Sunday, abortion doctor George Tiller was assassinated in his church by a a lone gunman. As much as I disliked Dr. Tiller, I find this crime abhorrent, particularly because it was in church and because so many innocent people, including children had to witness such a violent act. The assailant, Scott Roeder, apparently has a history of mental illness.
I think Dr. Tiller originally thought he was doing a good thing, helping women. I just think that over time the part of his conscience that had to deal with the reality of what he was doing died. How else could someone look at over 60,000 aborted corpses or justify killing a baby the day before it was due, or because it had an extra limb. In fact I think he became obsessed with the idea of being able to abort. These were not life or death issues. He even admits that himself in this Youtube clip.
Unfortunately, the murder of Dr. Tiller may just give the pro-abortion side the ammunition it needs to shut down and silence pro-life groups. Jill Filipovic, a 20 something feminist whom I have crossed swords with before, has already given a glimpse of how that shut down might happen.
While individuals who self-identify as pro-life may be well-meaning and against violence, mainstream pro-life groups and the people who run them do not care about life, before or after birth. And while today anti-choice groups are half-heartedly condemning Tiller’s murder, they continue to use the same outlandish and inflammatory rhetoric that inspired and enabled it.Words mean things. Anti-choicers should certainly have every right to express their views, but they must also realise that actions have consequences and their rhetoric is not harmless. If you yell “Fire!” in a crowded theatre, it’s reasonably foreseeable that people will panic and someone will be injured. And if you yell “Murderer!” “Baby-Killer!” and “Holocaust!” long enough, it’s reasonably foreseeable that someone will take it upon themselves to make sure that vigilante justice is done (especially if you provide the name and address of the person who you claim is committing “genocide”).
This was not the act of a lone extremist. It is one more act of violence to add to a long, long list of crimes committed by anti-choice terrorists, and it is the logical outcome of years of increasingly violent, dehumanising and threatening rhetoric and action on the part of supposedly mainstream pro-life groups. The responsibility for George Tiller’s death surely falls on the shoulders of the person who actually pulled the trigger. But when pro-life groups did everything but give him a gun, their hands are hardly clean.
Ordinarily I might consider a pro-abortion writer blowing off a little steam. But in this age of Obama, where we already have the Fairness Doctrine to worry about, pro-lifers might find themselves facing a heap of trouble for the words they use. I’m guessing maybe even the term “pro-abortion” might be considered hate speech. That swishing sound might just be our first amendment rights to free speech slipping away.
I’ve also been reading a lot of blog posts on the martyrdom of George Tiller, extolling his virtues as savior of women’s lives.
Tiller by some estimates aborted 60,000 babies in his clinic which is not an acute care facility. Women who are truly in life or death situations would NOT be given treatment in that type of a facility. Tiller himself admitted that on the Youtube link above. Indeed, upon reading the pages of and pages of memorials to Dr. Tiller by postabortive mothers, I couldn’t find one that said he saved her from a life or death situation. In all of the instances I read the baby was aborted because some type of congenital abnormality was detected and abortion was seen as more acceptable and less heartbreaking than carrying or delivering a sick child.
I’ve had that same debate on this blog more than once. and been severely criticized for it. Yet many mothers who have gone on to have babies against impossible odds have found love and memories, strength courage and blessings beyond what they ever could have imagined. I have many of those types of stories saved in my
Mothers Love Your Babies links.
What could have made the difference for many of these women was some type of perinatal hospice service to give mothers the courage to deliver their babies and enjoy as much quality time as possible with them before death. And maybe even in some instances the babies would have defied the odds and gone on to live fuller lives beyond the doctor’s expectations. That’s always possible too, but when your mom gives up on you first, it doesn’t really help your chances of success.
Find more on Dr. Tiller in the clip below.
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