Facing the enemy

Emily Lyons was a nurse at an abortion clinic in Alabama when Eric Rudolph detonated a remote-controlled bomb. She survived the attack, but has undergone 21 reconstructive surgeries, lost her left eye, and has visible scars on her arms and legs. On Monday, July 18, Emily Lyons, along with several other Rudolph bombing victims, will confront her attacker face to face in court. "You did not shut the clinic down. You did not shut me down," said Lyons, who planned to testify Monday at Rudolph's sentencing to the first of four life terms for deadly bombings in Birmingham and Atlanta. Rudolph, 38, was a fugitive for more than five years before he was arrested by FBI agents in the hills of North Carolina. He's also one of those psycho-religious zealots who can justify killing on behalf of moral superiority. Under a plea agreement that let Rudolph avoid a possible death penalty, Rudolph confessed to the Alabama bombing and to the bombing at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics that killed one woman and injured more than 100. He also admitted setting off bombs at an abortion clinic and gay bar in Atlanta in 1997. In a statement distributed after his guilty pleas, Rudolph portrayed himself as a devout Christian and said the bombings were motivated by his hatred of abortion and a federal government that lets it continue. It's his--and all other abortion-clinic bombers--extreme hypocrisy that really gets me. Yet, it's amazing and inspiring how women like Emily Lyons remain steadfast in their hope and optimism. To read more about Emily Lyons, check out her site or purchase her book (photo above). Women like her are a real testament.