Analog July 1986 [antikvár]

iditaidUNHOIY WARStanley SchmidtThree years ago (May 1983) I ran an editorial here called "The Right to What?" which drew lots of mail, much of it irate (sometimes for conflicting reasons) because it dealt with the ongoing controversy over the morality of abortion. It doesn't matter what you say about that subject; so many people's emotional reactions to it have hair triggers that as soon as ypu mention the word, tempers will flare and rationality be smothered by passion. That editorial, for instance, never took a stand. All it did was raise a series of questions for consideration yet it drew hate mail from extremists at both ends of the spectrum who saw in my questions whatever answers they personally found most distasteful.It is time, I regret, to return to that subject. My closing words in 1983were, "My hope, for now, is just that we all get clearly in mind exactly what the question is, before we get too violent with each other over answers." Since then, increasingly, some of us have become too violent over answers.Ironically, the people I'm talking about are so adept at twisting words to their own needs that some of them will probably write indignantly to deny that what I am talking about is violence, since it does not (at least usually, so far) kill or injure persons. You've read about the growing incidence of bombing of abortion clinics; some of the perpetrators have claimed, with straight faces, that these are "nonviolent protests" because only property is destroyed. I'll pass lightly over the fact that my dictionaries don't specify in any of their definitions of violence that it must be4Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact