Debra Sweet, Director, The World Can’t Wait
A hero who wore a button saying “Trust Women,” was shot down and killed Sunday, in a devastating attack on the right of women to control our own bodies. Dr. George Tiller began providing abortion care in 1973, as soon as it was legal in Kansas, and continued until yesterday. He endured, and rose above, the constant picketers of his clinic and home; the vandalism; the baseless lawsuits and political/legal trials. He survived being shot by another anti-abortion would-be assassin in 1993. He gave compassionate care to thousands of women, and mentored colleagues and medical students, and was a source of last resort for women with fetal/maternal complications in his Wichita, Kansas clinic.
George’s murder is a heavy, almost unbearable blow, and not only for his family and friends, who deserve our deep gratitude for supporting him in his life’s work.
also read "Who Will Take His Place" by Rosemary Candelario, and "What Seeking Common Ground Will Get Us" by Jill McLaughlin
A wonderful person by all accounts, he is not at this time replaceable as a highly skilled teacher, role model, and courageous physician who knowingly took the risks he did to do what we believed in. The anti-abortion movement, from its origins in with “abortion is murder” in the 1970’s, through the clinic-bombing 1980’s, and the murderous attacks of the 1990’s, has successfully shrunk the ranks of doctors and hospitals who are willing to risk providing abortions. They systematically poisoned the minds of a generation of women, permeating them with feelings of shame over unwanted pregnancies, and making them apologize for wanting to control when and if they bear children.
Having been nose to nose with anti-abortion leaders in front of clinics, and sometimes between them and doctors, for decades, I know them as the active base of a deeply dangerous, Christian theocratic, and fascist movement. They believe, as Randall Terry screamed in my face in 1987, that women must be kept subservient to men. Their god is a vengeful god, they remind us, and we deserve death for not obeying him. They’ve got the scripture, memorized from both the Old Testament and the New, and the worldview to enforce that male supremacy in their homes and in their movement. They believe that this country’s laws should be based on their interpretation of their God’s law, so you, too, would have no choice in the matter. And they want to kill us; the women who aren’t subservient, and the doctors who foster our agency.
For 8 years, these groups had easy access to the levers of power in this country, right into the White House, and not just through the smug political operative, Karl Rove. The whole Bush regime, from the “Decider” who believed he was on a mission from God, to the thousands of political appointees who re-wrote government websites, rules and laws restricting abortion access, is responsible for a leap in the way government stopped women from accessing abortion. These legal and political attacks on women’s access to abortion – and birth control – changed life for millions of women. They gave the mainstream media the idea that it’s OK to quote anti-abortion organizations as a legitimate voice in the matter of what legal and moral right women have to control their lives.
The Bill O’Reilly’s, Pat Robertsons, and Ann Coulters have responsibility for Dr. Tiller’s murder too, by creating a political climate leading to his murder. 9-11 was the fault of “abortionists” according to Pat Robertson. The clever O’Reilly comment “Tiller the Killer,” drawn straight from the constant protesters around George’s clinic, and Coulter’s comment that previous abortion doctors were killed by a “procedure with a gun” all fuel the climate that it’s OK to murder doctors.
But it’s not only the ravings of the right wing that are dangerous to womens’ rights.
What about the “leaders” of the Democratic Party who counsel us to find common ground with these fascists and religious fanatics? You have a president who invites an outspoken homophobe to give his inaugural prayer, citing “common ground” with this as somehow a step forward. You have a president who won’t come out in favor of gay marriage, tacitly encouraging many of his supporters to vote for Proposition 8 in California. You have a president who bends over backwards to give legitimacy to the anti-abortion cause, respectfully pointing out the honesty of their leader’s religious convictions.
If you watched the scene developing in May, weeks before Barack Obama’s appearance at the Notre Dame commencement, as Randall Terry and hundreds of others were getting arrested on the campus, and working themselves into a frenzy – all carefully covered by the national media – and you saw Obama give a speech that didn’t confront them for being wrong, you knew a murder like this would happen. The “pro-choice” movement, for its part, has surrendered its activism and resources almost completely to the Democratic Party and its “common ground” strategy.
This will inevitably get our abortion doctors killed, and drive others from practice. A courageous woman physician, who provides abortion care to rural, young and poor women, even if they have no money, is one of the successors of Dr. Tiller. She wrote today:
“Abortion has been legal in this country for 36 years and it is harder for a woman to access this vital medical care now than it was when I started providing abortion care 21 years ago. The combination of fewer feminist women’s health clinics, restrictive laws and the hijacking of the rhetoric surrounding abortion has made for an empty promise of “choice” for many women. Even our pro-choice President in his speech at Notre Dame said that “abortion is a heart-wrenching decision for any woman to make.”
I so strongly disagree. For the bulk of my patients it is a moral, responsible decision to make. The most common emotion expressed directly after an abortion and again at the follow up exam is one of relief. If anything, they express guilt for not feeling guilty. Why is the “pro-life” movement so intent on putting out a message to women that they should feel guilty and remorse and shame for taking control of their lives? Why do we LET them define who we are and tell us how we should think?
And then there is the issue of “common ground” between those that support and those that oppose legal abortion. I say this; until those that oppose abortion will agree with and support the notion that the best way to PREVENT unintended pregnancies in the first place (isn’t that the goal?) is to provide ALL women of childbearing age with scientifically accurate, comprehensive information about, and ready access to birth control of all types, there is no common ground. The notion that sexual relations can and will happen only between married, heterosexual couples that wish to conceive is absolutely ridiculous. Abstinence-only education results in higher STI rates, more teen pregnancies, more teen births AND more abortions. Letting religious based individuals and organizations with a totally unrealistic view of teen sexuality into our schools has been a huge mistake. It must stop.
Unfortunately, there is not, to my knowledge, a single “pro-life” organization that supports women using any method of birth control except natural family planning. And what do I call couples that rely on natural family planning? Pregnant.”
This woman gives me hope. We—everyone who cares about the humanity of women—must build a movement of solid, determined support for her and other abortion providers.
But I am very angry, and sad, today at the utter injustice of Dr. Tiller’s assassination. I’ll be attending his funeral services in Wichita, Saturday, June 6.
[quote name=”Mike”] hi mike take no notice of stupid elle shes not all there i know your not a women hater infact you have saved womens lives women get hurt by abortion to we dont all agree with babykilling like you dont
FIRST GEORGE TILLER WASNT A HUMAN HE WAS A SICK TWISTED DISGUSTING PREV HOW CAN ANY CALL A BABY KILLER A HUMAN AND 2ND ITS NOT WOMEN HATEING BULLSHIT YOU MORON ITS THE OTHER WAY ROUND FOR YOUR INFORMATION NOT ALL US WOMEN ARE BABY KILLERS DONT DARE THINK WE ARE SOME WOMEN ARE ANTI ABORTINISTS NO MORE SEXIEST BULL ABOUT WOMENS CHOICE ON ABORTIONS
GOEGE TILLER WAS NOT A WONDERFUL MAN WHO HELPED WOMEN SCOTT RIDEER WAS GT WAS A EVIL BABYKILLER AND IT COULD OF BEEN ANY OF YOU MORONS WHO ARE STICKING UP FOR HIM YOU WERE ALL ABNORMAL FETUS ONCE WHY CAN YOU ALL SEE BABY KILLINGS WRONG SCOTT HELPS PEOPLE WITH DEPRESSION YOU LOT WILL BE SAYING PIDOS ARE WONDERFUL NEXT EVIL BULLIES
Tiller’s executioner was willing to lay down his life to stop Tiller from continuing his wanton mercenary bloodshed for profit. Tiller was not the innocent one. The children were. The church he attended can call itself what it will, it’s a free country and even Satan masquerades as an Angel of Light. Their damnation will be the same as Tiller’s. God was long suffering towards Tiller to let him last so long without repentance. Him being killed in the CINO church was a warning to those left behind. You just never know. Jesus said “Suffer the little children to come unto me, for such is the kingdom of God” but he didn’t say to send them to him. Tiller may have helped populate the kingdom through his butchery, but he gets no credit for doing so. If you don’t want a kid, don’t have sex. It’s not the kids’ fault, even when a rapist violates a women. Kill the rapist, not the kid. Don’t let him fester in prison with a chance of parole, sustained by the taxpayer. A child born of rape wouldn’t be so much a reminder of the rapist if he was eliminated. Adoption can remove him from visibility as well, but murdering the kid doesn’t solve anything and it violates his rights and he can’t even defend himself. Everyone wants to defend the polar bear, spotted owl etc etc “those who can’t speak for themselves” even Bald Eagle eggs and deer in a doe’s womb are more protected. How backa$$ward is that? By your fruits, you will know them. Tiller’s fruit was slaughtered babies. The USDA requires more humane slaughter than Tiller and his ilk perform. Silly author talks about the first breath, but what happens to that breath? Is it not carried by the blood? Does not a baby’s blood flow, given life by the mother’s breath? (forget about the fact that the verse quoted was about the first man, not a baby – Adam was never a baby) If it has a heartbeat, it’s alive. Why is it that everyone considers a “Flatline” death? Might not be breathing, but the heart is pumping, still alive. So pathetically sad. If you are suffocating, drowning, are you dead when you stop breathing or when your heart stops? And why is it that a baby aborted can’t breathe besides the fact that he’s not allowed the chance? If those late term babies were born early at 34 weeks, or if C-sectioned, they’d breathe well enough. Point is, it is pre-meditated to take away each child’s breath and heart beat in an abortion. No accident. Not natural. It’s murder. He that lives by the sword/scalpel die by the sword/scalpel/gun. He’ll be held accountable for his deeds as will the author of this perverted and twisted website promoting wickedness. Sodom and Gomorrah were pulverized in brimstone and fire… just keep it up. Don’t say you haven’t been warned. Willingly ignorant. Gnashing of teeth. Outer darkness. No relief. No end. It’s called Hell and it’s a real place and destination. You don’t have to go there, and neither did Tiller, but he is on his way now, if not there already. Guaranteed. All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.
Whatever happened to prohibiting the yelling of FIRE in a crowded theater as free speech? Why does murder and its justification qualify as free speech?
Nothing could possibly justify what happened, and no person or government has the right to take a person\’s life before his natural death. Killing Tiller was wrong, and it is not as if his death is some act of poetic justice. It was just wrong. It was a wicked, cowardly and divisive act which has hurt both sides of people on the abortion issue in different ways.
We should not downplay the injustice of Tiller\’s murder, but we must examine the man\’s life. Everyone speaks about how compassionate and brave Mr. Tiller was, and I do not deny that he probably felt he was acting in the best interests of his clients and touched many. However, just because a person is compassionate does not necessarily mean that he is justified. It is believed that he performed some late-term abortions illegally, and the case against him is NOT as baseless and frivolous as the author of this article believes.
It seems that Tiller claimed in a video to be seen by late-term abortion patients (http://www.dr-tiller.com/elective.htm) that he was willing to perform late-term abortions for non-medical reasons, which is illegal. He also allegedly measured fetal viability improperly (http://www.dr-tiller.com/elective.htm) and may have aborted viable fetuses. Phill Kline, Kansas\’ attorney general, was eventually granted permission to subpoena the clinic\’s records (with names removed), and hired Paul McHugh, a professor of psychiatry at Johns-Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore to examine them. McHugh claimed (http://youtube.com/watch?v=mviFMpy_sBU) that abortions had been performed for legally insufficient reasons, ranging from trivial (a rock concert) to more understandable (fear of future distress).
Kline tried to bring charges against Tiller. However, Nola Fouston, the attorney general of Sedgwick County (where Tiller\’s clinic was located) convinced Judge Paul W. Clark to dismiss the charges not because she disagreed with the evidence but because her permission was needed to file the charges (a legal technicality). Kline claims they met before the charges were filed and he maintained that she did not object. The case was deferred to the new pro-choice-on-abortion attorney general, Paul Morrison, whose campaign Tiller helped to fund. Morrison claimed that an investigation would happen, but McHugh claims that even though he was the state\’s medical witness in the trial, Morrison allegedly did not contact him for half a year after this. The charges were dismissed, and people cried foul.
The man who allegedly killed Tiller was schizophrenic and had been subject to mental evaluations in the 1990s. Though he posted on Operation Rescue\’s website a few times, he was not a member of the organization. He was, however, supposedly part of a militant anti-government organization. He had been arrested previously for diverse offenses, and in the 1990s attempted to murder abortionists. He lived in Kansas and was close enough to reach Tiller. Virtually all mainstream anti-abortion organizations have condemned the killing and so-called \”vigilante justice\” in general. If the anti-abortion movement is to be associated with what the alleged man did in fostering a climate of hate, then it is no more or less unreasonable to assume that The World Can\’t Wait can be held responsible for Monday\’s death of a military recruiter.
Signed,
A proudly anti-choice-on-abortion, anti-war, anti-death penalty and anti-religious bisexual.
Pro life, what a lie they dont care if humans die. A fetus is not a baby or a human being. but George Tiller was. The Anti abortion movement is responsible for the murder of George Tiller as you can see from comments like Mike’s. No common ground with religous fanatics and facists. God doesn’t exist and neither does hell. Mike, we will not accept your woman hating bullshit
A hero? No! You mean a MASS MURDERER, who was responsible for the deaths of over 60,000 babies. He was a monster and reaped what he sowed. Murder begets more murder. You might as well have done a praise piece on Dr. Mengele. I hope he dressed for warm weather!
What a thoughtful and brave piece. Thanks for posting.
It is so true that we cannot look for common ground at times like this. See Merle Hoffman\’s editorial, \”Higher Ground, Not Common Ground,\” at On The Issues Magazine for more perspective.
http://www.ontheissuesmagazine.com/2009spring/2009spring_publisher.php
Also see Hoffman\’s 1995 piece, \”Abortion Providers: The \”New\” Communists,\” for a historical perspective. That story was written when violence against abortion providers and clinics was not uncommon. Unfortunately we may be there again….
http://www.ontheissuesmagazine.com/1995summer/hoffman.php