Army Presentation Labels Pro-Lifers as a Terror Threat

Pro-lifers are used to getting smeared by pro-abortion activists as supposed tyrants who want to control women’s bodies and usher in a “Handmaid’s Tale” dystopia. But what’s more worrying than the epithets hurled by groups like Planned Parenthood is the government’s increasing hostility to those who fight on behalf of the unborn.

The most recent example of this crusade against pro-lifers comes in the form of a July 10 presentation at U.S. Army base Fort Liberty (formerly Fort Bragg) in North Carolina. The presentation in question contained a slide that named two pro-life groups — National Right to Life and Operation Rescue — as “terrorist groups.”

The slide shows the “types of advocacy” carried out by the pro-life organizations that presumably merit them the “terrorist” label: mass demonstrations, picketing, and sidewalk counseling. The presentation also falsely blames National Right to Life of “bombings of [abortion] clinics.”

The discovery of the presentation justifiably provoked opposition from conservatives.

A group of more than 20 Republican representatives, for example, wrote a letter on July 13 to Secretary of the Army Christine Wormuth expressing “outrage” and urging the Army “to immediately issue a correction to all servicemembers who received this briefing, to implement rules to ensure officials do not make similar claims in the Army’s name in the future, and to discipline those individuals responsible for spreading such false and divisive claims.”

Fort Liberty moved quickly to disavow the slides, issuing a statement on July 11 — even before the legislators sent out their letter — promising that “These slides will no longer be used.”

But the fact that these pro-life groups were tarred as “terrorists,” and that they were apparently mentioned in the same vein as actual terrorist groups such as ISIS, is emblematic of a larger problem within the government.

Had the presentation taken place in an out-of-the-way, insignificant base, a case could be made that this is no big deal.

But that fact that this took place at Fort Liberty, America’s largest Army base and home to nearly ten percent of Army personnel, including Special Forces, is extremely worrying.

Nor is the targeting of pro-life Americans a problem within the military only. The Biden administration has been targeting pro-life Americans for years. It has vigorously prosecuted nonviolent pro-life activists, infamously sending FBI teams to arrest two such activists in their own homes while their children were present.

And that doesn’t take into consideration the administration’s lack of any effective response to attacks against “churches, pregnancy resource centers and pro-life organizations” by such pro-abortion groups as Jane’s Revenge and Ruth Sent Us.

It’s true that the Fort Liberty presentation also included certain groups associated with the left, such as People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), under the “terrorism” label. But, as Military.com pointed out, some of these groups — such as the Black Panthers and Weather Underground — haven’t really been active for a very long time. The presentation may as well have mentioned the Imperial Japanese Navy as a current threat.

A more apt focus would have been on groups responsible for widespread destruction and riots in recent years, such as Black Lives Matter, Antifa, or the aforementioned Jane’s Revenge, which has taken credit for a number of firebombings of pro-life facilities.

This ludicrous vilifying of Christians, both at Fort Liberty and as part of the Biden administration’s broader focus on pro-lifers, does serve one good purpose.

It reminds us that, as Paul says, “we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places” (Ephesians 6:12).

It is a sobering reminder of the spiritual evil that animates the pro-abortion movement and other radical leftist ideologies and how highly that evil has reached in American society.

Christians, of course, are still called to love those who disagree with us. Pro-abortion activists support a horrible cause, but they are still made in God’s image and we must encourage them to believe in Christ and repent. But extending that love does not mean putting on blinders and ignoring the true nature of the threat before us.

Understanding that our ultimate enemy is “the cosmic powers over this present darkness” brings clarity to our fight. It means we aren’t shocked when we see how high the evil of abortion has reached, and it prepares us to better champion the lives of the unborn. And, most importantly, it offers us a great comfort — a reminder that though our ultimate enemy is the devil, we have someone much greater fighting on our side against his darkness, and His victory is assured.

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