I think it is fair to say that many members of the public who are not involved with pro-life activities view people who hold vigils outside abortion facilities as dangerous extremists. This is the image portrayed by the media and by abortion providers themselves, who like to present themselves as embattled crusaders for women's rights beseiged by scary pro-lifers with their banners.
Though I do not join vigils outside abortion facilities myself, I know many people who go, week after week, to pray outside these places and brave ridicule and aggression, often under the watchful eye of the police. One student I know was knocked down by the boyfriend of a pregnant woman who no doubt felt desperately threatened by a petite woman handing out leaflets.
I never thought, however, that even a pro-abort could stoop quite so low as to commit a violent assault against an elderly woman for talking a girl out of having an abortion. According to witnesses, Mary Adam (72) was standing outside the Nebraska facility when the mother of the girl she had talked to knocked her to the ground and injured her, before walking into the facility. Mary was assisted by friends and taken to hospital by ambulance.
The woman who committed the assault was charged but not arrested and is unlikely to be prosecuted. I cannot help wondering, as Mary Adam's colleagues wondered, whether the police would have let a pro-lifer off so lightly if they had committed such a cowardly crime? However, I gather from the news report that the police are being urged to do their job and afford pro-life activists the same protection from crime as the rest of the population.
