I have been in shock ever since I heard that Dr. George Tiller had been murdered. I have struggled with hearing him referred to as “the controversial abortion doctor” and hearing people question whether he somehow deserved to be murdered in the foyer of his church on a Sunday morning. I have not been able to gather my thoughts sufficiently to comment before now. It is past time that I do so.
As a long-time member of NARAL, I have marched, contributed funds and generally opposed the anti-choice brigade in their efforts to force their religious views onto our lawbooks. I remember driving through Wichita during “The Summer of Mercy” and seeing the dazed looks on the citizenry, who had no idea what had hit them. My sister-in-law tells stories of confronting members of the intolerant horde about leaving their children locked in hot cars while they marched. She describes the smug righteousness with which they declared that women who sought abortion were sinners and those that would die would reap what they sowed. Without care for QUALITY of life, only bringing every possible child into the world matters to them. They go so far as to condemn the birth control pill; it is also murder in their eyes.
For a long time, in a misguided attempt at fairness to those with opposing viewpoints, I considered each side of this issue to be extreme. NARAL opposed parental notification laws and I waffled in my support of that. It seemed reasonable that a parent should be notified when a child underwent a medical procedure, although I knew that this would make it harder for many girls to obtain an abortion. I did not oppose NARAL’s policies in this regard, I merely did not support them. NARAL opposed laws creating a waiting period and I waffled again. I did not agree with a waiting period, but, what could it hurt? Again, I did not properly support the position. NARAL’s argument was that each one of these laws was inching us closer to a world in which it would prove impossible for anyone but the most wealthy among us to obtain an abortion. NARAL predicted that they would even go after birth control eventually. I wondered if NARAL wasn’t being a tad extreme. I knew that the anti-choice crowd had a problem with birth control, but did not believe that they would ever be able to move policy or laws in that direction. I have never waivered in my support of NARAL, yet I have waffled in supporting some of their positions. Mea culpa. I take responsibility for my lack of support here.
But I read an article the other day that struck a nerve and I wanted to share it here. Hopefully, those of you who read this, will click on the link in the blog title and will pass this article on to your friends and family and begin a dialogue. In this article, Katha Pollitt offers a point of view so reasonable and yet so radical, I was truly jarred by it. She is absolutely right and I hope that more people will see the reason in her words.
We’ve been conditioned to believe that both sides of the abortion issue are extreme. Ms. Pollitt puts forth a firm argument that illustrates the fundamental incorrectness of that view.
There's only one set of extremists here, the one that uses language like "babykiller," " Nazi," "murderer," and "death mill," kidnaps and murders providers and clinic workers, burns and bombs clinics and drives cars into them, posts pictures of clinic workers and their families on the internet, and harrasses patients on their way to get care…If a desperately ill pregnant woman wants to risk her life to give birth, if she wants to carry an anencephalic fetus to term so it can die in her arms, or have her rapist's baby, or become a mother at 14, or produce octuplets, pro-choicers are not going to compel her to abort. Pro-choicers don't go around lecturing girls and women that they will blame themselves forever if they have a baby they may not be equipped to raise well. They don't paint gory pictures of the horrors and dangers of childbirth to scare pregnant girls and women into ending their pregnancies with a quick and safe termination. They don't tell women Jesus is going to send them to Hell if they sacrifice their futures to the whims of a wayward sperm -- although they might mention from time to time that the Bible nowhere mentions abortion. Pro-choicers don't blow up churches or assassinate the leaders of Operation Rescue…only one side murders and bombs to make its point. Only one side has a terrorist wing.
She goes on to quote a Michigan pastor, Bret McAtee, as saying of the news of Dr. Tiller’s murder, “…I also know joy. Not the shallow type of joy but a deep resonating joy…How could a sane person not feel joy at the death of a mass murderer and a terrorist?”
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Perhaps you may think that this is a rare point of view. You would be wrong. Our local news interviewed some nutjob from Wichita who said, on camera, unhesitatingly and without pity or sympathy--apparently even for the family of Dr. Tiller--that he got what he deserved for being a baby killer. I find it profoundly ironic that some ugly fat woman would get on tv and say something like that because somewhere in this backwoods state, a man is looking at her and judging her unworthy of decent treatment because she doesn’t look like Barbie. It’s the same sort of rationalization that a rapist uses when he says that he attacked a woman because of the way she was dressed. It is the same sort of rationalization that a country uses to justify kidnapping and torture against people they assume are terrorists because their government says so. It is rationalization without logic, based on personal discriminatory beliefs.
As my esteemed fellow blogger, Tango Daddy, said, they are “domestic terrorists…I say the gloves are off for any and all that condone this form of violence. The so called religious community is more in keeping with radical extremism than any religion I know.”
I predicted immediately that this scumbag that killed Dr. Tiller would receive aid from the Anti-Choice movement. I stand by that prediction. Operation Rescue can PRETEND all they want that they had nothing to do with this, but I will never believe it and neither should any thinking person.
Dr. Tiller was targeted by Operation Rescue for years and years. The nation witnessed this during the summer their members showed up every day to harass poor women who were in need of healthcare. (They didn’t care that some of those women were just there to get their birth control pills; they don’t want women to use those either.) Dr. Tiller was targeted by Operation Rescue when a local candidate that was heavily backed by Anti-Choice groups managed to worm his way into the State Attorney General’s office and wage war against Dr. Tiller, his practice and his patients. Phill Kline illegally seized and possessed and shared with multiple parties the federally protected health records of many women who had been patients at Dr. Tiller’s clinic. Though his efforts to prosecute Dr. Tiller proved unsuccessful, he was never punished and his efforts were further persecution that Dr. Tiller underwent at the hands of the Anti-Choice movement. It has been a scant few months since those charges against Dr. Tiller were dropped. The man that is accused of murdering Dr. Tiller, whose identity was known but not released by the local media, is from the same area where Phill Kline launched his ultimately unsuccessful career in politics. What a coincidence; or is it?
My immediate thought upon hearing that Dr. Tiller had been murdered was that the Anti-Choice movement’s reaction to losing control. They had decided that this was their only remaining option due to their hysterical fear of the Obama presidency and the change that it has brought. They had missed their best chance of getting rid of Dr. Tiller when public momentum was swinging their way. They had been unable to get him using intimidation tactics. They had been unable to get him using corrupt public officials. Now that the Obama administration was supposedly ushering in a new movement toward liberalism, they saw their opportunity disappear. How convenient that a looney steps out from the shadows and effectively puts an end to the activities they had been so offended by for all these years by murdering Dr. Tiller. How many doctors will step up to take his place and take a stand for women and families? My prediction; 0.
Supposedly there is a Federal investigation into whether Roeder was acting alone. He was in contact with high officials of Operation Rescue and has made statements to the Associated Press that more murders are planned. It is my fervent hope that the government will be able to prove the links that do exist between Roeder and Operation Rescue and that Federal Anti-Terror statutes will be used to charge him and them with crimes of terror. An example must be set here. It is high time, past time, that this nation stand up against the wrong-headed, delusional thinking that was born during the Reagan era and has metasticized into the what is currently called “The Religious Right.”
Check out a local "ministry" here:
http://www.ffc.org/index.html
It is high time that we all stop pretending that we are not surrounded by insane people suffering from religion-inspired delusions that are whipped up by self-serving politicians hungry for power and money. It is time for the nation to finally acknowledge that the Religious Right is a group filled with religious extremists on par with those Islamic terrorists that we have all come to fear.
The time is coming when we will need to consider the REAL DANGER of religion and its affect on the weak-minded among us. Many citizens have no idea that churches are run just like corporations these days. They have subsidiary businesses that include financial arms, banks, investment companies, etc. There are millionaire pastors with their own private planes and they keep the money in the family by hiring their family members as employees. They are making money hand over fist and they are not paying any taxes. With all that money and power comes corruption unimaginable to the likes of you and me. It’s time to investigate the churches and their actions and dealings with politicians, business interests and interest groups.
It’s time to examine the link between church finances and political corruption. It’s time to STOP putting up with this insanity and corruption in the name of religious freedom. This murdering and intolerance can’t possibly be what the founding fathers had in mind when they created this nation.
Another excellent article on Dr. Tiller's murder here:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mary-mapes/no-mercy_b_209529.html
And please check out this website as well:
http://iamdrtiller.com/ Sphere: Related Content
