A Life Wasted

Aftermath

When you consider that my objective was to prevent abortions without harming anyone you would have to think that my letter/flour combo was an overwhelming success. Hundreds of abortion clinics had been closed for multiple days after receiving my letters. Thousands of scheduled abortions were disrupted. According to the abortion industry's numbers, when a planned abortion is interrupted or put off for any reason, 25% of the women change their mind and have their baby. So in those thousands of disrupted scheduled abortions I saw the lives of babies saved.

For the first time since this nightmare started I felt like I had done something that mattered.

Recall that I intended to prevent abortions without harming anyone. In the aftermath of my fake anthrax campaign I believed that I had saved babies without harming anyone. Time would prove me half right. Without question I saved babies by sending those letters, but I did not do so without harming anyone. Two years later I would begin to understand this hard reality. In a Philadelphia federal court, I would come face to face with those that I had harmed. Though I did not physically harm them, I had emotionally scarred them.

At the time it was easy for me to be so caught up in the heat of my own emotions, my desire to save innocent babies from death by abortion. As I have made clear, I was more than caught up in this campaign, I was consumed by it. And in my fervor I failed to consider the emotional toll my acts would extract from my victims. Until my trial I had not even considered those who received my letters victims. I do now.