Keyes: Abortion, terrorism are "same evil"

Published August 17, 2004 5:49PM (EDT)

If Democrats ever feel frustrated about John Kerry's inability to "explain himself" clearly, they can take some solace in one thing: Alan Keyes is the other side's candidate for the U.S. Senate race in Illinois.

The Chicago Sun-Times has the latest on Keyes' problem with that bit of anatomy that sits between his nose and his chin.

On May 7, the paper says, Keyes delivered a speech in which he linked the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks with abortion rights in America. "Now, you think it's a coincidence that on Sept. 11, 2001, we were struck by terrorists, an evil that has at its heart the disregard of innocent human life? We, who have for several decades killed not thousands but scores of millions of our own children, in disregard of the principle of innocent human life -- I don't think that's a coincidence, I think that's a warning. I don't think that's a coincidence, I think that's a shot across the bow. I think that's a way of Providence telling us, 'I love you all; I'd like to give you a chance. Wake up! Would you please wake up?'"

On Monday, the Sun-Times says, Keyes clarified his remarks and set the record straight. "What distinguishes the terrorist from the ordinary warrior, is that the terrorist will consciously target innocent human life," the Sun-Times quotes Keyes as saying. "What is done in the course of an abortion? . . . Someone consciously targets innocent human life. As I often point out to folks, the evil is the same. And that means, quite frankly, in fighting the war against terror, as I have often put it to audiences, the evil that we fight is but the shadow of the evil that we do."


By Tim Grieve

Tim Grieve is a senior writer and the author of Salon's War Room blog.

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