Antiabortion-Rights Activist Slain In Michigan

Main Category: Abortion
Article Date: 15 Sep 2009 - 5:00 PDT

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An antiabortion-rights demonstrator was shot and killed Friday, allegedly by a man who was angry about the activist's use of graphic posters outside a Michigan high school, the Detroit News reports. Police said that Harlan James Drake, 33, confessed to shooting James Pouillon, 63, on Friday. Drake then allegedly shot a local business owner, whose body was found at his place of business. Pouillon was shot shortly after dropping his granddaughter off at the school, where he regularly held protests involving large photographs of mangled fetuses. According to police, Drake felt that students should not have been subjected to Pouillon's posters (Guthrie et al., Detroit News, 9/12).

President Obama condemned the shooting, calling the attack "deplorable," the AP/Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports. "Whichever side of a public debate you're on, violence is never the right answer," Obama said. Last week's fatal shooting is the second in just a few months connected to the abortion debate. In May, Kansas abortion provider George Tiller was shot, allegedly by an antiabortion-rights activist (Martin, AP/Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 9/13).

Groups on both sides of the abortion-rights debate also condemned the attack. "We are saddened to learn of this tragic taking of innocent human life," said David O'Steen, executive director of the antiabortion-rights group National Right to Life Committee (Detroit News, 9/12). Laura MacCleery, a spokesperson for the abortion-rights group Center for Reproductive Rights, said, "This is not something any group on either side of this debate would ever contemplate condoning."

Police are unaware of any links between Pouillon and the other shooting victim, who authorities said was not connected with the antiabortion-rights movement. Drake allegedly planned to shoot a third person, police said (Graves Fitzsimmons, New York Times, 9/12).

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