Dr. George Tiller was murdered in his church in Wichita, Kansas. I hope and pray that the murderer is brought to justice. The police have a suspect in custody already.
I want to state unequivocally that what the murderer did was immoral, unethical, unbiblical, ungodly, and thoroughly and completely wrong. Even if you believe that abortion is the moral equivalent of murder, you do not fight it by murdering. If our country’s laws were humane and civil, we would already have outlawed the practice of Dr. Tiller, and he either would not have engaged in it or he would have been the one headed to prison.
What Tiller did was wrong. Make no mistake. He was not providing emergency care to rape or incest victims. He was not treating sick women with appropriate medical procedures. He was performing late-term abortions, which means that he was destroying fetuses that might have survived outside the womb. In other words, he was killing babies. Many of his victims were at the exact same stage of development as thousands of people who were born early–often by Cesarean section–and who have gone on to live successful, meaningful lives. Had the mothers chosen the harder course, the hospital would have been registering it as a birth rather than as an elective abortion.
It is true that many of his victims were ill or deformed. What they needed was treatment, not destruction. If they were beyond treatment, then they needed a natural, dignified passing. Is that too much to ask for any human being?
It is also true that many of the mothers were at risk themselves. In such cases, I would side with protecting the mother’s life. However, why choose? Why not deliver the baby early and give it a fighting chance? If he or she dies anyway, both the doctor and the mother can live at peace with the knowledge that they tried. I really cannot think of a situation where such an abortion must be performed.
Nevertheless, nobody had the right to murder Tiller. It is the job of the civil government to prosecute and punish lawbreakers, and in our country Tiller was breaking no laws. What a shame! Whoever killed him might have mistakenly thought that he was serving God in so doing or that he was avenging the deaths of all those babies. It’s also possible that the killer was mentally ill and not fully responsible for the horrible act. We’ll have to wait and see.
In the meantime, all the pro-life people need to stand up and denounce the act as completely and thoroughly wrong. We cannot claim to be pro-life and then murder somebody. We cannot claim to be law-abiding citizens and then live by vigilanteism. We cannot claim to follow Christ and falsely claim the right to judge others and exact vengeance on them.
17 responses so far ↓
Mike Lovell // June 1, 2009 at 9:43 am |
Just one point of correction. From my understanding of his operations, I cannot attest to them all, but many were performed in order to protect the health and well being of the mother.
But the tone of your overall post, I agree with. No matter your opinion on the abortion topic, killing the doctor is downright and absolutely wrong.
Jay Burns // June 1, 2009 at 11:03 am |
Just how is a late term abortion done to protect the health and well-being of the mother. If that is the case, wouldn’t a c-section produce the same results, while giving the child a chance at life.
Mike Lovell // June 1, 2009 at 11:10 am |
Now that, sir, I couldn’t tell you. One of the random news blurbs I caught while working last night (SHHHH!..the bosses don’t know I have a working stereo in the car!)
L « Jesurgislac’s Journal // June 2, 2009 at 2:08 am |
[...] The pro-lifers who used this rhetoric are now saying: “oh, this is nothing to do with us. Just because we claimed that women who got late-term abortions were selfish bitches who were murdering their own babies, just because we claimed the doctors who performed these abortions were killers – it’s got nothing to do with us and the language we use that one of our number ended Doctor Tiller’s work and his life by murdering him. We reject that murder! Those people are nothing to do with us! We’re standing right over here washing our hands, and we still think: What Tiller did was wrong. Make no mistake. He was not providing emergency care to rape or incest victims. He was not treating sick women with appropriate medical procedures. He was performing late-term abortions, which means that he was destroying fetuses that might have survived outside the womb. In other words, he was killing babies.” actual pro-lifer without shame [...]
jesurgislac // June 2, 2009 at 2:42 am |
You can show your sorrow and regret for the pro-life rhetoric that condemned Doctor Tiller and eventually led to a pro-life thug murdering him, by donating to the George Tiller Memorial Abortion Fund . The money will go to help women in the second trimester with assistance paying for abortion care, as well as paying for travel and lodging enroute to providers.
renaissanceguy // June 2, 2009 at 2:52 am |
Or give to American Pregnancy Hotline:
http://www.thehelpline.org/
or to National Right to Life:
http://www.nrlc.org/
Sorry, I do not know how to make the fancy links in the comment box.
Jesurgislac // June 3, 2009 at 4:26 am |
You propose honoring Doctor George Tiller’s murder by donating to agencies of the political movement that caused his death?
Well, I guess that’s not surprising.
Jay Burns // June 3, 2009 at 9:29 am |
Jesurgislac – I posed the question earlier….Can you answer it for me?
Just how is a late term abortion done to protect the health and well-being of the mother. If that is the case, wouldn’t a c-section produce the same results, while giving the child a chance at life.
renaissanceguy // June 3, 2009 at 9:38 am |
No movement caused his death. A man, allegedly, with a twisted sense of justice caused his death. As you know, I believe in personal responsibility.
(If somebody kills the suspect in custody, would you want to be blamed for it because you called him a thug?)
Jesurgislac // June 3, 2009 at 12:35 pm |
Jay: Just how is a late term abortion done to protect the health and well-being of the mother
Sometimes because the fetus is dead, and must be removed. As the pro-life movement has succeeded in violently intimidating many hospitals out of training doctors in how to carry out late-term abortions, the pregnant woman must go to one of the few courageous specialistis in the country who are prepared to defy pro-life terrorists and provide these services.
Induced labor and/or caeserean section are both dangerous to a woman’s health: a woman who is already in such a bad way that continuing the pregnancy is an enormous risk to her health needs to be able to choose between having a late abortion or having an early delivery, without the intervention of the state or in fear of pro-life terrorists who think they ought to make that medical decision for her.
Finally, there is the situation where a fetus has such terrible physical defects that, if born, the baby will live for only a short time in terrible pain. Pro-life terrorists want to force a woman to experience full pregnancy, childbirth, and the horror of seeing their child die in agony: courageous people like George Tiller offer a more compassionate choice.
RG: No movement caused his death
You have no moral courage at all, do you?
Moral Courage « Jesurgislac’s Journal // June 3, 2009 at 12:50 pm |
[...] An evangelical Christian with both moral courage and kindness; an evangelical Christian who has neither. [...]
Jay Burns // June 3, 2009 at 1:38 pm |
“Sometimes because the fetus is dead, and must be removed”
Pro-lifers have no problem with this.
“….continuing the pregnancy is an enormous risk to her health needs to be able to choose between having a late abortion or having an early delivery, without the intervention of the state.”
So you will admit that this is simply a choice to kill the living baby when they could have given the baby a chance at life. An abortion is just as dangerous to a mother as c-section. To pretend that the mother is being put in grave danger to have it removed via c-section is just misleading.
“Finally, there is the situation where a fetus has such terrible physical defects that, if born, the baby will live for only a short time in terrible pain.”
Under this premise we should also put down terminal cancer patients, and not just put them down, but do so with out asking what they want. For they are destined to live only a short time in great physical pain.
I know these are difficult questions, but I would err on the side of life.
jesurgislac // June 3, 2009 at 1:59 pm |
Pro-lifers have no problem with this.
Pro-life hospitals do not train doctors to perform the removal of a dead fetus. This is because all abortions after the first trimester are the removal of a dead fetus from the uterus (in the first trimester, the fetus is so tiny a D&C scrapes it out whole).
Therefore, pro-lifers clearly do have a problem with removing a dead fetus from a woman’s uterus, or they would have doctors trained in the process.
So you will admit that this is simply a choice to kill the living baby when they could have given the baby a chance at life.
“They”? A pregnant woman is always singular, and it is the pregnant woman who is able to choose whether to terminate the pregnancy, giving herself the best chance to survive – fertility intact – or to continue to the pregnancy, possibly to her death and that of the baby. Your claim that this is a “simple” choice is… inhumanly wrong. How could any decision like that be “simple”?
A pregnant woman may lose both the baby and her future fertility; her sight; her life. A pregnant woman may already be a mother, and have children for whom she also has a responsibility. Whatever her situation, she is the only one who can rightly make the decision in full comprehension of the inplications.
Pro-life terrorists want to take that choice away from her.
Under this premise we should also put down terminal cancer patients, and not just put them down, but do so with out asking what they want.
Well, you are arguing that pregnant women should all be forced to risk terrible, agonizing death without anyone asking what they want. Indeed, in the real world, you could have a situation where a pregnant woman discovers she has cancer, and you believe she should be forced to suffer death by cancer rather than be allowed to choose either to have an abortion and chemotherapy in order to survive, or to continue the pregnancy because she wants her baby to survive. You believe she shouldn’t be allowed to make that choice, and pro-life terrorists are using violence to take that choice away from her.
jesurgislac // June 3, 2009 at 2:02 pm |
Mike: From my understanding of his operations, I cannot attest to them all, but many were performed in order to protect the health and well being of the mother.
Yes. But as you may see from Jay Burns’s comment, pro-lifers are indifferent to the health and well-being of the mother.
Personal Failure // June 3, 2009 at 2:24 pm |
If you truly are interested in the truth of what Dr. Tiller did for many desperate women, here are stories told by the women themselves.
They are heartbreaking stories of loss and pain, and I hope you have the moral courage to read them.
Jay Burns // June 3, 2009 at 3:31 pm |
I am certainly not indifferent to the well being of the mother. Again my main point. Abortion is just as dangerous as C-section.
Here are the risks from C-section:
Infection, increased blood loss, decreased bowel function, respiratory complications, longer recovery time, risk of additional surguries, and of course death.
Risks from abortion include:
Infection, heavy bleeding, incomplete abortion, Sepsis, heart attack, damage to cervix, scarring the uterine lining, risk of additional surgeries, damage to internal organs, oh and of course death.
Please. Don’t act like abortion is safe and c-section is a death sentence. The likely hood of death in either circumstance is extremely low. Or at least it is for the mother.
jesurgislac // June 3, 2009 at 5:30 pm |
Again my main point. Abortion is just as dangerous as C-section.
Not at all.
Risks of Cesarean Section:
Facts about induced abortion in the United States:
In short, Jay: statistically, even having a late-term abortion is slightly safer than having a vaginal delivery, and either option is statistically about four times safer than having a C-section.
Obviously, that’s just statistical probabilities – but it should be enough to tell you that trying to claim that c-section is “just as safe” as abortion is not true. C-section is more dangerous.
But, in each case, each individual woman is best placed, with the help of her doctors, to decide for herself what option she should go with. Neither the government, nor the courts, nor pro-life terrorists who murder doctors and commit other violent and illegal acts against health care providers, have any business at all trying to overrule the individual decisions that must be made.
These are not simple choices. You’d know that if you’d read any of tributes to Doctor George Tiller by his former patients. They all mention his compassion and kindness at an appallingly difficult time in their lives.