They were quickly given legitimacy, a voice, a platform on the national abortion debate. What that Brookline bloodbath did, besides kill two women, was swing the abortion debate wide right. It turned fanatics into moderates. It made Operation Rescue legit, and they have been allowed to form the national debate ever since. They have changed the language.
Nobody wants public funds to go towards abortions.
I say the fuckers knew what they were doing. They realized that violence is a very effective political weapon, that it can quickly change or sustain the world's discourse on any given topic, and they were willing to use it. The PLO learned a great lesson in How to Get Your Own Country from Zionist terrorism. Kenya would still be as British as fish and chips if it hadn't been for the Gikuyu Mau Mau. And the Vietnamese would still be speaking French if it weren't for millions of brave peasants and Ho Chi Minh.