George Tiller was shot to death as he walked into Reform Lutheran Church in Wichita, Kansas; 10 a.m. Sunday, May 31, 2009.
Dr. Tiller has been performing abortions since 1973, often for women carrying fetuses so badly damaged that, if carried to term, had no possibility of survival. Some were young adolescents who did not know they were pregnant or had been so ashamed they felt they could tell no one. He was one of a few doctors in the country that women in need of abortions after 20 weeks could go to when their lives and pregnancies were on the line.
Just two short months ago, Tiller could breathe a sigh of relief when he was acquitted of 19 misdemeanor counts stemming from abortions he performed in 2003. Tiller had escaped death in 1993 when he was shot in both arms by anti-abortion extremist Rachelle Shannon (who was sentenced to eleven years in prison for attempted murder). Shannon insisted at her trial that she had done no wrong and, since Dr. Tiller went back to work performing abortions the next day, she would have gone back to the clinic to do whatever she could to stop the murder of the babies.
We do not yet know whether Dr. Tiller’s shooter was an anti-abortion extremist, but it is pretty likely. Five abortion providers have been shot to death—all of them by anti-abortion extremists. The last time a provider of abortion services was murdered was in October 1998, when Barnett Slepian was shot and killed in his home near Buffalo, New York. Other murdered providers include two young clinic staff at Preterm in Boston, Shannon Lowney and Leanne Nichols, in 1994; Dr. John Britton in Pensacola, Florida in the same year; and Dr. David Gunn in 1993.
The National Abortion Federation lists other physicians who have been shot and injured either at home or near their clinics between 1994 and 1997. These murders and shootings (as well as hundreds of incidences of fire bombings and violence at abortion clinics) took place in the aftermath of a long campaign by Operation Rescue and its founder Randall Terry, who challenged anti-abortion activists with the rallying cry: “If you believe abortion is murder, act like it.” Terry claimed that he wanted to build a “Christian nation.” He’s jumped from conservative denominations several times, either leaving or being thrown out; in 2005 he converted to Catholicism, and met with Pope John Paul II and more recently with Cardinal Burke in Rome.
Now, Terry never killed an abortion provider, but his anti-abortion frame—which includes hypotheticals such as “wouldn’t it have been okay to kill Hitler if you knew you could save millions of Jews?”—has certainly been cited as inspiration by others who have. Paul Hill, who murdered Dr. Britton, was an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church of America (he was excommunicated for his calls to violence on abortion in 1993). Shortly before Michael Griffin shot Dr. Gunn, he attended services at Whitfield Assembly of God church in Pensacola, a congregation that regularly picketed local abortion clinics and was supportive of Terry’s admonition to act as you would if you really believed abortion were murder. He asked the congregation to join him in praying for David Gunn’s soul, then went out and shot him.
In most cases, after these murders and calls by pro-choice leaders that mainstream anti-abortion leaders stand up and unequivocally condemn such violence, both secular groups and religious bodies issued weak criticism. Helen Alvare, the Catholic Bishops' spokesperson on abortion at the time of Gunn’s killing went on ABC’s Nightline and defended the Bishops’ statement on the killing. The statement compared the violence of murder with the violence of abortion. The only other guest was Paul Hill, who later shot Dr. Britton. Ted Koppel described Paul Hill’s advocacy of murdering doctors as raising a “very, very difficult moral question.”
Perhaps the domination of religious discourse in the ’80s and ’90s by anti-abortion groups like the Christian Coalition, Moral Majority, and US Catholic Bishops has contributed to commentators like Koppel losing their minds and moral compasses.
And many said at the time (this writer included), that when people are treated to an unrelenting barrage of religious claims that abortion is murder, that doctors who perform abortion should be charged with crimes and sent to prison, and when pickets outside clinics pray the rosary and display mangled fetuses on crosses as if they were Jesus Christ himself, some nuts are going to do what Terry suggested and kill the “baby killers.” Perhaps nuts are just nuts and will do what they do whether or not some religious leaders provide a moral frame for immoral acts and others remain silent. Frustration at not getting your way leads people to do and say terrible things.
To a considerable extent, groups like Operation Rescue have become marginal over the last ten years, but in some quarters, murder and abortion are still equated, and in the case of Dr. Tiller (whose name provided an unfortunate rhyming quality), no insult was out of bounds. When Dr. Tiller went on trial in March, Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council headlined his blog “Court Decides fate of Serial Tiller.” And, as control of abortion discourse moves to the moderate center with the President’s combined message in favor of women’s moral agency and reducing the need for abortion, the far right feels it has lost the moral high ground. In a column on Obama’s commencement speech at Notre Dame, Ann Coulter quipped: “How about having the president throw out the ceremonial first fetus like on opening day in baseball.”
With the anti-abortion and anti-family planning administration of George Bush history, and an Obama administration clearly taking an approach that undercuts any effort to talk about abortion itself (focusing instead on preventing unintended pregnancy), we may well see frustrated anti-abortionists take to the streets. The National Abortion Federation has reported that violence at clinics is on the rise.
It is now eleven years since a doctor, clinic escort, or 22-year-old bright-eyed clinic receptionist has been shot and killed. For Dr. Tiller, the violence never subsided. His clinic was regularly picketed; he was harassed with lawsuits organized by anti-abortion groups. It is absolutely amazing that he continued to do his work, to help very desperate and frightened women. Now he is dead, gunned down on his way to church.
Let us hope that no one compares his murder to abortion. In fact, if there is one thing those in the religious community must do to prevent a return to the days when such comparisons were discussable in polite company, it is to make clear that the world’s religions do not consider abortion murder.
Dr. Tiller saved women’s lives; this is not a debatable point.
Tags: abortion, george tiller
Ms. Kissling:
You say that the world's religions do not consider abortion murder. Would you mind providing me some references for that b/c to the best of my knowledge, the Catholic church as well as evangelical branches of Christianity consider it murder (with the definition of murder being the taking of innocent life.) I'm looking for actual references to back up the statement you made. Thanks!
Rshorton
My comment got lost, let me try again. For positions on abortion go to Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice web. You will see that almost all branches of Judaism, Episcopalians, Lutherans, Methodist, UCC, Prebyterians and others Christians have statements. None say abortion is murder. They say abortion is serious moral matter, but justified in a range of circumstances. They say it is a matter for a woman's conscience. Not what one says about murder.Many point to the absence of any specific mention of abortion in the New Testament; and that the only mention in the Old Testament distinguishes between the penalty for murder of a pregnant woman - death and that of a fetus - a fine. Hinduism has no prohibition of abortion. Judaism in fact mandates abortion if the mother's life is in jeopardy or another child would compromise her commitment to existing children. Buddhism abhors the taking of life, but both the Dalai Lama and Thich Nhat Han have spoken of abortion as sometimes justified and speak of the decision in terms of an individual deciding whether continuing or terminating a pregnancy would cause greater suffering. Catholicism is most misunderstood. Of course abortion is forbidden in all direct circumstances but the reason is not that the church has definitive ruled it is murder. In fact in testimony before the US Senate in the 1980's, church officials on questioning by Senator Leahy admitted that canon law does not treat abortion as murder, but as "tantamount to murder". A minor but important fudge. The 1973 Declaration on Abortion issued by the Vatican notes that theologians in the church do not know when the fetus becomes a person. Abortion is generally considered a sexual sin not one of murder. Check of Daniel Dombroski's Brief Liberal Catholic Defense of Abortion for full understanding. Again, not to say abortion is not a serious moral matter but it is not theologically justified to call it murder.
The Jewish tradition does not consider abortion to be murder, among other reasons because it does not hold that life begins at conception. Abortion is permitted to save the life of the mother even up to the very last moment before birth. Depending upon the Jewish movement, it is permitted for other reasons, such as for the health (mental or physical) of the mother.
Dr. Tiller was already the victim of a hate-crime assault in which the perpetrator received only a mild penalty. The assassination of Dr. Tiller undermines the health and well-being of women and it happens against a backdrop of religious chauvinism voiced in long dead religious ideology.
Opponents of reproductive freedom shout meaningless slogans about what defines a human being. When the world leader of the largest religious denomination in the United States takes time in person to greet into that denomination the notorious demagogue Russell Terry into his church, he sends support to those who hurt women by murdering their physicians. Shame of the church that does this.
I personally know the bigotry as well as the bent philosophical (no, let's make it visceral, anti-philosophical insanity) of those who believe that, somehow, God has come upon them as one of his "chosen people" to command them to kill in His name. The 10 Commandments, to which Christians are not beholding, are now the law of Noah or, even more simply only 2 laws: belief in Christ as savior and the Golden Rule. However, how can one follow the Golden Rule if he or she does not love him/herself? This is a quandary and, of course, a great misuse of the Golden Rule as interpreted as some sort of "divine inspiration" to kill the "Tillers" of the world without shame. The response to this is also so underwhelming! I do not hear a great hew and cry from ALL people, no matter their faith or atheism, calling out that this is utterly "wrong" and, forever, can NEVER be "right," no matter how one cuts it. Intolerance is so ugly when, in so many parts of the world, abortion is the method of birth control as women can't afford the alternative or it is simply not offered.
This killing is no less than someone's exercise of their faith without "shame." There are too many like this and, I feel, they will never see what they do through a true moral/ethical perspective that they try so dutifully to sully and obfuscate by adding "unless God tells me to." This is one very simple rule that, for whatever reason, eludes their sense of moral authority, or the lack thereof: Thou shalt not kill!
Anyse
I have trouble understanding your post. I disagree respectfully with your equation of abortion with murder.
The first providers of referral to abortion providers I knew were chaplains at universities in Georgia (the state). They were chaplains from mainline denominations and served students at Emory and the University of Georgia.
A person close to me would be dead if she had not had a late-term abortion. She is an extremely conservative Christian. She had to pass one of the harassment/hate lines to obtain the medical services that saved her life.
In all due respect, Frances, your article isn't grounded in reality at all. It both saddens and sickens me to thinks that there are a few people out there who will read your work and agree with you. That is a crying shame. While there are a few religions that promote human sacrifice; Baal worship, Worship of Molech, Satanism, Atheism and Humanism to name a few, there aren't any legitimate, truly God-fearing individuals who would hesitate to call the slaughter of millions of innocent, lovable, precious baby boys and girls exactly what it is, Murder. So I suppose if your religion advocates the murder of babies, then It speaks for the values espoused there in. Christianity, my "religion," says that it is just as wrong to murder Tiller as it is for Him to murder babies. I personally am shocked that anyone would allow you to publish something as slanted and hate-filled as this article. The only thing that shocks me more if that some agendized soul placed it on Google news. Murder is murder and a few inches of human tissue and belly fat doesn't change the fact that a stone-hearted baby murderer was himself murdered in cold blood.
I support reproductive freedom and I most certainly am a Christian--my religion.
You are an imposter, and our churches are filled with people like you!
I have never understood why the tyrants of the "pro life" movement don't shift their heated and often, so sadly, violently spoken, as well as acted, passions upon the "millions of innocent, lovable, precious baby boys and girls" who are IN this world. All the babies who do not have enough to eat, who do not have parents ready or able to care for them, who are born into a world of hate and war and violence. Babies who are dying from diseases for which there exist inexpensive and available cures, if only someone--some person who felt so strongly for LIFE that they would devote more than mere words to their beliefs. A person of such passionate faith that they would actually bring those medicines, those houses, those schools, those arms of faith to THESE MILLIONS OF LOVABLE PRECIOUS BABIES WHO ARE DYING EVERY MINUTE OF EVERY DAY IN THIS WORLD.
Why, why, continue this horrible hateful polarized battle over the unborn while turning a blind eye to these "MILLIONS OF INNOCENT, LOVABLE, PRECIOUS, BABY BOYS AND GIRLS", these children of the world who are already here? Murder is murder. Ignoring the needs of these babies and children is murder.
I beg you. I plead with every soul out there who feels passionately about LIFE, please stop the rhetoric and do something real and meaningful for these babies and children who are HERE ON THIS EARTH NOW. Suffering NOW. Starving NOW. On the streets without a home NOW. These are the babies who need you. Here. Already. NOW. Please.
Atheism is not a religion.
See the light...
"Atheism, as an explicit position, can be either the affirmation of the nonexistence of gods, or the rejection of belief in deities."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atheism
YOU shall not murder.
Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave room for the wrath of God; for it is written, "Vengence is mine, I will repay, says the Lord."
No, "if your enemies are hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty, give them something to drink; for by doing this you will heap burning coals on their heads."
Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.
Quick off the mark after the terrible event in Kansas, Kissling's essay shows the poise and passion coming from a lifetime of careful moral reasoning about this issue.
Hate speech in posters, slogans and even church signs! has poisoned the discussion of abortion for years. It must absolutely be disavowed by all.It propels zealots and extremists towards deadly actions and great harm to individuals and the community.We must bring it to public attention continually. What language is used in religiously-based schools, I wonder.
The only language that should be used in religiously-based schools is the Word of God!
In public schools they have shut God and His Word out. The public doesn't even want the Ten Commandments displayed. What's wrong with thou shall not kill, thou shall not commit adultery ect.
America hold on to your hats...Whatever a nation sows, it will reap...50,000,000 murders is what America has sewed. The innocent blood of over 50,000,000 girls and boys cry out unto God from the ground!
Mankind sure is warped. An abortion doctor kills babies. Then the doctor is killed. Then his killer is killed. Yet we raise millions and millions of dollars to stop animal abuse. There are even TV shows dedicated to this mission. If you agree it's just okey dokey to drill a hole in an infants head and suck its brains out, you are so far removed from humanity you aren't even on the planet. And, what about the possibility that this guy, though not deserving of another human being to take his life (much like the babies he killed)could possibly be like any other medical person in the past accused of heinous crimes? My personal opinion? By the third trimester it should be apparant sooner that the mothers life was in danger. But, I don't know all the specifics of his abortion cases. Nor I do I know the motives of his killer. Perhaps he is a disgruntled and pained father or grandfather? Who knows? And I certainly don't condone anyone's death, because only God is the ultimate judge and jury. Let's pray for all the souls involved in this horrible case.
re: "What kind of church allows someone like that in their congregation?"
That's a great question! I've read several other comments written here and let me start by suggesting that everyone read their Bible (if you own one). All this harping about "you shouldn't judge" is B.S.! The Bible tells us not to judge the world but we are commanded to make judgements about those who call themselves Christians. Due to the fact that Dr. Tiller was acting as an usher at this church tells me he was a reasonably active member (his wife sang in the choir). It's a fact that the church was aware of his profession and they chose to allow this wolf to remain among the flock. The Bible clearly outlines Godly discipline that is to be exercised within a congregation and it appears that no one followed this Biblical instruction. This is unfair (not to mention Biblically unsound) to the church body that is to be protected and also unfair to Dr. Tiller who may have been convicted, spiritually, of his sin had he been confronted and rebuked by the men in leadership at his church and, perhaps, he might have repented. It is not unlikely that Dr. Tiller has entered eternity separtated from God (Hell) and this church's leadership (or lack thereof) must bare some responsibility for this tragedy.
I agree; my only additional comment would be to answer the original question as to 'what kind of church allows someone like this...' is to reply, "all Churches". Sinners we are and sinners we remain yet at the same time saints by faith. The leaders of his church missed the opportunity to lead Dr. Tiller to conviction and repentance although we don't know if they attempted to in the first place.
The Church on earth must judge the outward acts of its own (Matthew 18) and the Office of the Keys must be exercised in the life of the worshipers. May God have mercy on us all.
The abortions performed by Dr. Tiller had nothing to do with a hateful desire to kill fetuses, and everything to do with assisting women who were confronted with a pregnancy they could not continue, often because it was dangerous to their own health or because the fetuses they carried would not survive.
Ending the life of a fetus to save a woman's life or well-being is in no way comparable to murder with malicious intent. Those who are unable to understand this difference simply do not view women as people with human rights, including the right to a healthy life.
Ms. Kissling is absolutely right when she says that Dr. Tiller saved lives. His death is a tremendous loss to women in the U.S.
Anonymous, you are either an idiot or morally vacuous. Only 2% of third term abortions are really medically necessary to save a mother's life. What about the other 98%? I think the word is "convenience. Third term "fetuses" are born alive all of the time. I for one hope that Tiller's ignoble ending sends a clear message to the abortion enablers in the medical ranks. :)
The truth is that he destroyed 60,000 innocent lives!
Great article - Thank you. I would love to know if you have a source for the quote you used:
“wouldn’t it have been okay to kill Hitler if you knew you could save millions of Jews?”
I agree with someone who commented on a piece by Judith Warner in the NYT. “I believe that another response to this killing must be to demand that the mainstream medical community acknowledge the reality that there will always be some women who need abortions later on in pregnancy.Local medical institutions must make provision for these cases– especially since these women can no longer be sent off to Kansas, out of sight and mind of “respectable” doctors and hospitals. In the abstract, late term abortions are understandably distasteful to many. When considered in the context of real women’s lives, however, these procedures are essential. This is what George Tiller understood. This will hopefully be his legacy.”
— Ann
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