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Murder Is Murder

By Rabble Rouser Reverend Amy on June 2, 2009 at 9:06 AM in Abortion, Crime, Current Affairs

By now, surely you have heard of the death of Dr. George Tiller in Kansas, shot to death in the foyer of the church for which he was acting as an usher. Regardless of how you feel about abortion (and I am pro-choice, though, like Secretary Clinton, I believe abortion should be safe, legal, and rare), what happened to Dr. Tiller is reprehensible. Even Operation Rescue, a group I have engaged in protests against in the past, decried this crime. Here is a news-clip:



This is not the first time a doctor who performed abortions has been killed. A Unitarian Universalist doctor, John Britton, along with his escort, Lt. Col. Barrett, was killed in Pensacola, FL in 1994. Dr. Britton had taken up the position to replace another doctor who had been killed for providing abortions, Dr. David Gunn. Ironically, the man who killed Dr. Britton and Lt. Col. Barrett was a Presbyterian minister. Yikes.

This tragedy, this murder of Dr. Tiller in his church, while not the first time for someone who performed abortions, I sure hope will be the last. But if “history is prologue,” as they say, I fear it isn’t. I lived in Boston at a time when a Planned Parenthood was attacked by a lone gunman, killing two people, with five injured. That was also in 1994.

I have long thought that people like these were domestic terrorists, before the term was used with such frequency, before 9/11, before Timothy McVeigh, even. Their agenda was/is to terrorize women who sought abortions, and those who worked in the clinics, thus fulfilling the definition, in my opinion.

That is to say, this has been going on for some time now. It is horrifying, it is mind boggling, and those responsible should face the highest possible punishment for their actions, whether it be Scott Roeder, the man who shot Dr. Tiller, or people like Eric Rudolph who bombed abortion clinics (which, by the way, also provide family counseling and other women’s health services – they aren’t just abortion clinics). No matter the party in power, no matter the political climate, it seems there will always be people, no, domestic terrorists like Roeder and Randolph, will engage in violence against women and those who work to help us in our time of need. No doubt, there is a lot of blame to go around for why this is so, who spurs these ideas, and so on, but people are ultimately responsible for their own actions. In this case, for whatever his crazy reasons, Scott Roeder decided to end this man’s life.

To Dr. Tiller’s family, my heart, and prayers, go out to you. I pray that you may be comforted by your family, your friends, and your faith. To the congregation that had to witness this tragedy, my prayers go out to you as you try to deal, and heal, from the sudden loss of a valued member by this senseless act committed in your sacred space. And for us all, that this act remind us that we do indeed face terrorists at home as well as abroad. That we must be vigilant in protecting the rights of Americans here, and that we must act swiftly to see that justice is done to those who violate those rights. And throughout it all, may we act with compassion toward all those whose lives have been affected by this crime…