The McMillans and 26: What Everyone Needs to Know

This is my opinion based on the facts presented. It is not an argument against 26 specifically but rather a warning for people to be careful who they listen to.


So I was not very surprised to see that the executive director of the Christian Action Group in Jackson, Mr. C. Roy McMillan, wrote a letter to the Clarion Ledger and the Hattiesburg American newspaper. After all, the newspaper is a good way to get your opinion published provided that the newspaper editor likes what you have to say. What did surprise me was to find out that the exact same letter had been printed in the Daily Journal and in a local newspaper in our small town. Apparently, he submitted his letter to every freaking newspaper in the state.

When I first saw his name, I did not recognize it. I wondered briefly if he was kin to Beverly McMillan, one of the board members of Yeson26, who has written that, "I painfully agree that birth control pills do in fact cause abortions," and stopped issuing contraceptives in her clinic to both married and unmarried women. Then I forgot about it.

Now that he's writing a bit closer to home, I wanted to know more about him. What I found was not very encouraging. I don't want to engage in any kind of character assassination but I think this man's words speak clearly for him. So I'd like to give him the chance to (figuratively) cut his own throat here and I'd like to show you why I think this man is not pro-life and is not a good moral guide for anyone. McMillan writes:

In addition to my knowledge of basic biology/embryology and the historical Christian ethic of the sacredness of all human life, I speak as one who was adopted from an orphanage in 1943 after having been abandoned soon after birth.

McMillan has a degree in journalism, not medicine, so everything he has learned about "basic biology/embryology" is from his wife. I do not advocate getting important medical knowledge from someone who is not licensed to practice it. He also mentions the "Christian ethic of sacredness" without bothering to mention that not every Christian agrees with the Catholic Church's rigid dogma that "every sperm is sacred" or the anti-science view of some Biblical literalists that pregnancy begins at conception. So I find here no reason to put much stock in his claims so far.

I speak, also, from the unique perspective of a veteran "sidewalk counselor," trying to help pregnant mothers and their companions choose life as they enter Mississippi's abortion centers.

From what I read, his brand of "help" sounds more like harassment - especially when I found that by 2006 he had been arrested 65 times. And I can't imagine that he was very encouraging to these young women when he considers abortion to be the same as murder and those who have or do abortions are murderers. You don't counsel women by screaming at them, "Mommy, mommy, don't kill me!" and "Don't let them get their grubby bloody hands on you!" He also visited the abortion doctors' neighbors to let them know an "abortionist" was in town. As he described it, "We have a duty to expose wickedness."

I can't imagine that he was much help to anyone in the black community either despite the facade since he once said the state's high rate of unplanned pregnancy was because of "the moral degeneration of the black culture, and I submit it's caused by the welfare mentality." It's kind of hard to feel good about yourself when your gender and your race are on trial.

It's also rather telling that McMillan's "counseling" partner often felt he was too abrasive and turned women away from their cause with his ranting. The National Women's Health Clinic President called his actions "abuse," saying that he yelled at other pro-lifers as well as the patients.

What I have not seen is a mother gleefully exiting the center after undergoing an abortion appearing "emancipated." We know the devastation that will follow.

First, you won't see a woman joyously skipping away from an abortion because it's a very important, sometimes life-altering decision and it can be an invasive medical procedure. I wouldn't expect McMillan to know that from experience since he doesn't have a uterus and will never get pregnant. However, you'd think with his wife's instruction in "basic biology" that he'd have some clue.

Also, we don't know that "devastation" will follow. Some women have struggled after their abortions. Some have not. Each experience is very personal to the woman who made the choice. It is not a decision that most women make lightly as the extremists would like us to believe.

What is the purpose of government? The first purpose of civil government is to protect its innocent citizens, especially those in the dawn and dusk of life.

Actually, government's purpose is to secure the rights of its citizens. Whether you like it or not, that includes a woman's liberty to decide what's in her best interests medically. Life certainly is an important right but it is not, in and of itself, the most important right. As Patrick Henry rightly said, "Give me liberty or give me death." Our founders and the American people risked their fortunes and their lives for liberty - they knew that life without liberty was worthless.

This is one reason why I think Roe was rightly decided. It weighs the mother's liberty against the unborn's life. The longer the fetus lives, the greater its rights become until, near the end, its right to life is equal to (but never more than) the rights of the mother. But I digress...

In order to give God a reason to hear our prayers and heal our land, the killing of the holy innocents must end!

Well, we don't make laws in this land so that a particular religion can be happy. We have freedom of religion. McMillan needs to buy an island and set up his own theocracy if he wants law based on religion. Also, who ever said that the unborn were "holy innocents"? My copy of the Bible doesn't say that ANYWHERE. The word "innocent" is used 38 times in 37 verses and I couldn't find where it was used in reference to the unborn specifically. In fact, it says "There is none righteous, no not one." McMillan doesn't seem to know his Bible any better than he knows his biology. He's just repeating Catholic doctrine and we don't make laws favoring Catholicism.

But this is not the most troubling part. The thing that angers me is that this clown is masquerading as a "pro-life" guy when he appears to be nothing of the sort. Yes, he is against abortion. And yes, he is against the death penalty. No doubt that comes from his family converting from Southern Baptist to Catholicism. I give him full points for being consistent in this regard, but what I cannot ignore is that he claims that murdering abortion doctors is justifiable.

His business cards proudly proclaim, "If you believe abortion is murder... ACT like it's murder." That might not seem so odd at first but it's chilling when you consider it along with his signature on a defensive action statement for the acquittal of Michael Griffin, a "pro-lifer" who murdered Dr. David Gunn as well as his ties to Paul Hill, another "pro-lifer" who was executed in 2003 for murdering two other abortion doctors.  The statement McMillan signed simply says:

We, the undersigned, declare the justice of taking all godly action necessary to defend innocent human life including the use of force. We proclaim that whatever force is legitimate to defend the life of a born child is legitimate to defend the life of an unborn child. We assert that if Michael Griffin did in fact kill David Gunn, his use of lethal force was justifiable provided it was carried out for the purpose of defending the lives of unborn children. Therefore, he ought to be acquitted of the charges against him.

Paul Hill and Scott Roeder (the man who murdered Dr. George Tiller in his church) are labeled "Anti-Abortion Heroes of the Faith" on the Army of God website. They are a radical "pro-life" group who only appears to care about life so long as it's in the womb - so much so, in fact, that they consider birth control to be "evil." That McMillan would defend such a deprivation of life and due process reveals his claims of "pro-life" and "patriot" for the shams they really are. McMillan can say all day that he doesn't condone violence but the fact is that he did so and in writing. For this reason I consider him to be an apologist for domestic terrorism.

And so, let me just say that I have absolutely no intention of letting someone as immoral as C. Roy McMillan make my voting choices for me. And I have absolutely no intention of letting his wife sit on the Yeson26 advisory board and claim on one hand that the threats against birth control are "scare tactics" while she has publicly stated that the pill is an abortifacient and banned it from her practice. I find these two people, in this regard at least, to be unethical and dishonest and I do not appreciate the way in which they are working hard to deceive Mississippi voters about initiative 26.


For more information, check out the links here and here.

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