Ignore Randall Terry

By: Thomas Reese

June 2, 2009

Through savvy manipulation of the media and graphic stunts, Randall Terry turned himself into the self-anointed leader of the pro-life movement. His vivid rhetoric and confrontational style is fodder for the cable news networks. He got lots of coverage in the run-up to President Obama's speech at Notre Dame with his vicious attacks on Notre Dame and his airplane circling the campus with a picture of an aborted fetus trailing behind it.

The media loves to present the most radical face of any movement, whether it is blacks (Black Panthers), feminists (burning bras), gays (drag queens), anti-war protesters (burning American flags) or whatever. Sometimes the movements are suckered into this incestuous relationship because it gets them on television, but it usually is disastrous for the movements since it turns off Middle America.

Many political scientists believe that the Vietnam War was actually prolonged by the flag burners since it made it difficult for the hard hats and others to oppose the war. And certainly gay rights only progressed after the media began presenting gays in suits rather than dressed as drag queens.

Pro-choice leaders are delighted to have Randall Terry as the media face of the pro-life movement, while main-stream pro-life leaders are appalled and try to distance themselves from him. Even the current leaders of the organization he founded, Operation Rescue, have disassociated themselves from him.

Terry went way over the line when he said that the recently murdered George R. Tiller, "was a mass murderer and, horrifically, he reaped what he sowed."

Randall Terry speaks for no one but himself and other extremists, he is not the legitimate face of the pro-life movement. Media (and media consumers) beware.

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