Paul Hill Satire

Paul Hill decided to kill abortionist Dr. John Britton and his escort as they left their clinic, in order to stop them from killing more unborn babies. At least that’s his reasoning for his violent acts. But these acts are more than random violence, they are acts of religious terrorism. Religious terrorism is a “public act of destruction without a political objective designed to create fear, for which religion acts as the motivation, organization, and justification.” Based on the definition of religious terrorism, Paul Hill is a terrorist. The first part of the definition of religious terrorism, public destruction, can be seen throughout Paul Hill’s work against abortion clinics. Paul Hill carried out a public act of destruction by killing

Paul Hill’s reason for killing the doctor and his bodyguard was because, in his eyes, they were performing an immoral act and taking innocent lives. Hill was pro-life and believed that an abortion was a murderous act; that this act had to be put to a stop and that those lives had to be saved – at all costs. Paul Hill believed that killing the abortionist and his bodyguard was necessary, and uses the Ten Commandments to defend and justify his reasoning. The sixth commandment says that one should not murder. It seems strange for Hill to justify his murder with a commandment that says he shouldn’t murder, but to him he didn’t commit murder. He says murder is unjust killing. His actions, conversely, killed a murderer, which is justified. He uses this statement to counteract the notion of being pro-life while taking away two lives himself. He also believes that this commandment “requires the means necessary to defend against murder-including lethal force,” therefore justifying his killing. He believes he would have deserved his charges if he was an abortionist, demonstrating further his strong belief about abortionists being murderers and his need and justification for putting a stop to

In order to have a just war, there needs to be a just cause that protects the innocent, re-establishes a just political order, and turns back aggressors, and is a last resort for the matter. Paul Hill was supporting his pro-life beliefs by protecting millions of innocent babies to ultimately try to stop the legalization of abortion and to turn people away from that act, as well as, bring up the notion of protecting unborn and born children equally (Hill, “Defending the Defenseless”). Hill believed that he was saving more lives through his violent act than the two that would be lost. In Paul Hill’s mind this was the last resort. Paul Hill mentioned that he couldn’t just wound Dr. Britton, but had to kill him, because otherwise Dr. Britton would have continued to kill more unborn babies. Hill compared his circumstances to the situation at Columbine, mentioning how he would be praised if he had killed the shooters, but in his case, he is reprimanded for it. In the Columbine shooting, a person is required to use any means necessary to stop the shooter or someone could call the police to help. Similarly, in the abortion case, Hill used the means necessary to stop the “shooter” of the unborn babies, because he knew the police wouldn’t interfere due to abortion