Emily Lyons

from Talk to Action

Many professed shock after last week's attempted bombing of an Austin women's clinic. Others felt shocked by their shock, since the religious right's thinly disguised rhetoric of hatred has so permeated our public discourse as to have become the norm. But for some it is easier to pretend not to see what is before their faces, far easier to remain willfully blind.

In 1998, nurse Emily Lyons lost her left eye, was partially blinded in her right and sustained other permanently disabling injuries when another bomb — similarly packed with nails that flew as deadly shrapnel — was detonated at a Birmingham clinic by Eric Rudolph.

"Many may find the graphic images of my trauma ... to be offensive. I hope so. Violence is ugly. You should be offended by the senseless damage caused by the attack. It isn’t the photographs that are bad; it is the act of hate that created them."

Hers are powerful words. But are Emily's courage [pdf photo link] and Emily's words more powerful than the rhetoric of hate that made them necessary?