society that encourages mothers to bring their unborn children to doctors not for care, but to be slaughtered in horrific and unimaginable ways.”
Barket next turned to the argument that shooting Slepian was justified. The simple syllogism cannot be refuted, he said: all innocent life is worthy of protection. Unborn children are innocent life. Therefore unborn children are worthy of protection. And the Catholic Church supports force, too, even deadly force, to protect others, contrary to what Marusak had said. Barket attacked the sanctity of the rule of law. “Our Supreme Court, as honorable as it is, also once indicated that slavery was a choice. They said African-Americans are nonpersons. They have said that unborn children were not children and it’s OK to kill them.”
The law had been wrong on slavery, segregation and it was wrong once more, on abortion. “The fact the Supreme Court has declared abortion to be legal does not answer its morality. Abortion is immoral. It’s an intrinsic evil. Jim Kopp is a hero. And today I think he will become a martyr.” Barket said he was reminded of the famous abolitionist John Brown. Brown had long advocated violence to resolve the great social issue of his day and had once led a band of men in a deadly attack on neighbors who advocated slavery. He had later tried to lead a slave rebellion, and had been hanged for that. “One hundred and forty years later, we see John Brown as a hero. There is a shrine built to him for freeing slaves. The judge in his trial is a historical footnote.”
D’Amico was once again underwhelmed by the presentation. He was not hearing Barket make an argument. He was making a speech, a statement. He’s telling me how I can be a hero, the judge thought. Barket’s approach was not sitting well with him, not at all. What are you talking about, Mr. Barket—I’m supposed to have courage to impose a minimum sentence, thereby sending a message about my moral convictions? Don’t presume what my moral convictions are. Or am I supposed to base my ruling on your convictions?
Barket concluded by saying that Kopp deserved the minimum sentence, “to reflect the complexity of the issues involved” and to vindicate the other victims in this case, “the unborn who are killed by abortions every day.” Finally, he took a swipe at the FBI. At the same time as “hundreds of agents, thousands of work hours and millions of dollars were spent in hunting down, capturing and prosecuting James Kopp, and making America safe for abortionists,” real terrorists, in al-Qaeda, were plotting the 9/11 attacks. “To law enforcement, I would say, stop using your resources to protect abortionists. It is akin to protecting the slave owners. History will not judge you kindly. The fact abortion is legal is not the final word on whether or not what Jim did is moral or immoral. Thank you.”
“Thank you, Mr. Barket,” said D’Amico. “Mr. Kopp, anything you would like to say in your own behalf?”
Chapter 25 ~ Supernaturally Wicked
Marshals took the cuffs from his wrists. He stood up from behind the table he shared with Barket, shuffled to the lectern at the front of the courtroom, five armed sheriffs now gathered in a ring of security around a man who looked as if he was not strong enough to rip a sheet of paper. This was his chance, four and a half years after his run from the law had begun, his chance to account for himself, to unravel the mystery of how young Jim Kopp from Marin County became the sniper James Charles Kopp. He looked thinner and paler than in March. He wore the usual blue blazer that hung loosely from his frame. He organized his stack of papers.
“Yes. Good morning, Judge. On October 23, Judge, in 1998, late at night I shot Dr. Slepian. Let me explain a little bit about why and how.” At first his voice registered barely above a whisper. Judge D’Amico asked him to move closer to the microphone at the lectern. “All right. This is not easy for me to talk about, Judge. I want to make it clear that this information I’m about to give is not why I shot Dr. Slepian. However, it does explain how I went from someone who had, let’s say, an intellectual understanding of an abortion to someone who had a much stronger feeling about what abortion really represents in the United States.
“In large measure it began really in 1980, at Stanford Hospital, California. I saw a baby killed from abortion that had attained eight months’ gestation. If I had not seen this, I doubt I would ever have ended up here. Murder is not something to be voted on, any more than rape or robbery. Anyone who wants to understand what abortion is really about must see the body of a child first before they speak. Dr. Slepian was perfectly qualified to speak about abortion. He saw many bodies.
“In 1987 I witnessed the first forced abortion I ever saw. I was told that because of an injunction I could not try to stop it. I wish I had anyway. A woman with polio in both legs was dragged, sobbing and pulling back, to the door of the mill—we use the word mill, Your Honor, because a clinic is where you walk in the door, sit and you walk out healthy. That cannot be used to describe an abortion mill, where the woman is basically messed up for life and the baby is dead. A woman with polio in both legs was dragged, sobbing and pulling back, to the door of the mill, where two nurses reached out, grabbed and pulled her in. She was walking with calipers and braces on her. Any sidewalk counselor in America can tell you of similar incidents. I can talk all day about this.”
He saw it all, with his own eyes. And other forced abortions, too. The women emerging from the mill, weeping, sobbing, scarred in body and mind, destined for endless drug and psychotherapy treatments, perhaps committing suicide. They are brainwashed, browbeaten and bullied into abortions, usually by men. There was more. Kopp talked about his speech to the young prostitutes at Juvenile Hall in San Francisco. How he had been “the first westerner” to hear eyewitness accounts of forced abortions in China. He touched on what he saw as key historical moments in the abortion war. Forced sterilization. Hitler. “This is covered really well in a book called QB VII by Leon Uris. I can’t tell you how much I recommend this book. It connects sterilization, abortion, and ultimately the Final Solution.”
Just minutes into his statement he was already all over the map. Those in the courtroom hearing him speak for the first time were amazed. Journalists who were barred from using tape recorders, as is the usual rule, scrambled to write it all down but could not keep up. But this was Jim Kopp speaking the way he always spoke when engaged in heavy conversation. He was back at the hostel in Dinan spelling out his world view for a friend, his mind processing his scattered thoughts, connecting the dots.
“Here’s a quote: ‘In view of the large families of the native population’—now this phrase, native population, means Polish, Gypsies or Romanians and Jewish people, bear in mind—‘it could only suit us if girls and women in that native population had as many abortions as possible. We could not possibly have any interest in increasing the non-German population.’ That’s a quote from Adolf Hitler.”
A central belief of pro-life activists is that, if only people are exposed to the reality of abortion, the effect on patients, the trauma of the unborn baby, and can learn the historical context, they—not the hardcore pro-abort ideologues, of course, but those in the middle or with little commitment—will see the light. Their eyes will be opened to the truth. And so Jim Kopp was once again the teacher. But what good could this possibly do with D’Amico and the sentencing? Kopp quoted Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood, a favorite target for pro-lifers.
“Here’s another quote, from 1939: ‘The most successful educational approach to the Negro is through religious appeal. We do not want word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population.’ We find that quote in a book called Margaret Sanger, Father of Modern Society. Obviously, Judge, she agreed perfectly with Hitler about the notion of the master race. What she contributed, that Hitler didn’t, was technique.”
He tried to draw a connection between Hitler, Sanger and Bart Slepian. He looked down at notes he had made from an article written by Amanda Robb, Slepian’s niece, who had visited him in the jail in France. “Now, the next quote, Your Honor, I will make very clear, I didn’t find out until 2002. It comes from the niece of Dr. Slepian.”
But then Kopp was off on another tangent. “There was a film called A Matter of Choice, in the 1980s. Very influential. There was another film made at the same time showing a forced abortion where a woman at the last minute wants to jump off the table. Very common thing, and the nurse does a verbal slapping. You don’t actually give someone anesthetic like Novocaine or whatever, but you use your voice to get them to sit down and shut up and stop. Women and men who have come out of the profession of killing children, they can corroborate all of this.
“Anyway. In this movie A Matter of Choice, they interviewed this Dr. Allred in Los Angeles. He made an extremely similar comment to the one I’m about to tell you. In any event, Dr. Slepian’s conversation actually took place in 1997. Dr. Slepian, when asked why he did abortions, answered that it was ‘part and parcel of keeping the minority quotient manageable’.”
