I've been thinking about Paul Hill lately, the former minister who they just executed for killing an abortion doctor. He's had quite a bit of controversy surrounding him for obvious reasons, and most recently, especially because right before his execution he made statements which basically showed that not only didn't he REGRET his actions, but that he expected to be REWARDED for them in Heaven. Extreme, far right pro-life advocates are praising his actions and his sacrifice, while most of the rest of America, including many people who are still pro-life, thinks he's just a psychopath who used religious hatred as an excuse to kill. Plus, there were people that were worried that his remarks, combined with his execution would end up making him a martyr which would spur other pro-life activists to follow the same route and start killing more abortion doctors.

In fact, in his statements, Hill actually proclaimed himself to be the "first martyr in the fight against the murder of innocents" and said that more people should do whatever is necessary to protect the unborn. He actually welcomed his own execution and said that he "expected a great reward in Heaven" and "a big hug from Jesus." Immediately, for anybody who has followed current events over the last couple years, this brings to mind, as it did for me, thoughts of the 9/11 terrorists, or ANY Muslim terrorists for that matter. People who believe that by sacrificing themselves in honor of Allah, they will receive a great reward. But instead of a hug from Jesus, they get 70 virgins or whatever. And truly, Paul Hill's statements do sound just a little too eerily familiar.

That's what I was thinking at first. When I heard that he expected a "big hug from Jesus," I immediately thought, "Ooooh, I wouldn't count on it my friend." He seemed no less despicable than the so-called Christians who killed Matthew Shepherd simply because he was gay, or the Christians who walked outside his funeral, carrying signs proclaiming, "God hates fags." But the more I thought about it, the more something just wasn't falling into place. The more it seemed like this was different than the Matthew Shepherd case, or the countless suicide bombings. For most people, like I said, this is a simple, open and shut case. The guy was a terrorist acting out of religious fervor. He killed a man because of his religious convictions. He was no better or different than Osama bin Laden. He tried to use terror and violence to change public policy and force people into thinking the same way as he did. Either that, or he was acting as divine judge and passing his own death sentence on a man whom he viewed as a sinner. He thought abortion was wrong, so he figured if more people acted as he did and started killing abortion doctors, then eventually, people would stop performing abortions. Same as the Muslim terrorists. They figure if they can kill enough people and get enough people scared of them, then everybody will just roll over, accept Islam and the Sharia, and Israel will be vacated so that they can rightfully reclaim their homeland once again.

Like I said, should seem pretty obvious to anybody who has been following current events since 9/11. The connections and similarities are all to clear. But like I said, there was something different here that I couldn't quite identify. Something that told me that Paul Hill was somehow different. Something that made me think, maybe he's right when he says that he will be in Heaven. I do believe in Jesus and in one of the central tenets of the Christian faith which is the forgiveness of sins. No matter what you've done, if you are sorry for what you have done and ask for forgiveness, God can and will forgive you and welcome you with open arms. So, supposing all that is true, all Paul Hill would have had to do was ask for forgiveness, and he would most certainly be in Heaven. But Hill didn't ask for forgiveness. He stated very plainly that he had no regrets about what he did. Presuming he wasn't begging forgiveness and repenting when the cameras weren't rolling, that would suggest that he was still accountable to God for the murder he committed and that his salvation was by no means certain.

I'm not going to presume on anybody's salvation here. That's kind of getting away from where I was going with this. Where Hill is now is between him and God. But, how is Paul Hill different from any of the Muslim terrorists that have blown themselves up, killing dozens of people around them in the name of God? How is he different from the people who tied Matthew Shepherd to a fence and left him to die in the name of righteous judgement? And then it finally hit me. When you look at it from a totally rational point of view, Paul Hill was completely justified in what he did. COMPLETELY JUSTIFIED. All it requires is a simple shift of paradigm.

Stay with me here and let me explain. The issue that was at hand - the reason that Paul Hill killed - was ABORTION right? He thought abortion was wrong. He thought it was a sin. Others disagreed with him. The very law was against him because it allows for abortions to be performed. Fed up with the law, Paul Hill killed a sinful man who performed abortions. Those are the facts right? Sure, from most everybody's point of view.

Now, whether you're pro-choice or pro-life, make this leap. "Abortion" is the word that has been assigned to this procedure in which an unborn fetus is removed from a woman's uterus before it is full term, in effect, terminating the life of the fetus. Paul Hill, and many others who think like him don't view it that way. They don't see it as a clinical procedure. They look at it as the MURDER of an innocent life. They view a fetus as a living human being with a soul. Ask anybody who is truly pro-life and that is what they will tell you. A fetus is a living human being and aborting it is tantamount to murder. Pure and simple. Whether you agree with this or not, whether the law backs it up or not, just make that leap for a moment. Take the clinically sterilized word "abortion" out of the picture and imagine that there was a man going around killing babies. Not just one man, but THOUSANDS of men, killing babies. Not fetuses. BABIES. Imagine that after a baby was born, people were walking in and cutting their heads off. With the mother's approval no doubt, but still, they are walking in and cutting off the heads of newborn babies.

Yes, of course I know this opens up a whole other can of worms for debate, and right now, the LAW says that a fetus is not a baby until it is actually born. But as far as a LOT of people are concerned, the law is an insignificant matter here. Even people who have NOT taken up arms still view an unborn fetus as a BABY. A living human being. And that "abortion" is the brutal murder of that living human being. Whether you agree or not, that is the way they sincerely see it. Just like Paul Hill. Though, I have to say, most pro-life people are NOT like Paul Hill. And NOT just because they haven't taken matters into their own hands and killed a doctor.

It's quite obvious to me, that the majority of people who call themselves pro-life don't fully consider an unborn fetus to be a real human being. They don't really consider abortion to be 100 percent MURDER. If they did, I think that the only abortions you'd see performed today would have to be done in secret, in dark alleys, far from the knowledge of the public, because nobody would allow it to continue as it does today. Like I said, put yourself in the paradigm that thousands of crazed maniacs were going around killing newborn babies. They're just going around and chopping babies' heads off. If this was happening, people would demand that the police and the authorities find these men, lock them up and put them on death row. If there were people killing newborn BABIES every day like that, this is what would happen. And if the authorities wouldn't act, you can bet that there would be mobs in the streets hunting down the serial killers themselves. They wouldn't let the LAW stand in the way of stopping these maniacs from killing more babies. Would you? So if a good majority of the population truly views abortion as the literal MURDER of innocent BABIES, why then isn't this happening?

Because they don't really 100 percent believe that abortion is murder. They don't 100 percent believe that a fetus is a real live human being. After all, a fetus is still an intangible object. You can only see it as an electrical image on an ultrasound. It is still just this blob of tissue that kicks and turns every now and then inside a woman's stomach. It can't laugh. It can't cry. Or at least you can't hear it when it does. You can't hold it, kiss it, or caress it. Even pregnant mothers who fully plan on carrying their babies full term and raising them as their beloved children, still call their babies, IT. "Oh, IT just kicked... IT'S gonna be a boy... At night my husband and I sit up and talk to IT..." How can a live person be an "It"? You never look at a businessman walking down the street and say, "Look at the suit it's wearing." A live person with a personality is never an "It." Only inanimate objects are called, "It."

So, people who think that abortion is murder, really only think that in the abstract. They MUST only think that in the abstract. How could ANYBODY sit still and not be outraged that millions and millions of babies are being murdered? Nobody could. If babies were being murdered by the thousands, people would stand up and do something about it. They'd do anything it took to make sure no more babies got murdered. And if they truly believed that fetuses were just as real and alive as newborn babies, they'd do exactly the same thing. They'd do whatever they could to stop the murderers.

That's what Paul Hill did. This wasn't a matter of killing somebody because Hill considered him a sinner, like the people who beat the crap out of Matthew Shepherd and tied him to a fence, leaving him to die simply because he was gay. What THEY did, they did out "righteous anger" and a sense of righteous JUDGEMENT. They were playing the part of divine judge on a kid who they viewed as obscene towards God. And that IS despicable. The same as Muslim terrorists. They kill people they view as infidels. They also kill in the hope that the terror they cause will bring about a change in policy that will both put the Sharia law into effect and give the Muslims their homeland back. What Paul Hill did was something entirely different. He wasn't trying to force a change in public policy. Nor was he playing the part of divine JUDGE. He was playing the part of a PROTECTOR.

He truly in his heart believed that abortion was the MURDER of innocent CHILDREN. Not merely the termination of a pregnancy. It wasn't some kind of intangible clinical "IT" for him. Children were dying and the law wasn't doing a thing to protect them. In fact, the government was actually supporting and protecting the MURDERERS. Serial killers were being given licences to kill and nobody cared. So Hill, in his mind, was stepping up to protect and save the lives of those who couldn't protect or save themselves. Exactly the kind of thing a loving God would want one of His children to do for another of His children. Exactly the thing Jesus came to earth to accomplish.

So, whether Paul Hill was right or wrong, one thing he was NOT, was a hypocrite. Personally, I think ANYBODY who calls themselves pro-life who DOESN'T pick up a gun and kill abortion doctors IS a hypocrite. And I include MYSELF in that blanket statement too. Does that mean I'm going to go register for a gun, or honestly, even change my approach towards abortion even a little? No. Why not? After all, I'm definitely pro-life. I do honestly think that abortion is the murder of a living human being. The murder of an innocent child. If I truly believe that, how could I in good conscience just sit by and allow it to keep happening?

Because I'm a "rational person" people would say. (Well maybe they wouldn't say that after having read this.) But they'd say that Paul Hill was a crazy irrational psychopath who killed because he disagreed with the law. The rest of the pro-life people, while others may disagree with them, can be seen as more or less rational people. Because, a rational person doesn't KILL to support LIFE, right? That's what people are saying. The head of Planned Parenthood, an organization that performs abortions is quoted saying, "It's sad that people like Paul Hill would use murder in the name of 'life.'"

War. The Death Penalty. Freakin' SELF DEFENSE. Couldn't all those be considered "murder in the name of life"? When a cop sees a man pulling a gun out of his pocket and aiming it at another person, does the cop shout at the man to stop? Maybe. If the man continues to pull the gun out, does the cop then call for a warrant to seize the man's gun? Does he go through proper channels to have the man detained? No, he pulls out his own gun, and shoots the man dead. He murders the man "in the name of life." Really, the only difference between that cop and Paul Hill at this point, is the law. The cop's actions are protected by the law. Paul Hill's actions were not.

Right or wrong, Paul Hill did what he did because he truly and honestly believed that he was stopping a serial killer from killing again. Does that mean he's crazy? Is he crazy because he doesn't think like 99% of the rest of the population? Like I said, even the staunchest of pro-life people apparently draw some kind of line between a "fetus" and a "baby." If they didn't, there would be more of them taking up arms. So, what then? Is Paul Hill crazy because he's in the minority of opinion? That certainly doesn't sound like an ideal that I know or ascribe to. That certainly doesn't sound like the American way. How many people do we hail because they didn't listen to their contemporaries who called them crazy? Copernicus. Galileo. The Wright Brothers. They pressed forward even though their opinions were in the minority. And yes, I know the difference is that those people didn't kill people as part of their vision?

But what about others we hail? George Washington is one of this nations greatest heroes because he was such a great war general. Because of his tactical ingenuity, lots of British soldiers died and America became a free independent country. If not for him, we'd still be under a tyrannical monarchy right? How is there a difference between George Washington and Paul Hill? At the time of the American Revolution, there were a great many number of people who thought Washington and the colonials were wrong. They were labeled as "criminals" by the British government. The colonials were certainly in the minority of opinion. There was an entire COUNTRY who disagreed with them. Probably the ratio of people who agreed with the revolutionaries compared with those who disagreed was about the same ratio of people who agree with Paul Hill.

So again, was Paul Hill right or wrong? I honestly don't know what to think. All I can say for sure is that what he did was ILLEGAL. But "legal" and "right" don't always go hand in hand do they? There is the little voice inside me that says Paul Hill is ahead of his time and that he really was right. Not just right in killing an abortion doctor, but right in saying that more people should start doing it. If a fetus is actually a viable, live human being - as living as you or I or a two-minute-old baby, and a couple of hundred deaths could mean saving the lives of MILLIONS more, isn't that a good trade-off?

Would I ever condone that or actively encourage it? No. Why? Because I'm a hypocrite. I say I think abortion is wrong because it is the killing of another human being. But I obviously don't believe that 100%. Something inside me draws the line between fetus and baby. In the womb: fetus. Out of the womb: baby. Why? Is that what society has led me to believe my whole life? Because the majority of opinion (and the law) states that there is a difference? Or is it because I can't see a fetus because it's still just a big bump on a woman's torso and a fuzzy black and white image on a screen? Probably a combination of all of these. Something makes me think that abortion is wrong, but not truly murder in its fullest sense.

The truth is, I don't know what to think. Is Paul Hill, like he said, in heaven getting a great big hug from Jesus? As I said before, I will never presume on anybody's salvation. I believe that God, can and will forgive anything, no matter how horrible. I believe that any sin can be forgiven if one believes in the healing sacrifice of Jesus. And I know that Paul Hill was a follower of Jesus. Based on all I know, a quiet part of me is saying, "Yes." But I truly don't know. It's between him and God now. I know if I were in his shoes, moments before my own execution, I wouldn't have been quite so confident. I would have been begging for forgiveness whether I thought I needed it or not. All I can say is that I'm glad I'm NOT God, because I honestly don't know what kind of judgement I would pass. Because the fact is, while he DID commit a murder, while he DID end the life of another human being, I don't believe he did it out of hatred or righteous anger or even out of hope that his actions would force, through terror, a change of heart and policy in the American public. I believe that Paul Hill (wether you or I agree with him or not) did what he did to protect the lives helpless innocent others. How can I possibly fault him for that?