He had been harassed and shot, threatened with death, and his clinic burned down, but Dr. George Tiller continued to work as one of the only late-term abortion providers in the country. He was a brave man committed to women’s reproductive rights. And this morning, he was shot dead as he walked into church. Cara is updating her post with details as she learns them. So is Ann.
This is simply devastating. And it’s terrorism. It’s terrorism. I want it acknowledged as terrorism. Dr. Tiller was a hero to the women he served, and to all of us, for whom he fiercely advocated. He gave his life for women’s health. Someone took his life because he was so committed to women’s health.
I will never forget the handwritten thank-you note Dr. Tiller sent me when I donated $50 to his clinic. He said he’d been having a rough week because someone had just smashed one of his windows, but that my card and check had brightened his day. My god. I just can’t believe this.
I’m in tears. What an amazing man. What a terrible end.
There’s only one other late-term abortion provider in his region. The anti-choice movement is going to get their wish, and pregnant women are going to start dying, here in the USA, because no doctors will be here to treat them.
I’m so disgusted. And your story about Tiller’s note just broke my heart a little more. What the hell is wrong with people?!
I am saddened for Dr. Tiller, his family, and his community.
The people who support his killer have no credibility, not now, not ever. And now they have to live with what they’ve done.
Has anybody heard the song “Hello Birmingham” by Ani DiFranco? It always comes to mind when something like this happens. (The lyrics are here. It just is so devastating to know that people think violence is an acceptable means of debating reproductive rights.
He did? That just makes me cry all over again. What an amazing human being.
no one who is truly “pro-life” supports this, friends. looking around the blogs i read, people on both sides of the abortion-rights debate see this as absolutely unspeakable.
It’s absolutely disgusting. And people act like this isn’t the logical end — of course it is. I’ve been threatened by protesters, the clinic where I volunteer has been vandalized. This is what happens when political movements are based on fear and hatred. An anti-choice group referred to him, in its response to his death, as a “mass murderer”. Completely and utterly abhorrent. I hope that, at the very least, this tragedy can wake more Americans up to just who it is that is in support of life.
Horrifying. And while he was going to church….
I also hate how the media refers to him (or Dr. Slepian, who was also murdered) as an “abortion doctor” or “abortion provider.” These men were gynecologists. They worked in the field of women’s health, which occasionally includes abortion. But they are just plain doctors and slapping the “abortion doctor” label on them plays into the hands of the anti-choices, especially the violent ones.
It’s time this country prosecuted antis to the full extent of the law. Kansas has been harrassing Dr Tiller for years because they have an anti attorney general and for some reason, Sibelius let him get away with it. Here in my state, we have a vile Bush appointee as attorney general. We’ve asked her office more than once to look into FACE charges against antis here, to no avail. This has to stop.
For 8 years there was only one major incident of clinic violence. Now, because they aren’t in control any more, they’ve decided that the law doesn’t apply to them. Obama, I’m calling on you to enforce the law. Enough.
It’s absolutely terrorism. And it’s really frustrating me to see him described over and over in the news as “late term abortion provider George Tiller.” He was WOMEN’S HEALTH SPECIALIST George Tiller. Or OB/Gyn George Tiller. Or even just DOCTOR George Tiller. To refer to him by simply one of the many procedures he performed as a physician is to further fan the flames of hatred and violence that caused this tragedy in the first place.
What absolutely SICKENS me is the response I’ve seen from people I thought had respect for human life and the law.
It’s run the line of :”Well, he murdered the behbehs, so whatevs. Pity he was murdered in church though…”
It makes me roaringly angry. How can people excuse the murder of a DOCTOR merely doing what he vowed to do–save LIVES–because he performed LEGAL operations that are medically necessary, despite the public stigma on said LEGAL, LIFE SAVING operations.
I’ve donated about a third of my weekly living budget to various pro-choice organizations today because of this news. I don’t know what else I can do, except donate, speak up and join the outcry against this act of blatant terrorism.
Miss Pinot, I know some of those people. That response shouldn’t be so surprising. If you believe that abortion is mass murder, then “killing Hitler” really is morally preferable.
FRB, I don’t buy it. Murder of doctors makes a lot of sense in the context of the belief that abortion is murder, the routine furious harassment of women at clinics everywhere in the country, the scare billboards and bumper stickers, the common threats to clinic workers, the posting of doctors’ photos and home addresses…
I’ll bet that apart from your desire to compromise my health and freedom, you’re a fine and compassionate person, just like the anti-choicers I know. But your movement needs to take responsibility for the everyday hatemongering if you mean to distance yourselves from these murders.
sorry, hanu maru, but i know from more than enough personal experiences that most people who don’t support a woman’s right to choose also vehemently do not support violence towards doctors who perform abortions. killing doctors and bombing clinics is antithetical to the right-to-life movement, which believes that only God has the power to take away life from anyone. again, because of the actions of a few fundamentalist zealots who call themselves pro life, the entire anti-choice movement gets painted as crazy conservative freaks who want all women to behave like fdls wives or something, and that is so far from reality.
speaking as someone who has gone to planned parenthood for exams on more than one occasion, i think i can honestly say that yes, there are people who pray in front of planned parenthood with signs and rosaries and singing, and yes, there are people who plan to bomb clinics, but just because they both feel the same way about abortions does not mean that both groups support violence in the way it was carried out against this doctor.
i pray that dr. tiller’s family can find some kind of solace or peace somewhere down the road, but i also pray that his killer is punished to the full extent of the law.
I find this news so depressing it’s hard to know what to really say. Except I would also stress that Dr Tiller was a gynaecologist not an ‘abortion doctor’ and that if I were still a copy editor I would not be happy with allowing the words ‘pro-life’ into coverage of this story. You are not pro-life if you murder someone and it’s about time we stopped shillyshalling around what is essentially an ‘anti-choice’ or if you must ‘anti-abortion’ movement.
Agreed, SarahMC — this is terrorism. The whole “killing a killer is okay” argument holds no water, given that most (all?) terrorists see themselves as killing someone who “deserves” it, for the “greater good.” Such a wicked and twisted belief doesn’t excuse murder. I have nothing but contempt for anyone who could support or excuse the actions of Dr. Tiller’s murderer.
I hope that this doesn’t scare even more competent and compassionate doctors and healthcare professionals away from providing women’s reproductive health services in the United States.
This news is truly shocking.
As mentioned, no one should approve of this action. The murderer has taken a life because the man took away potential life – surely a life takes priority over a potential life. Even if you attempted to justify it with some form of utilitarian argument [that the murderer has prevented the "death" of numerous potential lives], the result is still that more suffering is caused by this murdered than happiness. After all, women who opt for abortions do not do so lightly – they do so because they feel the need to. Hence, everyone has lost out by this disaster and I just pray that targeted attacks like this stop now.
Your naming of this horrible hateful act as terrorism reminds me of DHS’ recent publication of a report indicating increased threat of violence from right wing groups. The report got a lot of shit (it was badly researched and written apparently) it looks like Janet Napolitano got one thing right.
This is devastating and terrifying. In my religious tradition we make prayers for the soul of the departed; somehow I don’t think Dr. Tiller needs my prayers as much as the man and the movement that killed him.
But instead I’m going to pray that there is another brave doctor to take his place, and more heroic medical students willing to put their own lives at risk in order to provide basic medical treatment to women.
@emilyanne: Let them call themselves pro-life. Maybe the shock of seeing “pro-life” applied to a murderer will make people realize what that movement is really about.
I feel no sympathy towards anti-choice people whining about being grouped with the fringe. Death is the logical result of banning abortion. If not the murder of doctors, then the death of pregnant women through illegal abortion and pregnancy complications. Banning abortion saves zero lives–not even the “lives” of embryos/fetuses, who statistics show are aborted at higher rates when abortion is illegal.
Shockingly enough, even Michelle Malkin called this act terrorism on her blog.
“not even the “lives” of embryos/fetuses, who statistics show are aborted at higher rates when abortion is illegal.”
Wait, for real? I wondered about that a while back, but couldn’t find stats for anything before Roe. The narrative I was familiar with was that they took off throught the seventies and eighties, peaked in about 1990 and then decreased over the past 18 years or so. Do you have a link to data? I’d be interested.
I applaud and support the philosophy of your cause. I live in the UK, and we are fortunate to have a slightly more sympathetic response to the issue of women’s reproductive rights.
I have read some of the er lets say, ill-informed opinions in some of the rsponses and am astonished at their complete lack of logic, or empathy.
Let us be clear – this is an issue for the woman involved, its her body, her life. I for one firmly believe that to undergo a termination is devastating, to decide to have one has got to be one of the most traumatic decisions a woman ever has to make, and causes untold misery.
The very last thing a person needs in such extremis, is some bible thumping nutter with an ‘opinion’ informed by what can be best described as a load of misogynistic claptrap.
What women in this situation need is access to first rate medical care, unbiased, yes unbiased counselling and firm support from society.
I can only add my outrage at the murder of a trained medical expert who believed in offering the choices his patients desperately needed.
I also offer my sympathy and solidarity, for what its worth, with those women at the mercy of such a idiotic and biased regime.
@BearDownCBears: I’ll look for the citation and try to post tonight. I believe that it draws on international data–when abortion is illegal, so are other reproductive health services, such as contraception, which leads to an increase in the abortion rate.
This just makes me so sad and pisses me off. I want to donate or do something. Or just stand on the freeway and yell at the people with the “Choose Life” plates. I know that does no good, though. And the vast majority of pro-lifers, while dead wrong in their beliefs that Jesus wants them to control my body, are not killers.
Is there a way to donate directly to the Wichita clinic? Or any other similar clinics in the area? I kind of wish I knew just where each clinic of this type was, because I know there are so few. But that probably isn’t widely publicized because of the safety issues.
Once the town I worked in had their PP’s windows shot out. At a clinic where no abortions were performed, but apparently someone was really offended by Pap smears.
Lalaland, if you click on the links to Feministing and Feministe, both have posts containing lists of worthy causes that could use our help, as well as proactive measures we can take in the name of reproductive freedom.
I’m having trouble focusing today because this is just so upsetting and infuriating. Something’s gotta give – I can’t stand to see our country continue down this path. We need to reclaim the rhetoric from the antichoicers and keep talking about real, living (not hypothetical) women will be affected by Dr. Tiller’s murder. grr.
Also, @Paul: Your support from across the pond is appreciated. But I have to take issue with one point – that having an abortion is “one of the most traumatic decisions a woman ever has to make.” Yes, for many women, it is. But you know what? For many women, it’s not. It is the right thing to do for that particular woman, and she knows it. And she may not have any regrets or trauma. And that’s okay, because she knows herself best. I don’t mean this to be an attack on Paul; this is another example of something getting lost in the rhetoric. Often, when people talk about finding “common ground” on abortion, a key point is agreeing it’s awful and traumatic for women and we should work to ensure fewer abortions. Yes, we should work to ensure fewer unwanted pregnancies and thus fewer abortions, but I worry there’s almost an element of shaming those women for whom having an abortion isn’t awful or traumatic.
I think I’m getting incoherent, so I’ll stop. Suffice to say, a lot going on in the ol’ noggin today.
Lalaland, you might try donating to the man interviewed here: http://coloradoindependent.com/30017/late-term-abortion-doctor-decries-tiller-killing-this-is-a-fascist-movement
He’s the last third-trimester abortion provider in the nation.
let me make this clear: not all pro- lifers are fundimentalists. not all of us are even christian. lots of us are even pro choice aswell – we wouldnt ever choose to abort ourselves (unless we and the baby would die otherwise), and personalally beleive abortion is wrong,but still beleive that everyone should make their own, well informed choice. I know one thing for sure: all but a very tiny minority of us think as much as you do that this murder, and any hassleing of doctors providing abortion and those that choose it for themselves, is deeply, deeply wrong. please stop refering to us as anti-choice, as lots of us dont think like that at all!
If you think everyone is entitled to “make their own, well-informed choice” (are poorly informed choices not allowed?), you are pro-choice.
See here.
@ SarahMC – yes, as i said above, i do count myself as pro-choice. im just pro-life aswell. i think that preserving the life of the fetus is nearly as important as preserving the life of the mother, and that abortion should only be considered in the very most severe of circumstances, ie. if otherwise the mother would die or the lives of both mother and baby would be threatened.
as to poorly informed choices being allowed, i dont think they should be – that’s often what causes regret and pain to those who have abortions later in life, when they do find out some of the facts.
What about in the circumstances or rape or incest (unless incest was mutual)?
rednrowdy, just because there are some clinics where anti-choicers hold silent prayer vigils instead of screaming in women’s faces, doesn’t mean that’s the true face of the movement. Maybe you believe that only god can take away life, but you may want to check with some of the leading groups in your movement before you say that they do. Most individual pro-lifers do support righteous wars and murder of criminals by the state. There’s a long Christian tradition of working as the hand of god, including killing to prevent further evil.
If you vote anti-choice and give to anti-choice orgs, including crisis pregnancy centers, at the minimum, you are supporting death by unsafe illegal abortion. Just because you never pulled the trigger on a doctor doesn’t impress me. This “bad apple” reaction gets less and less plausible each time one of these murders happens.
I don’t see why women can’t just get an abortion earlier? Because having abortions available in the late term could cause some mothers to make a mistake, by deciding one day that they’re terrified of having the child, and getting rid of it, when really they were just being hysterical.
I’ve made an oath to myself to stay a virgin until I am married and therefore there will be very little need for an abortion unless I may die 
Personally, I do not believe in abortions unless there is a risk of death towards to mother and child, and also in the case of rape. Though, everyone’s entitled to their own opinion, and this man was couragious to continue with somehting he believed was right. I don’t think there are any late term clinics here in England…but then again, I am only 16 so I wouldn’t know about anything like that to be honest
smileydragon, pro-choice and pro-life are political positions with specific and discrete meanings. This is a good explanation:
http://bitchphd.blogspot.com/2005/04/do-you-trust-women.html
“a lot of women, even, say things like, “I’m pro-choice, but I am uncomfortable with… [third-trimester abortion / sex-selection / women who have multiple abortions / women who have abortions for "convenience" / etc.]” then what you are saying is that your discomfort matters more than an individual woman’s ability to assess her own circumstances. That you don’t think that women who have abortions think through the very questions that you, sitting there in your easy chair, can come up with. That a woman who is contemplating an invasive, expensive, and uncomfortable medical procedure doesn’t think it through first. In short, that your judgment is better than hers.”
And as to the deleterious effects of abortion on women, I hope you will check out this personal account, from a women who has experience with abortion and adoption:
http://shakespearessister.blogspot.com/2009/03/breaking-silence-on-living-pro-lifers.html
Cc, I am not sure at whom your initial comment is directed.
But as for your second question (why not get an abortion earlier?), late-term abortions are performed on women whose lives are at risk or who find out their fetuses have not developed properly, or who cannot survive outside the womb. Women don’t walk into the clinic at 7 months because they just suddenly change their minds.
Dr. Tiller performed what’s called “therapeutic abortions.” If you are interested in reading the stories of some of his patients, please go here.
Real doctors do that if there’s risk of death…
Not saying he’s not a real doctor, but I mean ones in hospitals etc.
This debate is quite good revision for my Ethics exam on Thursday
Cc, can you make it more clear to which comments you’re referring?
I’m assuming you mean “real doctors” perform abortions if there’s a risk of death. You’d be wrong.
@ShinyObjects: You’re not incoherent. You touch on two really interesting points.
1) This is a personal sovereignty issue that tends to be marketed as a utility/compassion issue because for recruitment and motivational purposes (and a lot of people do have a hard time with it, like you said). The downside is that women who get early abortions, who could afford to have a child but just decide against it, are probably stigmatized as a result–as lazies abusing a system that’s meant for women in greater financial/emotional need. That’s baloney, as you pointed out.
2) “Common Ground” sex-ed is kind of an inane concept because it’s so remarkably shallow. The “consensus” can only hold as long as nobody brings up what personal options to teach teens about in the event of an unexpected pregancy. Lesson 1: “Okay kids, everyone use birth control so nobody gets pregnant.” Barring abstinence-only psychos, so far so good. Lesson 2: “Well, assuming something gets fucked up and you get pregnant…uh…” Lifers understand this tension and can tell it’s totally a trap. I don’t agree with them by any means, but I don’t blame them for calling bullshit.
SarahMC, they do in England… and I know this happened in America… but oh well. It’s obvious no one would like to accept my views
Quite hypocritical really…
[...] Devastating News – The Pursuit of Harpyness. [...]
@ Hana Maru:
Please dont stereotype! a few cases of fundamentalist pro-lifers doesnt mean we all want to go round yelling and killing. for obvious reasons, non- violent pro-lifers are less visible than the violent ones doesnt mean we dont exist, or are the majority. there are fundamentalists in any group who often go so over-the-top in their actions they end up going against the original idea, eg. the 9/11 terrorists – they say they where fighting for islam, but the word islam actually translates as peace, and now many people seem to think all muslims are terrorists. this is in many ways similar to saying that all pro-lifers want murder- hence the pro- LIFE.
@Cc – obviously, in extreme cases where rape and incest/rape are involved, its the womans choice. I personally would lean towards adoption rather than abortion.
You aren’t exactly stating any “views,” Cc. I am attempting to engage with you but you’re not exactly giving me much.
In any case, here is another fantastic article re: Tiller’s practice.
Cc, what views of yours have been presumed unacceptable?
If doctors in England are all trained to perform late abortions, that’s great for women there. In the U.S., which has a population of approx. 300 million, most doctors, even most gynos, do not receive abortion training. A big part of the reason for this is the domestic terrorist campaign against them. Many of them are understandably scared for their lives. There are less than a handful of doctors who can perform late term abortions, which are only allowed in cases of endangerment to the mother or child.
@ Hana Maru –
yes, i do understand the meanings of these words. i am not an idiot. i’m just saying that although I beleive that abortion is killing, and therefore wrong (pro-life), I dont support making abortion illegal, as I think its a very personal choice you should make for yourself (pro-choice). Therefore I support both. that is just my opinion.
Adding to what Hana Maru said, some U.S. states have laws outlawing abortion (yes, even therapeutic abortion) after a certain week mark. That means women have to travel to another state (i.e. Kansas) to get it done.
smileydragon, how did I stereotype? If you mean where I said “Most individual pro-lifers do support righteous wars and murder of criminals by the state”, that’s true.
I’d like to see you prove that in some way, Hana Maru. As I said, just because non-confrontationalist, non-violent pro-lifers arnt as visible as the confrontational, violent ones, it doesnt mean we are in any way the minority
SarahMC, I’m saying I don’t agree with abortions, there’s not much else TO say.
Haha, oops, I didn’t mean ”my views” I meant ”other people’s views” (I wasn’t paying attention!) (my views are basically the majority of my posts)
Anyhow, what I mean is that everyone has their own opinion, mine is that the murder of this man was uncalled for, but people are allowed to disagree what he did! Murder, in no way, is right. But no-one is listening to eachother or accepting eachother’s views. I know it’s a depate and a topic that needs discussing but you need to take everyone’s views into account whether you disagree with them or not.
smileydragon, I don’t think you’re an idiot, and I’m sorry for coming across that way. I hope you don’t mind talking some more about terms. It’s not to be mean, I’m just trying to understand where you’re coming from.
If we agree upon the political definitions, I don’t think it’s possible to be both. All pro-life orgs and politicians are against legal abortion. Given that you support abortion remaining legal, you are concurrent with the pro-choice movement. Either label is not about what you would do personally. Personally, I don’t know what I would do if I had an unwanted pregnancy. But what’s right for me isn’t right for everybody. I think we’re on the same page about that?