, and nrlc.cc/14U0ppS.
A story that ran in the Washington Post yesterday unintentionally spoke volumes about the menacing presence of a small army of pro-abortion demonstrators, especially its headline: “Texas abortion vote joins growing legal frenzy.”
At one level, Juliet Eilperin was only stating the obvious: with many pro-active pro-life legislative measures having been passed, there has been and will continue to be a myriad of pro-abortion lawsuits filed to stop them all, at least temporarily.
But while many stories that I read gave some sense of the atmosphere in Austin, Texas, they did not do justice to what pro-lifers faced. “Frenzy” is not an exaggeration.
I’ve talked personally and through emails and tweets with a lot of people who were in the Texas capitol last week. They watched almost in amazement at pro-abortion demonstrators whose vitriol and aura of vengeance made many afraid for their safety.
As NRLC Field Coordinator Andrew Bair wrote, “Several pro-life lawmakers reported receiving death threats and violent messages on social media as the battle raged. On Friday, there were reports that officers had confiscated paint and jars of feces and urine from pro-abortion protesters, which they had intended to bring into the Capitol. More than a few pro-lifers were hustled off into rooms where they were protected by police officers.”
From published reports, clearly some unknown percentage was paid demonstrators. But what struck many correspondents who’ve been involved in this battle for sometime was how ugly the anti-life protestors were and how much the rhetorical ante had been upped.
Look at the faces of these people and you see a True Believer on steroids. You are forced to ask yourself this uncomfortable question: how far will these people go?
I don’t mean the crude, ugly, anti-religious signs or the smug manner in which they played to a sympathetic media. That’s the underside of the underside of the underside of the mentality that powers those who hate pro-lifers with such blind passion.
What I do mean is the palpable attempt to intimidate. Again, this goes beyond what happened in the first special session when pro-abortion demonstrators ran out the clock by making so much noise it was impossible to conduct business. And it also transcends the street theatre that was on display in both special sessions but especially the latter.
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Patted gently on the head by an approving media, they really do believe it’s okay to render the democratic process impossible and if they can scare the heck out of their opponents (us), so much the better.
A lot of correspondents compared what they saw this last week to what happened last year in Wisconsin and to the Occupy movement. Having not been there in a situation which by all accounts crackled with a frenzied hatred, I cannot definitely agree or disagree.
What I can say is there were signs everywhere in Texas—and to a lesser but still significant extent in North Carolina—that we are eye-witnesses to a morphing of the pro-abortion movement into something that is out-and-out dangerous. That most of the media explains that away—attributing the much-understated threat of violence to an understandable reaction to a “radical” pro-life bill—only ensures that we will see more and more of what we just witnessed.
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