George Tiller - medical director of The Women's Health Care Services clinic was shot to death as he served as an usher during church services. He has long been a target of pro-life fanatics as the clinic is one of very few in the US which provide late-term services.
http://www.kansas.com/news/breaking/story/833730.htm
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2009/05/another_abortion_doctor_gunned.php#comments
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Tiller
First link above doesn't work. This one should: http://www.kansas.com/news/breaking/story/833730.html
Please try and counter the disinformation in most news stories about this assassination. Late-term abortions are NOT that of viable foetuses; they are those when the simpler techniques - pill, aspiration, D&C, saline injection - are not available or advisable. Some sources define an abortion after 12 completed weeks' gestation as "late", others after 16 or 20. No foetus is viable before 24 weeks, and when abortions occur at that stage, it is almost always because of a morbid condition that would make a live birth unlikely or allowing the pregnancy lethal for the mother.
This is a horrible story, and reading the write up in the kansas.com link it's clear that Tiller, the staff and the clinic itself had been targets a very long time with limited intervention by the authorities, which is not a surprise.
I'm not thrilled with the phrase "abortion doctor", since it's used by the anti-choice folks to denote abortion providers, as if that's all they are.
[url=http://faithaloud.blogspot.com/2009/05/faith-aloud-mourns-murder-of-dr-g... Aloud Mourns George Tiller[/url]
Abortion Provider Dr. George Tiller was murdered by a gunman who shot him point-blank while he was ushering in services at Reformation Lutheran Church in Wichita, Kansas. His wife, Jeanne, watched in horror from the choir loft.The clergy and members of Faith Aloud mourn the loss of this courageous, dedicated, and religious man. He and his clinic had been the victim of violence many times before, yet he continued to provide women with desperately needed care. As one of the few providers in the country for third trimester abortions, Dr. Tiller served many women who had planned pregnancies that had gone wrong. He was deeply religious and his services to women and families at his clinic included the guidance of a chaplain.
Most of the statements put out by anti-choice organizations are heinous to the extreme. This is willed terrorism, aimed at women over sympathetic doctors' heads.
Associated Press write-up of the current info available.
I still don't understand the philosophy of the pro-lifers, especially when they take others' lives, and especially male pro-lifers, who have nothing to do with female reproductive issues. I know some will say, "oh, they just don't want women having choice" but I really don't think it's that. Or that's not nearly enough of an explanation for the emotion invested in their campaigns. There's an incredible fear and righteousness driving their actions. And yet they kill and eat animals, probably don't think twice about killing a rattlesnake or stepping on a bug. And some of them feel justified killing people, or allowing women who are compromised by their pregnancy to die. So what is this supposed issue around "life" that has them so self-righteous and frothing at the mouth all the time?
An act of terrorism. Several of these murders occurred in the the 90s, when anti-choice fanatics felt they didn't have a friend in Washington.
Dr. Tiller, who had performed abortions since the 1970s, had long been a lightning rod for controversy over the issue of abortion, particularly in Kansas, where abortion opponents regularly protested outside his clinic and sometimes his home and church. In 1993, he was shot in both arms by an abortion opponent but recovered.
Dr. Tiller had also been the subject of many efforts at prosecution, including a citizen-initiated grand jury investigation. In the latest such effort, in March, Dr. Tiller was acquitted of charges that he had performed late-term abortions that violated state law.
Shortly after Sunday's shooting, police said they were searching for a man who had fled in a powder blue Taurus. By mid-afternoon, they said someone had been taken into custody, but offered no additional details.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/01/us/01tiller.html?ref=global-home
Canadian Pro-choice Group Condemns Murder of Kansas Abortion Provider
NATIONAL - Canada's abortion providers and pro-choice leaders are devastated by news of this morning's brutal assassination of Dr. George Tiller of Wichita Kansas. Dr. Tiller was shot at point-blank range this morning just after 10am, in the lobby of Reformation Lutheran Church in Wichita, as he was acting as an usher.
The suspect escaped in a light blue Ford Taurus, Kansas license plate number 225 BAB. He was arrested a short time later. The suspect is described as a white male in his 50's or 60's with grey hair that is balding in the middle. He is about 6'1" and about 220 pounds and was wearing a white shirt and dark pants. It is not known if the suspect is a member of the church.
Dr. Tiller was one of the very few doctors in North America who was able to perform late abortions on women whose pregnancies had gone wrong, or whose lives depended on the ability to get an abortion at a later stage. Women travelled from all over, including Canada, to access his services. Dr. Tiller has long been a target of anti-abortion protests, mostly by "Operation Rescue." He suffered continuous harassment, including death threats, baseless lawsuits, pickets at his clinic and staff residences, vicious slander, and a previous assassination attempt in 1993, when he was shot in both arms outside his clinic by anti-abortion protester Rachelle Shannon.
"I'm in shock, I'm completely devastated. He was a friend of mine," said Joyce Arthur, Coordinator of the Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada. "Dr. Tiller was called a saint by many of his patients, and 'Saint George' by abortion providers across the nation. His incredible courage was inspirational. He never let the ugliness of the protesters dampen his dedication to women's lives and health. He saved the lives of countless women over the years, and his deep compassion and respect for women was legendary. What will happen now to all the women who desperately need his services?"
"Abortion is not a cerebral or a reproductive issue. Abortion is a matter of the heart. For until one understands the heart of a woman, nothing else about abortion makes any sense at all."
- Dr. George Tiller
"By mid-afternoon, they said someone had been taken into custody, but offered no additional details."
Actually, the police went out of its way to deny any apparent connection between the 51-yr old suspect and other parties (e.g. the anti-choice organizations that had been dogging Dr. Tiller):
"Wichita Deputy Police Chief Tom Stolz said (...) all indications were that the man acted alone."
(Associated Press)
From CNN:
"Operation Rescue has worked for years through peaceful, legal means, and through the proper channels to see him brought to justice," the group said in a statement. It offered its prayers for Tiller's family, "that they will find comfort and healing that can only be found in Jesus Christ."
On its Web site, Operation Rescue refers to Tiller as a "monster" who has "been able to get away with murder." And Operation Rescue founder Randall Terry, who is no longer affiliated with the group, called Tiller "a mass murderer."
Yes, we at Operation Rescue don't condone violence, but if you want to be violent, we'll hold your coats for you.
Christian Terrorism.
... and media complicity. A CBC News web story has finally been posted and it ONLY quotes the smarmy prose from Operation Rescue, ignoring all the statements from U.S. and Canadian pro-choice organizations.
The multimillionaire media figure then promised that "we're going to try to stop Tiller," declaring that Tiller's Nazi-like atrocities were stripping the entire nation of its moral authority. In other words, one the nation's most prominent and highly paid media figures told his national television audience that Dr. George Tiller was child-murdering protector of child-rapists, a figure of filth and evil on a par with Adolf Hitler. And on Sunday, someone filled with precisely that idea walked into Tiller's church -- his church -- and shot the doctor dead
Bill O'Reilly (aka "The Falafel of Love") has been "trying to stop" Tiller for years, since denouncing him as a Hitlerian child-murderer and child-rape accomplice on national television in 2006. We have no doubt that O'Reilly, who routinely trumpets his ability to move millions with his golden words (Is he not the man who, year after year, saves Christmas from the evil encroachments of Jews like George Soros?), will manfully step up to claim a large share of responsibility for the stormcloud of murderous demonization that has engulfed Tiller for years, and has now taken his life.
Terrorists the lot of them.
Absolutely. If you folks want to stand up for your values and honour Dr. Stiller's memory, the CBC News website is one place to do it. (The reactioonaries are trying to make his assassination into a trial of late-term abortions.)
Scott P. Roeder, one of the RW vigilantes "Freemen", involved in OperationRescue's prayer activities and in long-standing harassment of Dr. Stiller accordng to a Google search, has been identified by the Wichita Sheriff's office (and Associated Press) as the prime suspect arrested a few hours after Dr. Stiller's assassination.
Also check out the "Army of God" organization, dedicated to "killing the killers".
He has quite a career as a nutbar, it seems. I wonder if he'll be prosecuted under the post 9/11 terrorism laws.
Acting on orders from Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., who said the Obama administration will take "appropriate steps to help prevent any related acts of violence from occurring," the U.S. Marshals Service announced that it will begin protecting certain abortion clinics and doctors.
One group likely to receive protection is Planned Parenthood Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, or PPMNS, which provides abortions and reproductive health services in the three states. In South Dakota, where no doctor is willing to perform elective abortions, Planned Parenthood flies in a doctor once a week from Minneapolis.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/01/AR200906...
this murder
another notch on the barrel
of the race to the bottom
of the ethical barrel.
Violence has been a part of the anti-abortion movement from the beginning, from the overt violence of the murder of other abortion providers to the covert violence of harassing women trying to get to clinics for reproductive services.
Violence is a logical outcome of the extreme self-righteousness of those who claim the "pro-life" label as an absolute and yet who do not have an actual, consistent ethic of life such as the views held by pacifists. Dr. Charles Kimball, a Baptist minister and professor of religion at Wake Forest University, well explains this logical connection in his book When Religion Becomes Evil. According to Kimball, two warning signs that indicate a religious viewpoint is becoming evil are "absolute truth claims" and "the end justifies any means."
http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/panelists/susan_brooks_thistl...
These nutcases have not only been harassing and threatening this doctor for years, he was actually shot about 10 years back and had taken to wearing a bulletproof vest to work (though, sadly and perhaps naively, not to church which he assumed was safe). The group or groups responsible should be declared terrorist organizations, have their assets frozen and be monitored by the FBI.
The group or groups responsible should be declared terrorist organizations, have their assets frozen and be monitored by the FBI.
Hear, hear.
Of course they'll all deny knowing him, even as they rush to scour their bulletins and e-mails and websites for mention of him. "A loose cannon", they'll say. "We're appalled at this", they'll claim, immediately prior to using his death as an opportunity to bleat their views to the press one more time.
ya, Operation Rescue has already removed his postings from their website, though there are still caches of them remaining.
Pond scum they are.
Bill O'Reilly has blood on his hands:
But there's no other person who bears as much responsibility for the characterization of Tiller as a savage on the loose, killing babies willy-nilly thanks to the collusion of would-be sophisticated cultural elites, a bought-and-paid-for governor and scofflaw secular journalists. Tiller's name first appeared on "The Factor" on Feb. 25, 2005. Since then, O'Reilly and his guest hosts have brought up the doctor on 28 more episodes, including as recently as April 27 of this year. Almost invariably, Tiller is described as "Tiller the Baby Killer."
Tiller, O'Reilly likes to say, "destroys fetuses for just about any reason right up until the birth date for $5,000." He's guilty of "Nazi stuff," said O'Reilly on June 8, 2005; a moral equivalent to NAMBLA and al-Qaida, he suggested on March 15, 2006. "This is the kind of stuff happened in Mao's China, Hitler's Germany, Stalin's Soviet Union," said O'Reilly on Nov. 9, 2006.
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2009/05/31/tiller/
Just more of the media manufacturing consent, just the way they do in Canada, obscuring truth and facts, while promoting nasty agendas against people and democracy. O'Reilly is just the most extreme, as of yet anyway.
These nutcases have not only been harassing and threatening this doctor for years, he was actually shot about 10 years back and had taken to wearing a bulletproof vest to work (though, sadly and perhaps naively, not to church which he assumed was safe). The group or groups responsible should be declared terrorist organizations, have their assets frozen and be monitored by the FBI.
I agree, but just like the many armed Christian militias, the Timothey McVey's, the extreme right will never be declared terrorist organizations. Afterall, America declares itself over and over again to be a "Christian" nation. Doesn't leave much room for those of us who aren't Christian. I expect nothing will come of this. The story will be buried and O'Really will continue to spew hate speech to the nation. Basically - things will remain the same.
Not only that, but these well-organized and well-funded terrorists will go on being dismissed by people like SSC as "nutcases", very convenient (and a slur on the true mentally ill).
One thing to remember is that Canadian women are often flown to the US because no doctors here will perform late-term abortions here. Women in the US often flew to Kansas to Dr. Tiller because so few doctors there will perform them. Who will fill the void?. HuffPost has lots on the subject, including [url=http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jill-brooke/how-dr-tillers-abortions_b_209... How Dr. Tiller's Abortions Saved Lives - From Heartache [/url]
One of my friends waited an extra week to have hers because she was on a business trip. By the time she discovered that the baby inside her -- whom she had already made a room for in her heart and in her apartment -- was going to be sentenced to a lifetime of care and emotional and physical agony, my friend made the heart-wrenching decision to terminate the pregnancy.
I remember so vividly her crying into the phone as we spoke.
"I'm going to have to fly to Kansas," she said.
"Kansas! We live in New York. Why Kansas?," I had asked. "There has to be a doctor here."
"It's the only place that will do late term abortions," she said, as an ear-splitting sob interrupted her sentence. "I have another few days to think this through before it's even too late to go there."
After I ran over to her apartment, we discussed the pros and cons of this decision, one that I can promise you, was not made cavalierly or without anguish.
Part of the discussion, and what is often misplaced in the abortion debate, is the underlying truth that couples face.
Raising a child with severe medical or physical deformities tests you and sentences you to a life filled with many obstacles both emotionally and financially. It not only impacts the child, but the whole family.
"I can't do it, " my friend finally declared. "What does that say about me?"
It says, I assured her, that she's honest. And the reason that technology has given us these choices is to make the right decision for her family. I would have made the same decision, as I also told my other friend who was faced with this dilemma.
Because amnio doesn't reveal many issues -- including autism -- other couples who now bravely battle these daily pressures of a child with disabilities teach us about compassion and courage.
In conversations that I've had with quite a few friends who have children with issues, they wished they would have had that choice. However, they are now accepting their destiny with grace and often tears.
...
Because where will my friends or others who want that choice go now?
From the CBC News website:
(...) A man with the same name as the suspect has a criminal record and a background of anti-abortion postings on sympathetic websites.
In one post written in 2007 on the website for the militant anti-abortion group Operation Rescue, a man identifying himself as Scott Roeder asked if anyone had thought of attending Tiller's church to ask the doctor and other worshippers about his work.
"Doesn't seem like it would hurt anything but bring more attention to Tiller," the post said.(...)
Not only that, but these well-organized and well-funded terrorists will go on being dismissed by people like SSC as "nutcases", very convenient (and a slur on the true mentally ill).
Excellent catch martin!
I'm watching Bill O'Reilly now. He's sputtering. Keeps going on about Tiller murdering 60,000 fetuses, "potential human beings".
Fuckwad. I don't know why I'm watching this. I was just alerted to it on Twitter and tuned in.
Why do we have this shit-for-news-station and not Al-Jazeera again?
Please try and counter the disinformation in most news stories about this assassination. Late-term abortions are NOT that of viable foetuses; they are those when the simpler techniques - pill, aspiration, D&C, saline injection - are not available or advisable. Some sources define an abortion after 12 completed weeks' gestation as "late", others after 16 or 20. No foetus is viable before 24 weeks, and when abortions occur at that stage, it is almost always because of a morbid condition that would make a live birth unlikely or allowing the pregnancy lethal for the mother.
martin, I know you mean well with this comment, but it is irrelevant! Even if the fetus is "viable" or won't cause danger to the mother, etc. ,etc. she still has the right to abortion at any stage. At the moment there is literally no access in Canada for late-terms.
I agree women have the right to abortion at any stage, but - once this argument has been made, and it has - I think it is crucial to oppose the anti-abortionists focus on late-term abortions as murders of viable babies, since it almost never is. As I am sure you know, their main strategy is to try and force a law that would institute a cutoff stage after which abortions would be forbidden.
Slaying suspect tied to militias; Antiabortion activist Scott Roeder, held in Dr. George Tiller's slaying, had an arrest on explosives charges.
Tuesday, 02 June, 2009
Los Angeles Times (U.S.)
WICHITA, KAN. -- The 51-year-old man held on suspicion of killing prominent abortion provider Dr. George Tiller belonged to anti-government militia groups, had been convicted of carrying explosives in his car and was outraged by the doctor's speedy acquittal on abortion-related charges, authorities and antiabortion activists said Monday.
Scott Roeder had attended a demonstration outside a Kansas City, Kan., abortion clinic two weeks ago and spoke of traveling to Wichita for Tiller's trial, said longtime antiabortion activist Eugene Frye.
Authorities and friends described Roeder as a soft-spoken but intense man who held low-paying jobs and normally spent his time chatting about the illegality of the federal income tax or esoteric interpretations of the Old Testament.
But Frye said he noticed a difference on May 16.
"He said he'd been down to Wichita for George Tiller's trial, and he said it was an absolute sham," Frye said. "He seemed agitated -- but agitation for Scott, for a lot of people would be normal."
An investigation spurred by former Kansas Atty. Gen. Phill Kline, a strong abortion foe, led to charges that Tiller failed to consult with an independent physician, as required by state law, before performing late-term abortions in his Wichita clinic. Antiabortion activists recall seeing Roeder in the courtroom. On March 27, the jury took less than an hour to find Tiller not guilty.
One of the last doctors in the country to perform late-term abortions, Tiller, 67, was shot to death in the foyer of his Wichita church Sunday.
Three hours later, authorities stopped a 1993 Ford Taurus matching the description of the shooter's outside Kansas City and arrested Roeder. According to media reports from the scene, there was a lone rose in the rear window, a marker of the antiabortion movement.
He is being held without bail in Wichita by the Sedgwick County Sheriff's Department. (...)
Clinic worker chased off suspect before doctor's slaying
Monday, 01 June, 2009
CNN.com (U.S.)
WICHITA, Kansas -- The day before a Kansas abortion provider was gunned down at his church, the suspect in his slaying was chased off from another clinic he tried to vandalize, a worker there said Monday.
Scott Roeder faces a scheduled court hearing Tuesday in the weekend slaying of Dr. George Tiller, one of the few U.S. doctors who still performed late-term abortions. Associates described Roeder as a regular participant in anti-abortion demonstrations in Kansas City and Wichita, where Tiller's practice was located, but most abortion opponents disavowed him Monday.
Roeder was "a regular" in demonstrations outside Central Family Medicine in Kansas City, Kansas, a clinic worker told CNN. The worker, who spoke to CNN on condition of anonymity out of fears for his safety, said Roeder's height -- over 6 feet -- made him "hard to miss."
Early Saturday morning, a worker at the clinic "actually chased after him" after spotting him trying to pour epoxy into the facility's locks two weekends in a row. Video surveillance cameras at the clinic captured Roeder on May 23, but not well enough "for any kind of conviction of any sort," the worker said.
"He hit us in 2000, the same thing -- two weekends in a row," the worker said. But Saturday, "He only got one lock glued before we nailed him."
Another clinic worker "managed to catch his license plate number," the worker said. "I reported this to federal authorities on Saturday." He said FBI agents told him nothing could be done with the information until a federal grand jury convened.
I agree women have the right to abortion at any stage, but - once this argument has been made, and it has - I think it is crucial to oppose the anti-abortionists focus on late-term abortions as murders of viable babies, since it almost never is. As I am sure you know, their main strategy is to try and force a law that would institute a cutoff stage after which abortions would be forbidden.
Exactly correct martin.
“It was with great shock and sadness that I learned yesterday of the shooting death of Dr. George Tiller in Kansas,” said Layton. “Dr. Tiller was murdered in his house of worship, in front of friends and family because of the beliefs he held and the services he provided to women.”
“I raise my voice to condemn this murder. This was a heinous act of vigilantism that cannot be tolerated no matter what beliefs we hold,” he said. "This horror sends a chill down the spines of all those in the U.S. and here in Canada who work to ensure that women and their doctors are able to make free choices about their health. We know, however, that they will stay strong against this cowardly attack."
And not 1 comment about it from any other party!
Roeder's family life began unraveling more than a decade ago when he got involved with anti-government groups, and then became "very religious in an Old Testament, eye-for-an-eye way," his former wife, Lindsey Roeder, told The Associated Press.
"The anti-tax stuff came first, and then it grew and grew. He became very anti-abortion," said Lindsey Roeder, who was married to Scott Roeder for 10 years but "strongly disagrees with his beliefs."
"That's all he cared about is anti-abortion. `The church is this. God is this.' Yadda yadda," she said.
A commenter on Daily Kos noted that Mr. O'Reilly once sent a producer to ambush the doctor at his home in Kansas. After the producer told him that some people called him a "baby killer," the doctor tried to leave his house and called 911. The camera crew ended the confrontation.
On Monday, Media Matters for America, a left-wing group that catalogs what it calls "conservative hate speech," published a 2006 clip from Mr. O'Reilly's radio show in which he said, "If I could get my hands on Tiller," followed quickly by: "Well, you know. Can't be vigilantes. Can't do that. It's just a figure of speech."
Mr. O'Reilly draws wide attention because he has ranked as the top-rated host on cable news for the past seven years. Inherent in the criticism were questions about media responsibility; the blogger Andrew Sullivan suggested that the case "could be the end to O'Reilly's dangerous, demonizing game."
[url=http://www.huffingtonpost.com/deborah-king/george-tillers-murder-and_b_2... Tiller's Murder and Sotomayor[/color][/url]
Those who sit quietly in the pews or in the synagogue, or passively listen to our friends and relatives rail against abortion and declare that it ought to be against the law; we also bear responsibility. Silence implies consent and we who remain silent are indirectly complicit in the murder of those brave, bold medical professionals who perform abortion against the tide of religious fundamentalism. [...]...[W]e must stop being shocked and start taking action--action to express defense of the separation of religion and state.
What does that mean in practice? For starters, it means our president, who recently nominated a judge to the Supreme Court whose views on abortion are ambiguous, must reaffirm his commitment to defending a woman's right to choose an abortion. It means Judge Sotomayor must address this issue without equivocation during her confirmation testimony and, if she is not in favor of individual rights, she should withdraw her nomination. It means President Obama must consider and, if necessary, deploy a military defense of the nation's abortion clinics, protecting their rights under the law.
That's a bit much. Sorry, but no, being against abortion does not make you an accessory to Tiller's murder, nor does sitting by and "passively listening to our friends and relatives rail against abortion and declare that it ought to be against the law."
That's ridiculous. It's one thing to blame people who have actually incited or encouraged people to be violent against Tiller. It's another thing to claim that people who are against abortion - even people who consider it "murder" - are somehow responsible for this.
It's quite common among people in the left to call George Bush a "terrorist" and "mass murderer". If he someday ends up being assassinated, there's no way in hell I'm going to feel personally responsible for it in any way, merely because I said he was a mass murderer.
Let's get real. Everyone's upset about this excellent doctor's death, but there comes a point when anger turns into complete unreason.
Rachel Maddow, on the history of anti-abortion terrorism of abortion providers. She is my newest true love.
It makes sense to me that if you repeatedly slander someone in public, or even tolerate such talk, and then harm comes to that person, you bear a modicum of responsibility. Abortion isn't an idea we express judgements about in vacuo. It involves very real women, nurses and doctors who are still being put through extreme hardship by the anti-choice lobby. Are we our brothers' and sisters' keepers? Damn right, we are.
All it takes for evil to succeed is for good people to do nothing.
Edmund Burke 1729-1797, Ireland
Sure, great. If you're inciting people to violence publicly on your syndicated international TV show, then sure.
If you're sitting in a church "passively listening" to other people at church "rail against abortion" and call it "murder", or even if you're one of the people at the church making such statements, then I'm sorry, but no, you do not bear a "modicum of responsibility" for someone murdering a doctor who does abortions.
Unless, of course, you think that babblers would be personally responsible if a right-wing leader we consider to be a "mass murderer" or "war criminal" was murdered by someone.
Considering someone's actions to be criminal, murderous, or whatever, is not the same thing as calling for that person's murder. We can all go apeshit on the left over this one and whip ourselves into a huge frenzy and say that every person in the world who has ever called abortion "murder" (or sat by quietly while others did) is somehow complicit in this murder. But not only is that stupid and illogical, but the tables will be turned if anyone we use similar rhetoric about ever ends up murdered by someone.
Enjoying your comments on the cbc story Martin...keep em up.
Thanks! Here is a tremendous testimony that was posted on a discussion list:
To give an idea of Dr. Tiller's work, here is an anonymous blog comment from someone whose wife benefitted from Dr. Tiller's services:
From the Balloon Juice blog at: http://www.balloon-juice.com/?p=22002
Commenter deekaa6 on his experiences with Dr. George Tiller:
In 1994 my wife and I found out that she was pregnant. The pregnancy was difficult and unusually uncomfortable but her doctor repeatedly told her things were fine. Sometime early in the 8th month my wife, an RN who at the time was working in an infertility clinic asked the Dr. she was working for what he thought of her discomfort. He examined her and said that he couldn't be certain but thought that she might be having twins. We were thrilled and couldn't wait to get a new sonogram that hopefully would confirm his thoughts. Two days later our joy was turned to unspeakable sadness when the new sonogram showed conjoined twins. Conjoined twins alone is not what was so difficult but the way they were joined meant that at best only one child would survive the surgery to separate them and the survivor would more than likely live a brief and painful life filled with surgery and organ transplants. We were advised that our options were to deliver into the world a child who's life would be filled with horrible pain and suffering or fly out to Wichita Kansas and to terminate the pregnancy under the direction of Dr. George Tiller.
We made an informed decision to go to Kansas. One can only imagine the pain borne by a woman who happily carries a child for 8 months only to find out near the end of term that the children were not to be and that she had to make the decision to terminate the pregnancy and go against everything she had been taught to believe was right. This was what my wife had to do. Dr. Tiller is a true American hero. The nightmare of our decision and the aftermath was only made bearable by the warmth and compassion of Dr. Tiller and his remarkable staff. Dr. Tiller understood that this decision was the most difficult thing that a woman could ever decide and he took the time to educate us and guide us along with the other two couples who at the time were being forced to make the same decision after discovering that they too were carrying children impacted by horrible fetal anomalies. I could describe in great detail the procedures and the pain and suffering that everyone is subjected to in these situations. However, that is not the point of the post. We can all imagine that this is not something that we would wish on anyone. The point is that the pain and suffering were only mitigated by the compassion and competence of Dr. George Tiller and his staff. We are all diminished today for a host of reasons but most of all because a man of great compassion and courage has been lost to the world.
It's interesting to see the repeated 'Adoption' arguement come up over and over again in the CBC comments...I wonder what the adoption rates for children with "severe mental or physical deformities" is?
Dr. Tiller was a brave man. He did not deserve to be killed.
I'm ashamed that the insane right-wing anti-choice movement exists in my country.
Forcing people like the couple in the last example to carry a doomed preganancy to term is not "defending life". It is simply imposing misery.
And I think that those who are in this sector of the anti-choice movement are mainly driven by the fear of some people not being subjected to needless pain and fear, because for this crowd, pain and fear are the only things in life that are real.
Well, yes I think all frequencies of the political spectrum engages in hyperbolic rhetoric. And, how we percieve that rhetoric more often than not comes down to whose ox is being gored.
But I still believe that the murder of this particular doctor is the culmination of a determined campaign, not limited to Bill O'Rielly. A handfull of leftists shouting about George W. Bush being a terroist, or war criminal hardly compares to a decades long campaign to demonize and dehumanize abortion providers. And, there have been along the way all the hallmarks of terrorist activity. Bombings, snipers, cold blooded murder.
If we do not characterize this murder as an act of Christian terrorism, then it is only because we have selectively redefined what constitutes terrorism.
If we do not characterize this murder as an act of Christian terrorism, then it is only because we have selectively redefined what constitutes terrorism.
Exactly, and it most definitely is, and O'Reilly has blood on his hands!
Ken Burch writes "I think that those who are in this sector of the anti-choice movement are mainly driven by the fear of some people not being subjected to needless pain and fear."
I am always wary of attributing psychological unconscious "causes" to behaviour that is explicity defended by the people who engage in it.
Why should we second-guess them when they tell us that women simply ought not to have the right to control their body and their life? Do you realize what is materially at stake in this tutelage for a patriarchal, racist society that wants to keep ageing men pampered, children and the sick tended free of charge, and ethnic minorities demographically contained by as many White kids as possible?
What do you mean by this martin:
"children and the sick tended free of charge"
I am talking about unpaid domestic work, maintained in part because so many women are brought and locked into motherhood and family duties by unwanted pregnancies and severely curtailed access to abortion, esp. outside of major urban centres. This unpaid work accounts for approximately a third of the Gross Domestic Product. Billions of dollars are involved. It's no coincidence that the Right that is fighting reproductive rights is also fighting welfare rights and resources for child care, long-term care facilities and other social programs. To them, that's women's work, not worthy of being resourced. And The Family is key to maintaining women in that situation.
