Anthrax Suspect's Abortion Stance Eyed As Motive

[RedEarth]

All Things Considered, August 7, 2008 · Bruce Ivins may have targeted Sens. Tom Daschle and Patrick Leahy with anthrax-laced letters in 2001 because he saw them as bad Catholics owing to their votes in favor of abortion rights, officials close to the investigation say.

........

Ivins and his wife were both practicing Catholics, and their children had attended and graduated from a Catholic high school in Frederick, Md. His wife, Diane Ivins, according to an e-mail Ivins wrote in 2002, was president of the Frederick County Right to Life, and the couple had connections to many other anti-abortion groups. In a July 10, 2002, e-mail cited in the affidavit, Ivins wrote: "I'm not pro-abortion, I'm pro-life, but I want my position to be one consistent with a Christian."

In 2001, the Catholic anti-abortion movement was openly critical of Catholic members of Congress who voted in support of abortion rights for women. Two of the more prominent lawmakers who fell into this category were Daschle and Leahy. The Ivins affidavit mentions an article in the September/October 2001 issue of the Right to Life of Greater Cincinnati newsletter that singled out Daschle, Leahy and Sens. Edward Kennedy and Joseph Biden for criticism because of their abortion rights votes.

The article was part of a longer dispatch by the leader of the Netherlands-based International Right to Life, Dr. John Wilke. The small article, titled "Pro-Abortion Catholic Senators?", ended with: "We should stop labeling these men Catholic, for anyone who directly aids abets or gets an abortion, by Catholic teaching, excommunicates themselves."

The affidavit stops short of saying that Ivins read the article. But officials close to the case say the newsletter was found in a search of his home. Given his longstanding connection to Cincinnati (he attended college there), his wife's role in the Frederick Right to Life Chapter, and his own beliefs about abortion, it is not implausible to have found the article in Ivins' home. Officials close to the case said that they believe Ivins' right-to-life fervor was at least part of the reason he would target Daschle and Leahy.

Officials also said Ivins did a great deal of mailing under pseudonyms and from various cities other than his hometown of Frederick. Much of that letter traffic involved anti-abortion or Right to Life activities, they said.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=93385756&ft=1&f=1016

[Bob Dobbs]

1. That's a real stretch.

Like the whole farce.

Dr. Phillip Zack is the perpetrator for busholini inc.

[hlthe2b]

2. So then all practicing Catholics have motive to become

terrorists!??????? :sarcasm:

Good heavens, what a reach.... :eyes:

[Supersedeas]

3. should that give rise to a review of all pilots licenses and security clearances

for all those who are members of 'extremist' Christian organizations -- however Attorney General Mukasey would like to define them.

[arcadian]

4. Why did he send Anthrax to American Media Inc.?

For somebody who was a "pro-lifer" and somebody who knew the spread/scatter factor for Anthrax he supposedly certainly didn't give a shit about infecting innocent people. The story is bullshit. I'm convinced now that Ivins was probably complicit in that he knew something was going on, but that he had little to do with the attacks other than say, providing the Anthrax.

[mikeytherat]

5. Round One: Evil scientist, hell-bent on revenge

Round Two: This is somehow tied to his obsession with a sorority.

Round Three: He's a registered Democrat.

Round Four: It was his anti-abortion stance. Yeah, that's the ticket.

Keep flinging feces, media monkeys. Maybe something will stick.

mikey_the_rat

[RollWithIt]

6. Then why did he first send the letters to AMI in Florida (tabloids)...

And what about the Tom Brokaw letter? A lot of this stuff against this guy seems really thin. The only thing that would make sense to me is that he was hoping to force work on a vaccine. He never contributed money to political groups btw.

[underpants]

7. So we have a hate radio fan shooting up a church in Tennessee

and a pro-lifer killing 5 people with government anthrax...oh I wasn't supposed to mention that last part, THAT'S upsetting

[hedgehog]

8. THe FBI didn't bother going for a handwriting analysis of the envelopes

because of course the handwriting was disguised. Yet somehow they know that Ivins "did a great deal of mailing under pseudonyms and from various cities".

[Prefer]

9. He supports the sanctity of life so much he is willing to kill for it!

[spanone]

10. yea and he MAY have targeted them for any number of reasons....but i don't buy this one

if he was such a devout catholic, how could he kill himself???? B U L L S H I T

[EFerrari]

12. I don't think that sentence says he's anti-choice.

What is he explaining? Why didn't he just say, "Yes, I'm pro-life"?

He was quite liberal on a lot of issues. I don't believe this.

[HooptieWagon]

11. This angle is as much BS as the "sorority obsession" one was.

In several LTTE Ivins wrote (posted in several other DU threads), he is responding to other LTTEs and gently chiding (even pleading) to those writers to reconsider their abortion rights stances, he is not angry or aggressive. Also, there is no evidence been presented that Ivins has participated in anti-abotion protests or other similar aggressive tactics. Then, out of the blue he commits a serious attack against abortion rights supporting polititians? I'm not buying it. Whatever mental problems he may have suffered from, Ivins does not appear to be an aggressive or violent person - even the "therapist's" claims in her restraining order are the result of FBI coaching (lies) and have to be considered hearsay.

In short, the FBI has no case. Their alleged motives have been laughable. They cannot place Ivins anywhere near the mailing point. They claim to have proved that the original source of the anthrax strain came from Ivin's lab, but cannot prove he was the only person who had access to it. They cannot prove Ivins had the knowledge, tools, and seclusion to manufacture the powdered anthrax from the original liquid. Ivins passed two lie detector tests. Facing the reality that they had no more of a case than "he could have done it", the FBI elected to stalk, harass, and destroy a man who was mentally fragile; and then claim his resultant suicide as proof of guilt. Not only should the FBI be forced to pay damages to Ivins family, it sounds like several FBI people should be jailed. This was not a careless accident, it was a deliberate premeditated act.

[EFerrari]

13. The really haunting thing about Ivins is that he never seems

to have lost his insight. He generated a LOT of writing and you'd think that if he got lost in paranoid thinking, there would be "tracks" of that in the pile of his correspondence.

But, he seems pretty consistently aware of his own states.

[spoony]

15. Indeed, their "let's see what sticks" approach to this case

makes the government sound as ludicrously desperate as they are. It gets more sickening by the day.

[Junkdrawer]

14. *shakes head* ...now they're not even trying to make sense...

Just hoping that the NPR audience will see him as a pro-lifer and not care he was railroaded.

[LibDemAlways]

16. That is ludicrous. I would be willing to bet that

if this is the guy who was responsible, his bank records would lead to deposits that came directly from the WH or Cheney's personal account. No way the criminals at the top didn't sanction and finance the entire operation no matter who they hired to make the actual drops.