A well-known Michigan abortion protestor was gunned down this week doing what he loved – protesting outside a high school.

No matter his beliefs, it’s tragedy, pure and simple, that a man died. But the arrest of Harlan James Drake for the killing has put a curious spin on the move to make Jim Pouillon a martyr for the pro-life crowd with this news:

He might not have been killed over the abortion cause at all.

Drake, the man arrested and charged with killing the vocal anti-abortion protester on Friday morning, has also been charged with killing a businessman with no ties to the abortion issue and allegedly admitted to having plans to kill a third man, also unrelated to the cause.

“Jim the Sign Guy,” as Pouillon was known in his town, was known for sitting in his wheelchair, oxygen tank at hand, with signs showing unborn fetuses and touting slogans of the anti-abortion movement outside not just the high school but daycare centers and other places where he’s riled up parents. He was arrested in 1994 over an altercation outside a church daycare for hassling parents (the church’s association with Planned Parenthood made them baby killers in his eyes).

Since his death Friday morning, pro-lifers have quickly latched onto him as a new martyr for their cause. Operation Rescue Insurrecta Nex, a pro-life non-profit, issued an immediate press release calling for a press conference to discuss Pouillon’s killing in relation to that of late-term abortion doctor George Tiller earlier this year and “the Obama Administration response and the response of the child-killing movement.”

They’ve latched on to Pouillon quickly, alright.

Ironically, that release was issued by a group associated with Operation Rescue, another pro-life non-profit, whose head Troy Newman, after Tiller’s death, wrote not that Tiller’s death was wrong because a man was killed per se, but because “instead of having yet another prominent abortionist stripped of his license and forced to shut down, the abortion cartel can now extol the endless virtue of “Saint George Tiller,” who gave up his life fighting for the rights of women. No matter how you look at it, killing Tiller was just plain stupid.”

Now Newman’s group is holding a prayer vigil for Pouillon, saying he “was martryed for showing the truth about abortion–we honor his witness by witnessing on behalf of these outcast little ones as he did.”

I thought martyring was “just plain stupid?”

Or we could just say that killing is stupid . . . and immoral . . . and just plain wrong. Whether Jim Pouillon was killed because he was an easy target for a bloodthirsty man or because he pissed people off, along with Mike Fuoss (who Drake is also charged with shooting), he’s a man who should be living today.

Murder is still illegal in every single section of the United States. Unlike abortion – which is very clearly legal.

But with no link to abortion for Mike Fuoss, no link for the third man on Drake’s alleged hit list, Operation Rescue spokesman Randall Terry’s assertion that they will not stop using any of the tactics “that cost [Pouillon] his life” rings untrue.

It’s a tragedy that children had to watch a man die on Friday. It’s a tragedy that two men are dead. Period.

Image: Harlan James Drake (alleged killer)

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