I think this was as much a message to Obama as it was to women in general.

This is terrible news. Tiller embodied the truest expression of the Hippocratic Oath, putting the welfare of his patients above even his own personal safety.

I (think I) know what you meah, shah8, but calling it a “message” feels like dignifying it. It was a murder by someone who loves zygotes more than people.

He was a hero. I’m only surprised it took so long, and I suspect he was, too.

Christian Defense Coalition to hold a press conference tomorrow in front of the Supreme Court.

To “discuss the impact”.

http://www.christiannewswire.com/news/895410527.html

Ghouls.

This is the statement from Operation Rescue: 

We are shocked at this morning’s disturbing news that Mr. Tiller was gunned down. Operation Rescue has worked for years through peaceful, legal means, and through the proper channels to see him brought to justice. We denounce vigilantism and the cowardly act that took place this morning. We pray for Mr. Tiller’s family that they will find comfort and healing that can only be found in Jesus Christ.

http://www.operationrescue.org/

They refer to him as “Mr.” instead of “Dr.” Stay classy, assholes.

This isn’t just an assault on this particular man, but on women, who apparently are expected to just die if they have pregnancy complications.

Fucking terrorists.

To “discuss the impact.”

THE IMPACT IS A MAN IS DEAD.  Because he provided medical treatment for women.  Because you assholes keep telling people that terminating a pregnancy, any pregnancy, is murder.

Amanda,

As you are well aware, that’s because the only value women have is as wombs—if their wombs are broken, who cares if they die?

Ok, not true, we also serve as a more satisfying alternative to masturbation.  But really, it’s just womb-filling.

This is why inflammatory, incendiary rhetoric about abortion, by people who want to distract from their own shortcomings and malices, is unacceptable. You use enough vicious, abusive language about someone and before you know it, some loser becomes intoxicated with all the violent rhetoric and goes over the edge.

I don’t know what to say. This in incredibly infuriating and while the anti-choice terrorists are publicly decrying the action, you know they are cheering. My thoughts are with his family, and thank you Dr. Tiller for all the good you have done.

To say nothing, Cat Ion, of referring to their fruitless campaign of harassment as working “through peaceful, legal means to see him brought to justice”.  and the kind words they offer to his family translate to, “Join our church or join your husband and father in Hell”.

Yeah, really taking the high road there.  Scum.

Bitter Scribe—tell that to Fox News and Clear Channel, who endorse and mainstream the instigators (Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, et al).

Women with late-term pregnancy complications should just die seems to be exactly what they think. There were only two clinics nationwide that provided this kind of service. Now that Dr. Tiller is dead, it will likely be only one. The pro-forced-birth brigade cannot truly believe that in a country of 300 million, there aren’t enough genuine pregnancy emergencies to keep two clinics busy - yet they continuously and vociferously keep trying to get them shut down.

The only conclusion is that they think those women simply shouldn’t be able to get help at all.

RIP, Dr. Tiller. You were a genuine hero.

What does it say that the last attempt on his life happened during the Clinton administration?

Thank you, Dr. Tiller, for everything you’ve done for your patients.  Few people are so courageous.

Suspect description posted:

http://www.kwch.com/Global/story.asp?S=10451609

Police have a suspect description. The suspect is described as a white male in his 50’s or 60’s with grey hair that is balding in the middle. He is about 6’1” and about 220 pounds and was wearing a white shirt and dark pants.

The suspect was last seen in a light blue Ford Taurus, possibly an early 1990’s model. It has a K-State vanity plate and a Kansas license plate number 225 BAB.

h/t annrose posting at DailyKos http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/5/31/737213/-George-Tiller-Murdered

but for whatever reason, he rose to this challenge

The reason is that he was genuinely devoted to the physical, mental, and emotional health of women, so much so that he was willing to die for us. We don’t recognize the reason because we’ve never seen any other man do it. It’s unfathomable to me to realize that for over 30 years there was a man in this country that was literally willing to die for me, a man who didn’t even know me. The loss I feel today is incredible.

I haven’t cried over a headline in a long time. I just kept thinking about how he wore a bullet-proof vest to work, so the terrorist had to get him in church. He obviously felt that was the one place where he could be safe…

What I wrote at my blog:

George Tiller was particularly known for being one of the doctors to perform late-term abortions. Incidentally, I used to be against late-term abortions until I did a lot more research on the subject. Considering that in a nation where abortion (both via D&C;and the Mifepristone pill) is legal and generally safe, especially earlier in the pregnancy, late term abortions are largely the province of pregnancies where something has gone horribly wrong. No abortion is committed on a whim or just for fun, but late-term abortions are often the result of dire medical need. (Or sometimes because women couldn’t get to a provider before due to financial circumstance or other medical issues, or because they’d been raped and beaten and unable to provide full consent until they recovered. There’s a lot of reasons why women will seek a late-term abortion, but a lot of them fall under “necessary to save life or to maintain good health”.)

Basically this guy was saving women’s lives. He was giving them the dignity to make tough medical decisions regarding their health and future well-being. For his efforts, he had been shot (before in the 90s) and stalked and had his family threatened, and finally he was killed. For daring to help women.

Murdering a guy in his church, damn.  I’m reminded that they killed Slepian upon his return from Shabbat services.  Sick fucks.

The reason is that he was genuinely devoted to the physical, mental, and emotional health of women, so much so that he was willing to die for us. We don’t recognize the reason because we’ve never seen any other man do it. It’s unfathomable to me to realize that for over 30 years there was a man in this country that was literally willing to die for me, a man who didn’t even know me. The loss I feel today is incredible.

I know, flea.  I’ve been bawling since I read about it.  It’s just awful.

I’m absolutely disgusted by this, but not at all surprised.

That said, how late is considered “late term” for abortion providers? The one in my town will go up to 24 weeks, which last I checked is the earliest moment of viability. Now, I didn’t think that I lived in the only other town in the country that did abortions that late, but maybe I do…

The reason is that he was genuinely devoted to the physical, mental, and emotional health of women, so much so that he was willing to die for us.  We don’t recognize the reason because we’ve never seen any other man do it.

Dr. David Gunn.
Dr. John Britton and James Barrett
Dr. Barnett Slepian

All dead.

Dr. George Tiller (shot)
Dr. Calvin Jackson (shot)
Dr. Garson Romalis (shot and then stabbed six years later)
Dr. Hugh Short (shot)
Dr. Jack Fainman (shot)

And that doesn’t include the possible injuries and fatalities due to bombings, fires, and the inherent risk of being on one of those death lists maintained by anti-choice websites.

So yeah, there’s a few examples of my sex who aren’t lost causes.  You want to cut back on the hyperbole?

And, bonus points about my town, I have NEVER heard of the clinic in question ever getting protested, the doctor ever getting threats, or many people saying anything bad about her (the doctor) with regards to abortion. She has TERRIBLE bedside manner and is about the last obstetrician you’d want to see if you want to continue your pregnancy, but she’s reportedly a brilliant surgeon and very dedicated to women’s rights.

I just wrote in the I’mNotSorry.net blog:

“Way to go, antis.  You’ve been gunning (pun intended) for this guy for decades, and your perseverance paid off.  Spare me the pious denunciations--I couldn’t help but notice that Operation Rescue immediately came flailing with the OMGWTFBBQ WE DON’T CONDOOOOONE THIS WE VALUE ALLLLL LIFE shit.  Forums and boards are filled with thousands who share your views gloating over Tiller’s murder, doing everything but dancing down the hallway singing Ding Dong The Witch Is Dead.  And guess what?  They’re going to be the public faces of your movement.  They ARE the public faces of your movement.  It’s true that the majority doesn’t like abortion, but they damn well don’t like someone getting shot over it either.

I have always had the utmost respect for Dr. Tiller and the service he provided to women when no one else would.  I salute his refusal to cave to the antis even after his first shooting--and how much does it suck to write that, “first shooting"--and the clinic bombing.  It’s sad that his life ended as it did ... and even sadder that it came as no surprise.

INS contributor Elena wrote of her experience at Dr. Tiller’s clinic; it can be read here.

Thank you, Dr. Tiller.  You won’t be forgotten for your honesty and bravery.  May your murderer be brought swiftly to justice.”

I don’t normally tear up over the death of someone I didn’t know personally but I did when I read about Dr. Tiller’s death.  He was a hero in every sense of the word.  My thoughts are with his family and the thousands of women whose lives he saved.

You want to cut back on the hyperbole?

Not at the moment, no. His death broke my heart, and today I’m going to feel what I’m going to feel. Nobody went as far in the service of women’s lives than Dr. Tiller did, and today’s going to be about him, not about you, or anybody else.

Just heard that the scumbag murderer has been apprehended.  If there is justice, the dude will never see another sunrise again for the rest of his life.

http://www.kansas.com/topstories/story/833730.html

SUSPECT ARRESTED IN CONNECTION WITH SLAYING OF ABORTION PROVIDER GEORGE TILLER

WICHITA - The suspect in this morning’s fatal shooting of George Tiller is in custody, according to emergency dispatchers.

Authorities have yet to release more information about the arrest. Wichita police have scheduled a 4 p.m. news conference to discuss the case.

That’s incredibly sad and sick, and the crocodile tears of the woman haters are disgusting. I’m sure he wouldn’t have been shot if he’d just been part of your church.

Just heard that the scumbag murderer has been apprehended.  If there is justice, the dude will never see another sunrise again for the rest of his life.

I’m morally opposed to the death penalty, I think justice will be best served by holding the bastard in a dark windowless cell for the rest of his miserable existence on this Earth.

I’m morally opposed to the death penalty, I think justice will be best served by holding the bastard in a dark windowless cell for the rest of his miserable existence on this Earth.

I agree… I should have clarified my statement to say as much.  Point being, I don’t want this thing to enjoy even one ounce of freedom for the rest of its miserable life.

Those hypocritical fucks piss me off to the point where I can’t speak. Killing someone in their church?

I have a good friend who developed severe eclampsia late in pregnancy. Her organs were starting to shut down. I can’t remember what week it was (I want to say 18?) where the hospital she was rushed to would not terminate a pregnancy any longer. She was 17 weeks 6 days. There may have been drugs that they could have tried that may have helped her if they could have had the option of waiting a day or two to terminate if need be. But they didn’t have that option. They had to terminate that day or risk that the drugs wouldn’t have worked and she and the baby would have died the next day anyway.

So that baby’s death is all on these dumb fuck antiabortionist scare quotes “health of the mother” ass bastard fuck heads. They kill way more babies/mothers/doctors than they could save by letting women and medical professionals do the right thing in these emergencies.

Fucking terrorists.

That’s right, it is terrorism.

I hope that this gets brought up as an additional charge in addition to murder.

I.. am just floored. I suppose I shouldn’t be, what with how the radical antis think, and how many times this man has been literally under fire, but I can’t recall when a headline has felt this much like a knife to the guts. Someone who has given so much to the lives of women and families. willing to live and die for his convictions… RIP Dr. Tiller. And strength for your family against the onslaught of negativity that is sure to follow.

The news this morning was like a punch in the stomach. He saved so many women’s lives. No one would have blamed him if he has quit after the first attempt on his life, but he persevered. He was a brave, brave man of principle. I feel sick over this.

So yeah, there’s a few examples of my sex who aren’t lost causes.  You want to cut back on the hyperbole?
KeithM on 05/31 at 11:13 AM

Um, Keith, that was an absolutely great post until you cued this whining.

I knew exactly what those women posters meant. I didn’t think the shoe fit me and I don’t suppose you thought it fit you. So why go “ouch!” from the pinch, then?

I would have thought, despite the way med schools still no doubt graduate more men than women and certainly did in past decades, that some of the more bold providers of reproductive services would have been women. And that the thug terrorists would have targeted more than a few of them.

In fact I seem to remember reading on this very blog not too long ago about just such a woman being murdered, and her less outspoken professional partner left standing but traumatized.

So would a complete list of the body count and injured such as you offered include a comparable number of women? I’d think so, and assume if they numbered less it would be because there are fewer women MDs in this country across the board.

Ah well, maybe sometimes the thugs have a bizarre sense of chivalry and aim for the male doctors first.

Be any of that as it may--even when misandry approaches Mary Daly levels, I don’t find it threatening, for the same reason I don’t fear racist rhetoric coming from people of color (against Whitey, that is--different if it’s divide and rule stuff against other out-groups) the way I both fear and hate white racism--fear it despite being white (and male) myself because this junk is a social weapon aimed against all of us.

But when it is an outgroup attacking the privileged group, I find it easy to suspend judgment on whether it is just as vile, or actually the leveling of justified criticisms, or at least a heartfelt cry against painful reality, even if it might be technically too sweeping.

I guess this is male privilege, to be able to shrug off such things as not really threatening and grant them what validity they may actually have.

So let’s make the best of it, and exercise it since we’ve got it.

Like, here was a man who did stand up for women, and risked his life--and had it ultimately stolen from him, because he dared do the right thing. Now women mourn him, and the shock is just settling in on me myself. (Along with a distinct sense of “Uh-oh...")

So let it go, dude. Don’t be the problem, you are better than that!

I am incensed at the headlines:  CNN says “Doctor Who Provided Abortions Killed”
Not murdered, not “saved women’s lives,” not “risked his life every frigging day for women”, not “murdered by terrorist”....

An amazing amazing man.  To say he will be missed is a gross understatement.

s.

Oh, yeah, Keith, stfu

RIP Dr. Tiller. And strength for your family against the onslaught of negativity that is sure to follow.

Shit.  I just realized that Fred Phelps and his psychotic followers are just a short drive from Wichita.  I really hope they can keep this asshole away from the Tiller family in their time of grief.

death is too good for the son of a bitch.

life in prison sounds about right.

OK, RIP mourn, cry, etc.  But then do something.  (Sorry, that’s the way my mind works.) And the something is to flood the White House and your Senators and Congress person with a request for FOCA - NOW.  It is indeed time to defeat these terrorists once and for all. You know how to reach them, phone email whatever.  Just do it.  Do not let Tiller’s death be in vain.

As for Westboro, you know those patriot riders?  Well, I was just reading that more women than ever are riding motorcycles…

Thank you Dr. Tiller for standing on the side of life--grown adult women’s lives. Thank you for creating a clinic that took on the cases that very few other doctors had the courage to take on. Thank you for creating a clinic that emotionally and psychologically supported the women whose late-term abortions were often heart-wrenching experiences. Thank you Dr. Tiller’s staff, family, and supporters in Kansas who stood by this brave, moral man. I will hold you all in my thoughts and I am so so sorry that we live in such a cruel world where this man over the coming days (a hero) will be defamed by the anti-choice terrorists who feel that it is their right to control the bodies and lives of men and women simply because of their twisted and demeaning religious beliefs that have very little to do with justice or wisdom, but blind obedience to a parody of a evil, petty patriarchal god. Bless you Dr. Tiller and Thank You.

Randall Terry needs to die in a fire.

“George Tiller was a mass-murderer. We grieve for him that he did not have time to properly prepare his soul to face God,” Terry says, “I am more concerned that the Obama Administration will use Tiller’s killing to intimidate pro-lifers into surrendering our most effective rhetoric and actions. Abortion is still murder. And we still must call abortion by its proper name; murder. Those men and women who slaughter the unborn are murderers according to the Law of God. We must continue to expose them in our communities and peacefully protest them at their offices and homes, and yes, even their churches.”

Murdering a guy in his church, damn.

According to the Hamlet Rule, he goes right to heaven.

Which I don’t believe in, I’m just sayin’.

So would a complete list of the body count and injured such as you offered include a comparable number of women? I’d think so, and assume if they numbered less it would be because there are fewer women MDs in this country across the board.

Ah well, maybe sometimes the thugs have a bizarre sense of chivalry and aim for the male doctors first.

As far as I know, every abortion-providing physician murdered in the U.S. has been male.

Two female receptionists, Shannon Lowney and Lee Ann Nichols, were killed in two clinic attacks in Brookline, Massachusetts.  But there has never been a female abortion-providing doctor muredered thus far in the U.S.  Or none that I am aware of.

I’m not sure why more males in the profession have been the targets of physical violence than females, though I would guess it is likely due in part to there being many more male abortion providers than female.

In any case, the recipients of the most verbal abuse in clinic protests are clearly women, and a clinic bombing is more likely to harm women than men, as there are almost always more women physically present in a clinic than men.

Oh, and to chime in with others who have already stated… Keith, chill.  Not every comment critical of the patriarchy is meant to be critical of all men.

Remember when Bill O’Reilly went after him for weeks? I wonder if, like the shooter who went after those at a “liberal” church, national news coverage demonizing Dr Tiller had an impact here.

“I’m not sure why more males in the profession have been the targets of physical violence than females, though I would guess it is likely due in part to there being many more male abortion providers than female. “

Gender treason?

Oh my. Just found out Ann Coulter referenced him in an article very recently:

http://mediamatters.org/blog/200905210005

Despite the crocodile tears of the antis today, Tiller’s blood is on their hands, because they have encouraged the incendiary rhetoric that drives unstable people full of rage to stalk and kill doctors that perform abortions.

Goddamn them all. If there’s a hell, I hope they burn there.

...and I hope if there *is* a hell, one thing they get to see as they descend into the flames is the sight of Dr. Tiller resting peacefully in heaven.

Punishment for the bastard killing Dr. Tiller:
Not just life in prison… life in solitary confinement in a supermax prison.  NO sunlight for the rest of his miserable life.

Sorry, that’s the way my mind works.

I’m sorry that’s the way your mind works.  Do you do this to people just walking away from the funeral of a loved one, as well?

“I’m not sure why more males in the profession have been the targets of physical violence than females, though I would guess it is likely due in part to there being many more male abortion providers than female. “

Gender treason?

That makes sense.  I think it’s also rooted in some sort of machismo sexist thinking that it is more noble to kill a man than it would to kill a woman.  The terrorist assholes behind these killings no doubt do so realizing they will likely be caught, tried, and either spend their lives in prison (Eric Rudolph) or face the death penalty (Paul Jennings Hill).  I think they view themselves as martyrs for their cause, brave souls who slayed the evil abortionists.  They do not believe themselves to be what they are - murderers.  They view themselves as soldiers (hell, one of these whacko groups calls itself “Army of God") and they believe that this is a holy war, and they are on the side of good.  And, for their legacies to be what they want them to be, they view it as more “noble” to kill male adversaries.  Killing a female abortion doctor would violate their antiquated views of chivalry in “war”.

I know that’s totally fucked up, but I think that is probably how these psychotic assholes think.

“We pray for Mr. Tiller’s family that they will find comfort and healing that can only be found in Jesus Christ.”

Given that Tiller was murdered in front of his family while praying to Jesus Christ we can only imagine what his family thinks of that little bit of pious viciousness.

Randall Terry needs to die in a fire.

That would be nice, yes.

I am almost as offended by his hypocritical failure of theology as his insensitivity.

Almost.

In this case, I think the “pro-life” label is useful: pro-life terrorist.

If that was the murderer’s motive, then let the self-described “pro-life” side explain why he shouldn’t be labeled as such. 

Meanwhile, condemnation of Kansas and its so-called justice system is in order, too.  Here is a man who was the victim of terrorism for decades, and what did Kansas do?  Did they do everything in their power to protect his patients, his employees, and his family from terrorism?  No, they didn’t.  Kansas took the side of the terrorist and prosecuted him for performing abortions.

Honestly, I wonder, if Kansas had spent more time prosecuting terrorists and less time prosecuting doctors, would this doctor still be alive?

Oh, and also, why hasn’t Congress passed the Freedom of Choice Act?  Why hasn’t President Obama signed it?

This was heatbreaking news.  Dr. Tiller has been one of my heroes for years.  I used to work in an abortion clinic and we referred a few patients to his clinic.  Dr. Tiller saved women’s lives.  He protected their fertility so they could go on to have other children.  He helped women and their families grieve their loss.  This is a huge blow to women all over this country.  The loss to his own family and community must be immense.

I do not wish to exploit his death in any way but I would love for someone to set up a pro-choice fund in Dr. Tiller’s name.  I will be making a nice donation to my local women’s clinic this week in his honor.

I think it’s also rooted in some sort of machismo sexist thinking that it is more noble to kill a man than it would to kill a woman.

This is what I meant by “bizarre sense of chivalry.” I see you used the same phrase later as well.

They do not believe themselves to be what they are - murderers.  They view themselves as soldiers (hell, one of these whacko groups calls itself “Army of God") and they believe that this is a holy war, and they are on the side of good.
DTG in STL on 05/31 at 12:38 PM

Doesn’t “Hezbollah” also mean “Army of God?”

And “al Qaeda"--"The Base?”

The thing I hate the most about Islamist extremists is that they are so much like our Christianist extremists.

Not just the sick fuck who did the deed, but everyone who had reason to know that he was going to commit an act of terrorism on US soil. Life in prison. No parole.

XtinaS:

Uhm, generally, people dying isn’t a result of violence and a culmination of threatened violence.  There isn’t an outcry of we need to do something about X.  No one here was claiming to be a relative or close friend - so I’d say your comment was misplaced.

It is perfectly appropriate for mourners to donate organs, to ask for memorial donations to an anti -cancer/disease society etc.  That’s how many of those organizations were started.  My suggestion was made in that vein.  I may/may not have time to post after the prescribed period of mourning is observed (sarcasm) .  So I posted it now.

Stick the fucker in jail as a terrorist, prosecute him as a terrorist, jail him as a terrorist.

And damn it, the feds need to start treating his supporters as terrorists and/or supporters of terrorism. Start taking domestic terrorism seriously.

We grieve for him that he did not have time to properly prepare his soul to face God.

One would hope I would think, were one a person of faith, that such a statement would be the kind of thing presented as damning evidence when confronting St. Peter or Anubis or whatever that the speaker of such vile nonsense had himself utterly failed to prepare whatever shit-stained rag of a soul he may have had to face a kind and loving deity.

Also, targeting women doctors would make it kinda obvious that the point is to target women.  The ladies who donate to anti-choice groups might start hesitating for a moment before they sign the checks.

Excellent point.

One of the key components of the pyscho anti-choice groups’ messaging is their ridiculous claims that they aren’t against the women who get abortions, but against abortion itself and those who provide it.  It’s obviously completely disingenuous bullshit that is used to mask their hatred of women’s autonomy, but by focusing their acts of overt violence primarily against male providers, they avoid getting tagged as the vicious misogynists that they are.  They demonize the male abortion providers so they can claim to be supportive of women.  It’s all bullshit of course, but I think you made a great point - they’ll have a much harder time raising funds from women for their causes if they decide to start taking out female OB/GYNs that perform abortions.

My almost-16 year old daughter said, in response to my worry that the Phelps brigade might show up to Dr. Tiller’s funeral was, “I’d figure out a way to get there myself to take him out.” Figuratively speaking, of course. I think I’m doing something right. -g-

would someone like to perform a cleanup at aisle 5:24 - looks like foul vomit was spewed.

Geez, MM, why bother with the whole “I don’t condone this” pretense?

You’re an idiot if you don’t think this makes you forced-pregnancy assholes look bad.  Just wait until the backlash hits and Obama is signing the George Tiller Memorial Freedom of Choice Act.  Who would be laughing then?

- “Could we just say that “Tiller got aborted.” “- MM

Of course you can MM. In this country, you can be a total asshole and be protected by the constitution. But, when you break the law, your asshole is going to jail.

Nuts like you have a hard time figuring that out, apparently.

Ain’t life grand?

Life in jail, that is.

I’m confused. Are the psychotic man-haters the ones who gunned a man down in cold blood on his way to church, or someone else?

This should serve as a wakeup call to anyone who thinks that domestic terrorism is not a problem. Because the truth of the matter is that the right wing will resort to any and all tactics, up to and including murdering law-abiding citizens who don’t share their twisted world-view.

my worry that the Phelps brigade might show up to Dr. Tiller’s funeral

I don’t think there’s any “might” regarding whether or not the Westboro whackos show up to Tiller’s funeral.

I’ll be truly shocked if they don’t.  Sadly.

Clio, you just hate men so much that you don’t see how LOLworthy this whole thing really is.

psychotic man-haters

You’re getting confused, and it’s making you incoherent. You’re supposed to be calling us baby-haters and murderers right now. Save the man-hating bile for when we’re not mourning the death of an actual man and calling him a hero.

Please note, by the way, that when suspicion arose that Obama had possibly maybe shaken hands with a guy who over 30 years ago was involved in violent protests against the American government (and, it should be noted, was never prosecuted for it, while protesting an actual unjust war in which actual human beings were being killed), right-wing pigfuckers could hardly contain their excitement in yelling about how Obama pals around with terrorists. But of course when one of their own engages in an act of terrorism, they’ll do their best to frame it as an act of courageous resistance.

Every liberal should look at this and realize that about 20% of the population of this country just wants us dead. They’re kept in check by the law and by their own laziness and stupidity, but only just.

I think male doctors are targeted because it fits the anti-choice narrative of how women who have abortions are moral children being pushed around by the only people with brains big enough to make choices, i.e. men.  Female doctors throws the narrative of women=mindless womb factories into question, honestly.

Amanda:  I agree.  I think one of the big factors contributing to to the fear of abortion is one of the old patriarchal standbys—the worry that a strange man is meddling with the reproductive systems of “our” womenfolk.  The would-be patriarchs see abortion providers, especially male ones, as challenging their control of the family unit.  The idea that control of reproduction could or should lie with women themselves doesn’t even seem to be in the mix.

Why would man-haters be so upset that a man god murdered.  Typical train of thought from one who so obviously had his brains aborted before his/her mother changed her mind.

Yes, MM, mocking the victim of a brutal murder is certainly a great way to make friends.

MM, it is you who is the man hater.
(Although since you probably hate women too, it’d be more accurate to describe you as a “people hater”, but whatever).
Go get bent, jackass.

MM, you’re obviously delighted over this person getting murdered. Try to act like a man and cut the chickenshit “I don’t condone this” nonsense. Don’t lie. 

Speaking of chickenshit, what’s with the guy fleeing the scene? These people fancy themselves to be latter day MLKs, but I never heard about King or Rosa Parks bolting from the police.

Punishment for the bastard killing Dr. Tiller:
Not just life in prison… life in solitary confinement in a supermax prison.  NO sunlight for the rest of his miserable life.

No.  The difference between us and them is that we do not justify torture based on our feelings.  We believe in justice, not retribution.  As Scott said “Stick the fucker in jail as a terrorist, prosecute him as a terrorist, jail him as a terrorist.” But we do not torture him (and permanent solitary is a torture) as they would torture a terrorist.

We are better than they are.  We just have to remind ourselves of that occasionally.

Ask your mother for one, Marching Moron.

Go not give a shit somewhere else.  You’re tedious.

Now sit up and beg, troll! Now poop in the corner! Now roll in it!

MM, Tiller saved lives. But since they weren’t fetal, but actual women, clearly they don’t matter to you. His death will probably mean the deaths of women *and* their fetuses.

You make me sick. And I hope you are edited out, because there’s no place on this thread for your attitude. We are in mourning.

By the way, I’m pro-choice. Just not to the extent of Tiller the Killer.

One of these things is not like the other.

And, being opposed to women having the option to, you know, NOT DIE when their pregnancies go wrong in serious ways, not only removes you from the pro-choice ranks, it also fails at being pro-life.

I sometimes think that we’ve become so medically complacent that people just can’t picture things going medically wrong anymore.  The anti-vaxers think that measles and mumps must not be a big deal because they don’t pay attention to the thousands of people world-wide who die from them every year.  The forced birthers think that every pregnancy is medically perfect, no one ever has a severely deformed or dead fetus, no one develops pre-eclampsia or other life-threatening conditions, and if you do, that’s just proof positive that either (a) God hates you or (b) you willfully did something bad that harmed the fetus, so it’s all your own fault.  Usually a combination of the two.  It’s certainly not random fate.

So you can have people like MM who think it’s awesome that hundreds of women will die needlessly or be rendered infertile this year because there was no one to help them, because they think it’s all the women’s own fault.  They must have done something bad that damaged either their own or the fetus’ health since all pregnancies always develop perfectly normally unless the pregnant woman does something wrong, so those women deserve to die.

You’d think that 10 minutes of Discovery Health or TLC would clue them in to things like conjoined twins or anencephaly or pre-eclampsia, but nope.  They persist in their magical thinking that pregnancy never, ever goes wrong unless the pregnant woman actively did something.

(BTW Don’t waste your time people, its an opinion. Won’t argue with you.)

What a spineless disclaimer to add.  Why bother provoking people with your opinions if you’re too much of a coward to back them up?

overweight, dateless

More wingnut projection. 10:1 this guy hasn’t seen his own dick without the aid of a mirror or talked to a women without giving his credit card number in 30 years.

That sanctimonious fuck Bill O’Reilly has blood on his hands.

I will say this murder was wrong, but will dissagree with PhysioProf above: no doctor who does abortions is fulfilling the Hippocratic oath. IMHO.  (BTW Don’t waste your time people, its an opinion. Won’t argue with you.)

Yeah, why bother engaging with people who have contrary opinions? You already have The Truth written down somewhere and anything that contradicts it must clearly be a lie.

The last 8 years of Republican government encapsulated for your reading pleasure.

I know this site generally lets trolls do their thing so they can fully expose themselves for the misogynist assholes they are, but could somebody please, please, please block this fucknozzle MM from being able to post here?

A man, a good man, a hero to the cause of reproductive justice was brutally assassinated today because of the rhetoric of worthless piece of shit pigfucker assholes like MM.  This thing is coming here to taunt people who are justifiably upset and shaken over this tragedy.  It (no, you aren’t worthy of being described as anything other than “it”, you fuckhead) is no better than Fred Phelps.

Please… now is not the time to let trolls pollute this place.  If I want to read that kind of bile today in the comments, I can go to POLITICO.  This should be a safe place to not have to deal with these assholes right now.

no doctor who does abortions is fulfilling the Hippocratic oath.<blockquote>

How does ending a pregnancy which no matter what will not result in a living baby override the saving of its mother who would have died with it if not for that abortion?  Instead of two dead, there is one dead, and one alive---how is that NOT the full spirit of the Hippocratic Oath?  “Do no harm?” A dead baby, or a dead baby?  It’s dead either way, how is it harmed?  What has it lost that it would have but for him kept?

<blockquote>BTW Don’t waste your time people, its an opinion.

That was an analysis, actually, comparing an oath to a situation and rendering judgment on it.  Your opinion in the sense that you meant the word would be that you don’t like abortion.

Well said, DTG.

I call for this troll to be banned.  He/she/it isn’t even interesting and obviously “argues"* in bad faith.

*The word “argues” is a stretch here.  It’s more like the internet equivalent of throwing feces.

Tiller was a murderer that performed late-term abortions to irresponsible skankbags on call. He cared not one bit whether there was a legitimate reason for the procedure. It was about his own personal greed and his uncontrollable desire to kill. Had he no phd, he’d have just been a serial killer instead.

OK, which parody artist hacked MM’s account for its last post?  Well done, you got everything: misogyny, demonstrable lack of any connection to reality, delusions of mind-reading capabilities, unhinged theories presented as fact, even grammatical errors!

no doctor who does abortions is fulfilling the Hippocratic oath

So I assume you also think that conjoined twins should not be operated on if there’s a chance that one them will die from the operation and that both should be allowed to die naturally rather than kill one and save the other, right?  After all, it’s the exact same violation of the Hippocratic oath if you do an abortion because a woman is dying of pre-eclampsia or the fetus has anencephaly.  In your world, both the woman and the fetus should die rather than saving the one who can be saved.

And let’s be clear:  these are exactly the operations that Dr. Tiller was doing.  He didn’t do those first-trimester abortions you guys love to pretend women have just for kicks.  He took the hard cases where the pregnancy had to be terminated to prevent death or further harm to the pregnant woman.

Take a look at a few anencephalitic fetuses and tell me that the woman pregnant with a child that will never even survive the trip through the birth canal should be forced to continue the pregnancy no matter what.  I think they once managed, through heroic effort and round-the-clock life support care, to keep an anencephalitic infant breathing for three weeks.  I’m sure that spending three weeks in a futile attempt to extend their doomed child’s life was a picnic in the park for its parents.

Those are the abortions that Dr. Tiller did.  Now, thanks to people like you, women will be killed or injured because you find fatal birth defects too icky to think about, so you don’t even want to contemplate what happens when the doctor tells a woman in her 7th month of pregnancy that her fetus has no brain or that her twins are so conjoined that they can’t survive outside of the womb, and if she goes into labor unexpectedly, their position would kill her, too.  I guess those bitches deserve it for being so stupid as to have a child with a random, unpredictable birth defect.

President Obama has issued a statement on the murder of Dr. George Tiller:

“I am shocked and outraged by the murder of Dr. George Tiller as he attended church services this morning. However profound our differences as Americans over difficult issues such as abortion, they cannot be resolved by heinous acts of violence.”

I think male doctors are targeted because it fits the anti-choice narrative of how women who have abortions are moral children being pushed around by the only people with brains big enough to make choices, i.e. men.  Female doctors throws the narrative of women=mindless womb factories into question, honestly.

Absolutely.  The terrorists go after male doctors because the male doctors are the ones singled out for attack in the right-wing media.  As people on this thread have pointed out, Tiller has been demonized for years by the likes of Limbaugh and Coulter and by groups like Operation Rescue.  If you’re a nut looking for an abortion doctor to kill, of course you’ll go after one you keep hearing about on talk radio.

Why does the right-wing media focus on male abortion providers?  Because it props up the popular anti-choice idea that women don’t really want to get abortions (since we basically just exist to have babies, it doesn’t make sense that we’d ever turn down the opportunity), but, being congenitally feebleminded, are tricked or bullied into it by evil men.  The existence of female abortion doctors ruins the whole narrative, suggesting as it does that a) women may seek an abortion with or without male influence, b) women are smart enough to be doctors, and therefore may not actually be dim, doglike creatures incapable of making personal choices, and c) maybe this whole issue isn’t, or shouldn’t be, about men and their feelings.

At any rate, I’m deeply saddened and sickened by Dr. Tiller’s tragic death.  He was a courageous man.

AVSN on 05/31 at 05:42 PM

blah blah blah

Not spineless, just a realist.  Know the dance, don’t feel like dancing.

So, as a realist, what’s your plan for women who have fetuses with fatal birth defects?  How about pre-eclampsia that strikes in the 6th or 7th month?  What plan does a realist have in that case other than, “Well, sucks to be you.  I’ll be at your funeral.”

Sorry, but you’re living in a fantasy world if you really think that fatal birth defects and fatal pregnancy complications are something that women just make up because they don’t feel like having a baby anymore.

For every 100,000 live births in the United States, about 7 women die, and that’s with people like Dr. Tiller at work.  Hell, this showed up on ER at least twice—are you really that ignorant?

Assumptions are so useful aren’t they Mnemosyne? I believe thats the fifth step in the dance, right after “attack his faith.” GANFR

You should know, you’re the one who assumes the conclusions of your argument. Why let a little thing like facts get in the way of what you already know? And if in doubt, be sure to hide behind your religion; that’s a time-tested maneuver for avoiding acknowledging that you might be wrong.

How many women have shot, bombed or otherwise injured abortion providers?

Well, that ruined a perfectly good day off.

I’m sure the terrorist thinks of himself, at least on the surface, as a hero.  And sick bastards like Phelps and Terry will no doubt think of him the same way.  But you know, deep down, they really don’t even believe their own bullshit.  If he really thought he was a hero who’d just saved teh babeez from a serial killer, he’d have stood there where he did the deed, talked to the police, then given interviews to the press covering this local hero story.

They’re terrorists and criminals, and for all their sanctimony, they know it.

I consider this a declaration of war.

It’s time to stand the fuck up.  No more letters, no more protests, no more speeches.  I’m sick and fucking tired of it.

If they want to kill human beings while declaring themselves “protectors of life”, then we will not sit back and let them.

Assumptions are so useful aren’t they Mnemosyne?

What “assumption” am I making?  Dr. Tiller did late-term abortions that almost no other doctor in the country would do.  He was investigated multiple times over at least a decade and no one was ever able to show he did a single abortion that was not medically necessary.

This isn’t just a run-of-the-mill, anti- or pro- discussion.  We are very specifically discussing late-term abortions, because the doctor who was murdered specialized in them.

I believe thats the fifth step in the dance, right after “attack his faith.”

Again, we’re not talking about an abstract “what if” here.  Dr. Tiller did nothing but late-term abortions of pregnancies that had complications.  We are talking very specifically about his practice and what he did at his practice.  This isn’t some pie-in-the-sky theoretical notion.  Pregnancies go wrong every day.  But you’d rather stick your head in the sand and pretend it doesn’t happen so you can maintain your illusion that the only women who ever need an abortion are careless sluts who don’t deserve one anyway.

Oh, and bringing up “faith” when discussing a man who was murdered inside his church is pretty rich.

Whoever or whatever MM is, he is obviously trying hard to start a blog firestorm. Shut him down, he has nothing to contribute.

Convince me.

Convince you of what, that it’s the 21st century and women shouldn’t be forced to die in childbirth because you find the alternative icky?  That fatal birth defects actually exist and that sometimes fetuses die in the womb?  What is it that you expect to be convinced of since you already seem to think that childbirth is always 100 percent safe, women never experience pregnancy-related complications, and all fetuses are healthy and develop normally from the moment they’re conceived?

The lack of empathy and imagination on the part of MM and AVSN is stunning.

I’d like to argue, but I highly doubt that they actually give a shit about the realities of late-term abortion.  They’d rather cling to their illusions that women who get them are flaky sluts or evil satanists.  They actually don’t want to hear that most late-term abortions are done on very wanted pregnancies, that tragedies and disasters occur, and that no matter how many times you say, “Well, I’d find a way to save both!” the real world doesn’t actually work that way.  They don’t want to think about mothers with cancer grieving their lost unborn baby.  They don’t want to think about distressed parents choosing to end the pregnancy, rather than have their child die hours or days after birth, knowing only pain and suffering during its short life. 

But pregnancy isn’t all puppies and unicorns and fucking rainbows.  Dr. Tiller served and supported women facing exactly these types of problems.  He saved lives.  And Fuck You, trolls, for thinking that your illusions of what things ought to be trump the very real service of a man far braver than you’ll ever be.  We are the poorer without Dr. Tiller.

Abortion is an evil.

I’m not convinced.

How many women have shot, bombed or otherwise injured abortion providers?

I am only aware of one - Shelley Shannon, who shot an abortion provider in the arms.  The doctor who was the victim of her attack in 1993?  Dr. George Tiller.

You made assumptions about what I think.

Which assumption here is wrong? The assumption that you’re opposed to abortion? That’s the only one we need here.

But now you have me on the dance floor, I will lead.  Abortion is an evil.  Will I qualify that? Yes. When it is not medically a need.

Ok, well, it’s great that you’ve made such a convincing case! My rebuttal: abortion is not an evil.

Do I have all the answers? NO. Don’t ask me to be the prophet of the alternative to abortions. Want to call me names, go for it.  In the end I’ll be the one standing calmly and you’ll be the crazy screaming.

See, in Republican America, supporting the position that women are individuals who should be allowed to make their own reproductive decisions is “crazy screaming,” but repeating over and over again the “abortion is evil” catechism is perfectly sane.

You refuse to be engaged on any reasonable level, and this is certainly because you’re incapable of actually defending your indefensible position.

One of the key components of the pyscho anti-choice groups’ messaging is their ridiculous claims that they aren’t against the women who get abortions, but against abortion itself and those who provide it.  It’s obviously completely disingenuous bullshit that is used to mask their hatred of women’s autonomy, but by focusing their acts of overt violence primarily against male providers, they avoid getting tagged as the vicious misogynists that they are.

I think you’re assuming greater strategic thinking than these assholes are generally capable of.

Ironically enough, I think it’s all about choice.  Someone mentioned “gender traitor” (or the equivalent) previously, and that’s been my experience when I’ve had personal run-ins with hate groups.  Sure, the white power rangers hate people who don’t look like them, but I was on the receiving end of extreme vitriol from a bunch of them because I do look like them.  I’m about as pure-blooded “Aryan” (as they define it) as you can get and yet there I am in opposition.  To their way of thinking, someone like me is dangerous because, by all their reasoning, I should be one of them.  That I’m not calls their understanding of the world into question, and that’s one thing fanatics cannot tolerate.

A female doctor?  Well, she’s a woman.  You know, all emotional and stuff, letting it get into the way of thinking correctly.  Can’t really blame them for being like they are.  But a male doctor, he made a choice.  And the fact that he agrees with the enemy threatens the worldview.  He’s a threat.

There’s a reason why people view traitors and heretics as worse than someone else who might do exactly the same thing but comes from an outside group.  Of course you expect one of them to be like that.  When one of us does it it means something is wrong with either the person or the philosophy.  And for a fanatic the philosophy can’t possibly be wrong, so it must be the traitorous scum.

Trolls don’t have illusions or ideas or ethics.  They exist to vomit rage and hate, and ncite others to commit violent acts they are too cowardly to do.

It’s a funny type of person who goes out of his way to gloat over someone getting murdered. We know the deal with MM (he’s drunkenly jerking off and weeping right now); why the fuck are you here, AVSN?

Karinna you are wrong, I don’t lack empathy.  This mans murder is a horrid thing, I never said or thought otherwise. I never have thought that there are never problems in pregnancies. (in fact know it happens, thank God my woman survived the problem.) As for Tiller being braver? I served my country and have the bullet to prove it, so at least as brave.

Your woman, huh? Thanks for that revealing formulation.

Do I have all the answers? NO. Don’t ask me to be the prophet of the alternative to abortions.

You want us to stop having them, yes?  You can bloody well come up with decent alternatives so WE aren’t paying for what YOU value.  Don’t have any?* Then don’t be surprised if women keep having them because the alternatives suck so much.

*Hell, WE have alternatives to a lot of them---contraception (for those who don’t want babies) and social support services (for those who do)---and WE are pretty much the only ones working to provide them! Funny world, when the pro-choicers are doing so much more to lower the abortion rate than all the screaming careless and sometimes murderous legions who call themselves pro-life.

What about “fetal justice?”

What about it? It’s a fictitious construct that has no basis in reality, since fetuses aren’t people and have no rights.

MM proves that it is possible to score so low on the stick test that the sticks make fun of you.

Please do not acknowledge or argue with murder-endorsing trolls.  We will delete and ban them.

Deleted some trolls, so the conversation in here might be a little confusing, but I think we’ll survive.

Also what Amanda said.

STATEMENT FROM THE PRESIDENT ON THE MURDER OF DR. GEORGE TILLER

I am shocked and outraged by the murder of Dr. George Tiller as he attended church services this morning.  However profound our differences as Americans over difficult issues such as abortion, they cannot be resolved by heinous acts of violence.

I got to grow up with both a mother and a father because of a late-term abortion. I can’t imagine what my life would have been like if my mom had been forced to die of pre-eclampsia in her seventh month. I don’t want to imagine it.

I’m afraid that some families are going to be forced to find out, now.

Well, I have already seen right wingers stating as fact that late term abortion is never medically necessary because they can just do a cesarean section.  I actually just heard about this, went to a message board I post on, read a few posts, and had to walk away.  The person who is stating that over and over as if they were a doctor is a woman.

It always angers me so much that a woman would do that, that I can’t trust myself not to get too vile in my response.

I know a woman who was diagnosed with Stage 4 non-Hodgkins lymphoma around the 5th month of her pregnancy - a planned, very much wanted pregnancy.  Her doctors wanted her to start chemo immediately.  They didn’t think she’d survive if she waited to start treatment until after she gave birth.  There was a good chance she wouldn’t survive to give birth.  Chemotherapy would kill the fetus.  After agonizing over this decision, she and her husband decided to terminate the pregnancy so she could start chemo immediately.  They had a young daughter already.  They wanted her to have a mother.  Because of the law now against “partial birth abortions”, the doctors couldn’t even deliver a fetus for them to hold and grieve.  Somehow, our government decided it was more humane to have the doctors dismember the fetus in utero, at greater risk to the mother and her fertility.  She and her husband were devasted but she started chemotherapy and, the last time I heard from her, was alive and healthy and cherishing her daughter.  She and her husband were looking into adoption since pregnancy is now considered too high risk for her.

THIS is the type of patient Dr. Tiller treated.  Where will women in this situation go in the future?

I’m sure most if not all here remember the 1990’s.  There was a rash of these abortion terrorist attacks during Clinton’s adminstration, and of course, you also had Oklahoma City.

I take zero pleasure in saying that i have been expecting this, and worse.  I think we all know what all of the hater-mongering that has been going on is doing.  They did the same thing during the 90’s and it worked.  I fear this will be worse because our President is black.  These are very hatefilled and hateful people and they are fanning the flames out there, and I don’t believe for one moment they don’t know what they are forcing to the surface.  They don’t care.

I consider them to be terrorists.

I am shocked and outraged by the murder of Dr. George Tiller as he attended church services this morning.

You know, that phrasing bugs me.  I know it’s standard boilerplate, and certainly one should be outraged, but “shocked”?  It’s as if this sort of thing was entirely unprecedented and unexpected.

Anyone who had basic knowledge of the rhetoric and tactics employed by the anti-choice movement and their supporters shouldn’t be shocked in the least.  Saying that you’re shocked implies you’d never consider it a realistic possibility when all the evidence is to the contrary.

KeithM - There’s a part of me that expected this sooner or later.  As I said WAY up thread, Dr. Tiller has long been a hero of mine and, as a former clinic worker and clinic defense volunteer in the 90’s, I knew all too well the threat he faced daily.  When the story broke on NPR this afternoon, I gasped and whirled to stare at the radio and screamed.  It felt like a gut punch.  “Shocked” was definitely the right word for my reaction.  It’s not that it was unexpected.  It’s that no one is ever prepared.

What agency do we need to pressure to get this recognized as terrorism? Kansas law enforcement? FBI/DHS? I get the feeling that if the pressure doesn’t start soon, they’ll treat this as a regular murder and let murdering fucks like this assume that the gov’t is on their side.

I don’t know why I’m always freshly astounded at the asshats who think they should be allowed to stick their noses into other people’s private family business and second-guess their decisions based solely on what they’ve read in the press, but I am.  How many people insisted on zero evidence that Terri Schiavo was perfectly fine and her husband was a monster for trying to carry out her stated wishes as determined by several courts of law?

If you have not, for just one sad example, just found out that your very much wanted twins are severely conjoined and have fatal birth defects, then you know what?  You need to shut the fuck up while the parents—you know, the people who are actually affected—decide what’s best for themselves and their family.  It’s not your business.  You don’t have a say even if you totally saw this story on Discovery Channel about conjoined twins so you know they’ll be fine no matter what the doctor says.

It’s not that it was unexpected.  It’s that no one is ever prepared.

Fair enough.  I can understand being shocked in that sense.  I suppose it’s the wide breadth of things that get encompassed by the one word.  And, of course, I didn’t know the man or really heard about him until today.

My reaction is more of person who hears that another victim of an uncaptured serial killer or rapist has been identified.  It’s a tragedy, it’s something that should never have to happen...and it’s totally predictable.  Oh, maybe not the specific victim, but that there would eventually be one.

if you have not, for just one sad example, just found out that your very much wanted twins are severely conjoined and have fatal birth defects, then you know what?  You need to shut the fuck up while the parents—you know, the people who are actually affected—decide what’s best for themselves and their family.

This. To the umpteenth power. With bells on.

How many people insisted on zero evidence that Terri Schiavo was perfectly fine and her husband was a monster for trying to carry out her stated wishes as determined by several courts of law?

They can do it because very rarely do people call them on it.  They get to go on TV and the floor of Congress and spout off and no one tells them to shut the fuck up.

Although to be fair in the Schiavo case it wasn’t as clean as one might wish because the parents were on the opposite side.  Had they and the husband been in agreement, none of it would have happened and Terri Schiavo’s body would have quietly and pretty much anonymously been allowed to die like hundreds or thousands of brain-dead individuals do every year in the US.  Had she been unmarried or divorced, the parents would have quietly kept her on the respirator for as long as they wanted, again with no drama, and again as does happen.

I just joined this site to post on this, though i hope to post in the future as well. To me Dr.Tiller was a hero. I say that being someone who believes a fetus is a life. I no longer put myself in with THAT group, as i prefer pro-common sense. And to me Tiller represented exactly that ideal. He protected women at their most needing times from pregnancies that were dangerous to one or both involved. That is the epitomy(spe) of a hero and an incredible doctor. His loss is a great one to people, women and men, everywhere who have had to go through those tough times and received his help.

I completely disagree with pro lifers who simply say abortion is evil. Abortion isn’t, and never has been black and white, and the religious elements to it should never have any say. MM is simply just spewing hate for fun, AVSN, i don’t know where your coming from. Is abortion wrong sometimes? Yes. Is abortion right sometimes? yes. Is it simply one or the other? No. An incredible minority, the level we’re talking is alcohol breath levels here, may get an abortion cause they’re simply taking advantage of it for selfish reasons. The VAST majority do it because they either NEED it or because they know they can’t handle it. One of those things can be addressed. Better education, mandatory education on sex even. Easy to acquire contraceptives. And if those don’t work, there still needs to be more then the simple hope that the mother will simply be ready or that some magic family will swoop in like in Juno.

This is an incredibly complicated issue, and I certainly don’t have all the answers. But it’s better to discuss it then simply spew right and wrong. This isn’t about god. This is about people. And as people we need to use logic and common sense to figure out solutions, not a book thats millenia old. And hiding behind your belief without listening isn’t accomplishing anything. You have to be willing to change in order to really listen, otherwise it’s just lip service....or ear service.

The proper verb is “assassinated.”

Were I not imbued with the milk of human kindness, I would suggest that the proper treatment for such a terrorist would be extraordinary rendition to a place that practices what even John Yoo would consider torture.

That sanctimonious fuck Bill O’Reilly has blood on his hands.

Carmicus on 05/31 at 06:26 PM

Let’s add a few names to that list:

Randall Terry
The Scheidlers
Frank Pavone
Jill Stanek
Phil Cline

It’s name is Scott Roeder.

http://www.kwch.com/Global/category.asp?C=87352&nav=menu486_2_2

Operation Rescue’s Scott Roeder.

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/5/31/737357/--Suspect-Identified-in-Tiller-Assassination

As for Westboro, you know those patriot riders?  Well, I was just reading that more women than ever are riding motorcycles…
phylosopher on 05/31 at 04:20 PM

Let’s go. I’m serious. I can bring a few with me too. Kansas is def in striking distance. How long before the funeral? How much time do we have?

Mnemo

Actually thhe rate is higher and increasing:
In Arizona and the rest of the nation, the death of a mother during childbirth is a rarity.

In 2007, eight women in the state died of so-called maternal causes.

The Arizona Department of Health Services uses the term to refer to any death related to or aggravated by pregnancy.

Nationally, about 600 women die during childbirth each year, although some recent reports have suggested that those numbers may be increasing.

In late 2007, the National Center for Health Statistics, part of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, released a report showing that there were 13 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births in 2004, up from 12 per 100,000 in 2003.

The increase to 12 marked the first time the nation’s maternal-death rate has risen above 10 since 1977.

This was in an article on an Arizona official’s wife who died just after childbirth, as did the newborn.

We must now allow Dr. Tiller’s assassination to be swept under the rug.

Tiller was shot by Rachelle Shannon at his clinic in 1993. Tiller was wounded in both arms, and Shannon remains in prison for the shooting.

The clinic was bombed in June 1986, and was severely vandalized earlier this month. According to the Associated Press, his lawyer said wires to security cameras and outdoor lights were cut and that the vandals also cut through the roof and plugged the buildings’ downspouts. Rain poured through the roof and caused thousands of dollars of damage in the clinic. (link)

As soon as we have confirmation that Dr. Tiller’s assassin is mentally competent call your elected representative and report a domestic terrorism incident. Also, contact the FBI and file a domestic terrorism and civil rights report. 

From the FBI’s site:

“The FBI defines terrorism as, “the unlawful use of force or violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives.”

Please contact your local FBI office or submit a tip electronically if you have information about:

- Possible acts of terrorism, including violence, funding, or recruitment;
...

- Racial or hate crimes, human trafficking (involuntary servitude or slavery), or other civil rights crimes;”

AG Holder to send US Marshals to protect clinics:

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2009/05/us_marshals_to_protect.php?ref=fpblg

Looks like someone thinks this might go beyond just Roeder.

Operation Rescue.

He was an active member of Operation Rescue.

And a “sovereign” citizen who didn’t like to pay taxes.

He’s a fucking terrorist, and that report on right-wing domestic threats looks to be dead on right now.

It’s name is Scott Roeder.

No doubt he was thinking something along those lines about as he was making the decision to murder Dr. Tiller.  The guy, however loathsome he is to decent people, is a human being- save the ‘it’ stuff for the Addam’s Family reruns.

*weeps for nation*

AG Holder to send US Marshals to protect clinics:

I hope this shuts up the assholes *cough* Aravosis *cough* who are preemptively accusing Obama of not caring about this murder and not doing anything in response.

If you want to get precise, tb, Scott Roeder is the apprehended suspect, so doubt (and innocence) are still presumed.

We are all animals. We are all “its”. That was part of Charles Addams’ macabre charm, pointing out how fragile all the boundaries of civilized behavior are.

What separates the human from the other animals is what this is all about, though.

The “pro-life” movement is officially a terrorist movement.  If even those voicing support of Earth First! are harassed by the law and incarcerated with minimal or even no firm evidence, and people are sent to GITMO because of the PRETENSE that they hold religious beliefs that make them violent, the anti-woman pro-death contingent should now be subjected to the same antiterrorism treatment.

Following up on ginmar, Randall Terry’s full statement can be found here.  It’s also been noted that the shooter was a member of Operation Rescue.  I do believe that makes it potentially a terrorist organisation.

It’s going to be fascinating, in a bitter sort of way, to watch the wingnuts backpedal furiously over this.

It’s going to be fascinating, in a bitter sort of way, to watch the wingnuts backpedal furiously over this.

I think this is a sign of how very desperate the wingnuts are getting. It is also going to drive more and more of them away - if a man, even one considered to be an evil sinner, can’t find refuge in church ... and don’t think for a minute that all people who sympathize with the wingnutteria are not going to think of a Lutheran church as a church ... then who are these monsters?  It won’t make people think that abortion is a-ok, but it will make them think twice about casting their lot in with the ever more extreme faction that is responsible for this terrorism.

I’m surprised you’d laugh at the concept of “reproductive justice,” MM, since it encompasses the right to have children and not merely the right to certain reproductive health services linked to abortion. (And, with few exceptions, late term abortions are carried out for medical reasons, terminating otherwise wanted pregnancies. That isn’t always the case, but it wasn’t Tiller’s job to apply a “moral test” to the patients seeking his services, weeding out those whose motivations didn’t meet whatever arbitrary standard he’d set.)

Reproductive justice is not a new concept, either, but one dating back to a time when forced sterilization was permitted by certain US states and provinces within Canada. Another dimension of reproductive justice is that parents can raise their own children without undue interference from entities such as state-run residential schools.

In other words, it’s the linkage of reproductive choice to social justice.

I’m afraid it’s quite impossible for you to be pro-choice while at the same time tarring Tiller as a “baby killer” or slamming woman who seek abortions as “skankbags.” That leaves only two other possibilities: a) You’re a troll, or b) You’re simply a sloppy thinker.

The guy who did this is a terrorist, and I suspect Randall Terry is as well.

MM had his ass laughed off, Advocate, and was ejected from the stage.

Your boss has him now.

Dr. Warren Hern, “the other doctor” who performed late-term abortions and was a close friend of Dr. Tiller’s, has issued a statement and made an ominous and troubling prediction:

Warren Hern, a Colorado physician and close friend of Tiller’s—who described himself now as “the only doctor in the world” who performs very late-term abortions—said Tiller’s death was predictable.

“I think it’s the inevitable consequence of more than 35 years of constant anti-abortion terrorism, harassment and violence,” he said.

When Obama was elected last fall, Hern predicted that anti-abortion violence would increase, he said. Because Obama supports legalized abortion, Hern said, its foes “have lost ground.... They want the doctors dead, and they invite people to assassinate us. No wonder that this happens.

“I am next on the list.”

I hope, hope, hope that his safety and protection is being taken seriously by Colorado law enforcement authorities.  These folks need to be protected from the whackjobs in the anti-choice movement.

Funny, but i think our nasty trolls seem pretty smug.  Too bad they know not what “IP logging” and “subpoena” mean.

“MM had his ass laughed off, Advocate, and was ejected from the stage. Your boss has him now.”

Couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy.

Following up on ginmar, Randall Terry’s full statement can be found here.  It’s also been noted that the shooter was a member of Operation Rescue.  I do believe that makes it potentially a terrorist organisation.

While I do hope that an investigation indicates that Roeder was an active member of Operation Rescue and the DoJ as such can issue an indictment against them, at this point we don’t know fully know what his level of involvement with that vile organization is.  All we’ve got is that he posted a comment on their internet forum a few years back.

While that certainly is a huge PR problem for Operation Rescue, I’m not sure it can be used as legal evidence of his membership in that group.  There are lots of internet fora out there, but posting a message on an organization’s website doesn’t necessarily make one a member of that organization.

All that said, I do hope his ties to Operation Rescue prove to be more substantial than just an internet posting, because I would really like to see that group taken down in a court of law.

Maybe it is time to go neo-con on the christian extremists. This murderer probably came from a village somewhere. Level the entire village, declare the mullah O’rielly an enemy combatant and waterboard him until he divulges the next plot.
Pictures of the mullah Dobson and the rest of the senior members of the christian terrorists in a naked pyrimid.abu graib style would be all over the place in no time, perhaps with some debate over whether the ends justifies the means.
I know these measures didn’t work with muslim terrorists but since it is guys like Dobson and O’rielly it is not like humans are involved.

While that certainly is a huge PR problem for Operation Rescue, I’m not sure it can be used as legal evidence of his membership in that group.  There are lots of internet fora out there, but posting a message on an organization’s website doesn’t necessarily make one a member of that organization.

I bet there’s a lot of people with some vague connection to some website that vaguely might be considered to have a tenuous connection to Islamic extremists and who have been wiretapped, legally or not, who might disagree.

What’s good for the goose…

George Tiller Memorial Freedom of Choice Act

this.

While that certainly is a huge PR problem for Operation Rescue, I’m not sure it can be used as legal evidence of his membership in that group.  There are lots of internet fora out there, but posting a message on an organization’s website doesn’t necessarily make one a member of that organization.

I bet there’s a lot of people with some vague connection to some website that vaguely might be considered to have a tenuous connection to Islamic extremists and who have been wiretapped, legally or not, who might disagree.

What’s good for the goose…

Good point, though as PiaToR upthread noted in regard to Roeder’s possible punishment, we do not defeat these ideological pigs by engaging in the tactics their ideology preaches.

Is Scott Roeder an “active member” of Operation Rescue?  I don’t know.  I know that he appears sympathetic to their movement and has posted at least once on their website forum in recent years, but I’m not sure that would make him an active member of that organization anymore than someone posting on NARAL’s website would be indicative of them being an active member of that organization.

I would like to know how involved Roeder was with Operation Rescue.  I hope his ties to that group are thoroughly investigated by the Dept. of Justice.  If it is determined that he was an active member (beyond just posting a message on their website forum), I would like that point exposed and publicized heavily.  If it is determined that Operation Rescue or any of its officials were in any way, shape, or form co-conspirators in this assassination, I would like the responsible members of that organization to be brought to justice by AG Eric Holder.

To the extent that these whackos have been spewing hatred towards Dr. Tiller for years, they have plenty of blood on their hands.  As does Bill O’Reilly, Rush Limbaugh, Randall Terry, Frank Pavone, Jill Stanek, and countless other anti-choice assholes who have been waging a political media war on Tiller.

But in a strictly legal sense, Roeder’s posting of a message on the website forum of Operation Rescue two years ago is not an absolute indicator that he was an active member of that vile group.  And I’m not saying that to try to defend those fuckheads, because I am quite sure they are all more than ecstatic about today’s tragedy (despite whatever fluffy bullshit official message condemning the murder they issue)… just that we can’t go around trying to prosecute people merely for propagating hateful misogynistic propaganda that we vehemently disagree with.  Once we start to head down that road, you won’t want to be around the next time conservatives are in power.

George Tiller Memorial Freedom of Choice Act

this.

Seconded.

If anything, I would think this tragedy would be all the more reason why the Congresscritters should get off their asses on this matter which they’ve been cowardly avoiding since January 20, 2009.

This assasination is only the first. There will be more. Bombings too. I hope yall know me well enough to understand this is a prediction rather than a threat. I doubt this attack will weaken the radical right movement. It will strengthen them.

Dr. Tiller was a just and compassionate man. It is sad but predictable he died this way.

And “John Rove”, I’d love to see Mullah Dobson waterboarded, but the time is not yet right

Sad, terrible news.  And I suspect it’s only the beginning and will not be limited to the abortion front of the culture wars.

Maybe jus the mullah Hanity?

Fuck.  I just saw this on the news and came straight to Pandagon.  Just, fuck.  RIP, he was heroic.

This assasination is only the first. There will be more. Bombings too. I hope yall know me well enough to understand this is a prediction rather than a threat. I doubt this attack will weaken the radical right movement. It will strengthen them.

Sadly, I fear that you are likely correct in this prediction.

I was looking at the Wikipedia entry on “anti-abortion violence” earlier, and I noticed something stunning - no murders or assaults against abortion service providers from January 20, 2001 - January 20, 2009.  There were several incidents of property damage and attempted bombings, but no physical violence against abortion providers during Shrub’s presidency.  But in the 1990s, going back to March 1993, just two months after Clinton was inaugurated - numerous assaults, and numerous murders.

And here we are in May 2009, just 4 months after another pro-choice president has taken office, and the violence has begun again.

Tonight, I fear for the safety of Dr. Hern and other courageous individuals who offer these vital medical services to women all over America.  I hope our law enforcement agencies do everything in their power to ensure their safety against these domestic terrorists.

It’s our job, now, to take up the banner and the cause, and give something back. I find it very interestin that these men are in their sixties and seventies, and I’ve had too many encounters with assholes in their forties or younger who whine that they’re entitled to ‘paper abortions’, as if that’s all there is to it. THese men grew up with illegal abortions and their consequences.

These doctors have been doing this alone for years. We’ve grown complacent. If younger people have taken it for granted, it’s at least partly due to us old farts, who’ve not impressed upon them the sheer bone breaking courage it must have taken to get up every morning and think, Is today the day? You can do that for a year and a bit, and it’ll break you. Tiller did it for more than a decade.

We cannot sit on our duffs any longer. Stand your ground, don’t fire unless fired upon, but if they mean to have a war....let it begin here.

Hopefully people will start to understand the church sponsored domestic terrorism is a far bigger threat than anything the country might face from abroad. The religous right wants a theocracy which is about as anti-american as you can get. But they can blend in and attack anywhere. Something, and.I don’t know what, needs to be done about the radical dogma that churches throughout the country teach, while enjoying favored tax status and local support.

“The purpose of the separation of church and state is to keep forever from these shores the ceaseless strife which has soaked the soil of Europe with blood for centuries.” Attributed to John Madison.

I cannot help but marvel at the cowardice it took to lie in wait upon a man of medicine and gun him down, unarmed, while he attended church with his wife, his chidren, and his grandchildren in attendance...not to mention the children of others watching. Oh, yeah, the children? Them? Aren’t they supposed to be the big deal here? I’m so confused!  How could you do that if you really cared about them?!

Guantanamo Bay for this fucker and anyone who aided him.

I think it’s crucial, right now, how we respond to the “pro-life” people who are genuinely shocked and upset by this murder. This is the face of the anti-choice movement. This is what it’s about. It’s about murdering doctors who save women, because they want women to die in childbirth.

By which I don’t mean, of course, that most individual anti-choicers think it’s a good thing to murder doctors or for women to die in childbirth. The anti-choice movement has this PR thing sewn up. They have hordes of basically well-meaning, kind, decent individuals actively supporting a movement that if it succeeded would mean the bloody deaths of thousands of women. And yet these are people who would be absolutely horrified to think that they contributed to the death of even one woman.

So we need to start being very clear about what exactly the anti-choice agenda entails. We need to take this opportunity to be aggressive about calling a spade a spade. We need to use language that includes phrases like “forced pregnancy,” “forced birth”, “want women to die of pregnancy complications”, “medically necessary care”, “livesaving procedure”. We need to completely drop the term “pro-life”; that’s their playing field, they created it, and if you try to play on it you’re a sucker. This agenda is an anti-choice agenda. It’s an anti-medical-care agenda. It’s a pro-women-suffering agenda.

Dr Tiller’s murder is an opportunity to engage with the well-meaning but clueless anti-choicers in our lives and lead them to confront what’s really going on. It’s a wakeup call for the “baybeeeeeeeez” people. Nice people like them shouldn’t be connected to an ugly, hateful movement like this one.

My MIL is anti-choice. She goes with groups to pray in front of women’s health clinics that perform abortions. When my husband told her about Dr Tiller, and explained that late-term abortions are done for lifesaving reasons and that the anti-"partial birth” bills refuse to acknowledge that fact, she was shaken and shocked. She said she was going to seriously rethink donating to her anti-choice organizations. It’s the most pro-choice thing that ever came out of her mouth in 70 years, I’m sure, and I’m really proud of her.

http://pandagon.net/index.php/site/comments/doctor_who_saved_many_womens_lives_murdered/site/comments#124724” rel="nofollow">kristin on 06/01 at 03:21 AM</a>:

Great analysis, Kristin, and I’m excited for your MIL’s future prospects as a compassionate thinker on abortion.

Damn, should have previewed my last comment so that the hyperlink looked pretty.  If an editor happens to be feeling kindly, please pop a caret in front of that URL.

Dr Tiller’s assassination has profoundly upset me.  I’m horrified too that a man of his age felt compelled to keep practising rather than retiring because he was one of very few practitioners left in your country with sufficient expertise to not only save lives but also preserve fertility in the hope of future healthy children for these women who lost much-wanted pregnancies. The other provider specialising in late term abortions for fetal disorders in Colorado is similarly an elderly man, who has been told not to bother wearing a bullet-proof vest because they plan to aim for his head.

BitchPhD pointed out the stellar work done by the charity Medical Students For Choice, who aim to train tomorrow’s abortion providers today.  I plan to donate to them in Dr Tiller’s honour, and in the fervent hope that there will be more experts available to help women in need so that the load can be more fairly shared.

Well said, Kristin. Everywhere in the world, terrorist organisations driven by religious fantasism rely in large part on a support system made up of well-meaning naifs. This outrageous political assassination, sad though it is, is indeed an opportunity to show them the true face of their movement: violent, hateful, authoritarian, anti-science, misogynist, drunk on superstition. Truly the American Taliban, who’d gladly drag us back to medieval tribalism given half a chance.

And agreed with the others that this is part of a larger backlash by bitter old men—clinging, as the man correctly observed, to guns and God—against a world that’s (thankfully) leaving them behind. I believe that the pattern started with the TN Unitarian Church shooting in July of last year, which occurred a little less than 2 months after Obama’s nomination. If the FBI is so inclined, they’ll likely find a lot of profiling similarities between the gunman in that case and the assassin of the heroic Dr. Tiller.

“I doubt this attack will weaken the radical right movement. It will strengthen them.”

Correct.  It won’t “strengthen” them as far as actual numbers of followers or their popularity among the normal citizens of America, but the fervor of the remaining nuts will continue to get more and more virulent.  And like many who feel they are fulfilling their twisted ideas of god’s commands, some of them will (metaphorically?) strap on the suicide belts and bring terror in the name of their “sacred” cause. 

They are the direct christianist equivalent of the Islamic terrorists who seek to force their undersanding of the Quran on their fellow citizens, and eventually our hardcore fundnuts would love to become the American equivalent of the Taliban or the Mutaween.

As much as the founding fathers feared the sometimes evil power of religious fervor, I doubt they could have anticipated a crazy level that would lead to public assassinations…

I know that he appears sympathetic to their movement and has posted at least once on their website

Significantly, he posted about joining Tiller’s church and reaching him from the inside.  The post only mentioned talking to the Pastor and others, but the idea was there.

I’m not even remotely tempted to give Operation Rescue a pass on whether or not he was an “active member”.  Those assholes encourage thinking of abortion as murder and OBs as murderers.  They deny it and try to cover it in public, but they are happy Tiller’s dead.  Burning in hell, as far as they are concerned.

Those people are evil and terrorists.  I’m glad AG Holder has Marshalls in place, but we need to take control of the dialogue.  Dr Tiller saved lives.  He allowed women to preserve their fertility--which undoubtedly led to more baybeez in the end.

He was assassinated by a man who followed a large movement of people who, when they disagree with other’s, cannot live within the law.

Terrorists.

We don’t know whether other people at OR had reason to be aware of Roeder’s plan or encouraged him in it. The way to find that out is by investigating the connection thoroughly. In a lawful fashion. Just as this administration is distinguishing itself from the previous criminal cabal on the international side. We’re better than they are.

Dr. Tiller knew this was going to happen someday.  Ghandi knew, Malcom X knew, Medgar Evers knew, RFK knew the risk, but for a precious few of us, commitment is everything.

“No greater love hath a man than that he will lay down his life....”

I think it’s important to share stories from Dr. Tiller’s patients. I was discussing this awful tragedy on livejournal yesterday (sf_drama of all places) and someone told me I changed her mind about late term abortions. Like Kristin’s MIL, she was completely unaware of the realities of late-term abortion.

It infuriates me that anti-choicers try to paint him as some sadistic monster who enjoyed ripping apart babies. From all accounts that I have read, he was a very kind and compassionate doctor--the best you could ask for under such awful circumstances. One man said that Dr. Tiller stayed with his wife, one-on-one, for SIX HOURS when she was afraid she might have an infection.

http://www.aheartbreakingchoice.com/kansasstories.html

http://www.metafilter.com/82070/Pro-Life-does-not-mean-what-you-think-it-does#2585686

I want our elected officials to stop pretending like the anti-choice movement is a valid movement. If any other political group in the US had half the body count of Operation Rescue and its ilk, they would be shut down as domestic terrorists (Hell, ELF doesn’t even have a single death attributed to their actions and they’re considered a domestic terrorist group… even PETA was branded a terrorist group after 9/11).

I want Obama to remind Americans that because there is one less doctor out there now who cares enough about women to help them survive when a pregnancy goes terribly wrong, more husbands are going to have to sit back helplessly and watch their wives die because the baby they had so looked forward to having together died inside of her and went septic. I want him to tell all those husbands and fathers out there that their children may lose their mother when an attempt to give them a little brother or sister went molar because people decided to kill the doctors who could have saved her life in the name of “life.” I want our leaders to punch all of the mushy-middle people in the stomach and force them to think about the ramifications of this crap. Your wife, your mom, could DIE because these people value fetuses more than they value her. And whether or not you find abortion to be distasteful or unfortunate and wish there were no late-term abortions in this country, that’s a luxury that you are exercising when you have nothing at stake of your own on the table.

I’m sure many of Dr. Tiller’s patients had no idea about the realities of extreme pregnancy complications or the reasons women have late-term abortions ... until they needed to have one.

“And “John Rove”, I’d love to see Mullah Dobson waterboarded, but the time is not yet right”

I’d suggest we stay with “better than Cheney” for our standards on the left, guys. It’s been working pretty well. Not that I don’t feel the rage and the desire for retribution.

These people are trying to use violence as one part of their strategy to subjugate everyone to their way of thinking. Not just women, not just liberals and leftists, but everyone. Given that the existence of people who won’t toe their line seems to infuriate them, we can get some back on them just by existing.

I want our elected officials to stop pretending like the anti-choice movement is a valid movement. If any other political group in the US had half the body count of Operation Rescue and its ilk, they would be shut down as domestic terrorists (Hell, ELF doesn’t even have a single death attributed to their actions and they’re considered a domestic terrorist group… even PETA was branded a terrorist group after 9/11).

The problem is… how do you do that?

On what legal grounds can you shut these groups down?  Because I guarantee that if the government tried to shut these groups down, it will wind up before the Supreme Court faster than you can imagine, and immediately be overturned on First Amendment grounds.  The ACLU would likely defend them (keep in mind, the ACLU has defended the Klan) in the case.

These people are scum, and I fully believe that they have blood on their hands with the tactics that they employ and the rhetoric they choose to use.  They should be roundly condemned for the hostile and deadly environment they create with their message.  But just as we cannot legally force the KKK not to exist, we cannot legally force Operation Rescue and its ilk not to exist.  Unless it can be proven beyond the shadow of a doubt in a court of law that Roeder was directly acting as an agent of one of these groups on official orders from the group, they will claim that he was rogue agent acting outside of their group’s stated rules of operation.  And while I have no doubt that OR is secretly cheering what happened yesterday, there is no demonstrable legal proof that he was acting on direct orders from that group.  I would like to see his ties to Operation Rescue fully investigated, and if it turns out that anyone in that group was in anyway complicit with this cowardly act, I would like to see them fully prosecuted.  If leaders in the group in any way ordered or had any direct hand in this assassination, I would like to see the group prosecuted under RICO statutes.

I wish there was a way to make them just go away.  But in a nation of laws that places a strong value on the freedom to express ideas - even vile, repugnant, disgusting ideas - we cannot arbitrarily start rounding people up who say evil, hateful things just for saying evil, hateful things.

I wish there was a way to make them just go away.  But in a nation of laws that places a strong value on the freedom to express ideas - even vile, repugnant, disgusting ideas - we cannot arbitrarily start rounding people up who say evil, hateful things just for saying evil, hateful things.

I’m hoping that Dr. Tiller’s family sues them for millions on the basis that they encouraged this psychopathic member of their community to assassinate one of their avowed enemies. You can’t make them go away, but in the civil courts you sure as heck can starve them of resources and show them up for what they are: enablers of murder.

As an ACLU member, I agree with you fully regarding the problems inherent in the state outlawing an organisation that has not clearly and demonstrably engaged in criminal conspiracy.

DTG—if the government can classify ELF and PETA as domestic terrorist groups (esp PETA, which has about the same “wink and nod” approach to people who have performed terrorist acts “in their name” without being formally connected or condoned by the organization), then we can classify Operation Rescue as a terrorist organization.

The precedent is already there. If we’re going to declare that a group that fights for animal rights is a domestic terrorist group because their sympathizers go and blow up medical research facilities, then we can classify OR as a domestic terrorist group by the same standards and with a far greater body count.

I’m hoping that Dr. Tiller’s family sues them for millions on the basis that they encouraged this psychopathic member of their community to assassinate one of their avowed enemies.

There may be a case there, but first you have to actually prove that he was a member of Operation Rescue.

He posted a message on their website encouraging others posting there to go to Tiller’s church to confront the leaders of the church, but I don’t know that that would be sufficient legal proof that he was an active member of Operation Rescue, nor is it legal proof that he was directly encouraged by Operation Rescue members to carry out an assassination.

Did he participate in their protests?  Did he make donations to the group?  Did he attend organizational meetings of Operation Rescue?  What was his level of involvement with OR beyond being sympathetic to their mission?

These are the questions law enforcement authorities need to be seeking answers to right now.

At this point, I don’t think his posting on their website would legally suffice as conclusive proof of membership in the group.  I could go make a post on NARAL’s website right now and then decide to go vigilante on someone like Randall Terry in two years - would Terry’s family be able to seek damages from NARAL on the grounds that I was acting as their agent?  Highly doubtful.

If the authorities are able to establish some sort of conclusive proof of Roeder’s membership in Operation Rescue, I would love to see Tiller’s family sue them out of existence.  But right now, if all we have is that he posted a sympathetic message on their website, Tiller’s family would likely lose badly if they tried to seek damages from OR on that alone.

I’m not a lawyer, so I may be wrong on all of this… I just have a hard time seeing either a judge or a jury ruling against Operation Rescue in a civil suit based only on the internet posting of Roeder on their website.

There may be a case there, but first you have to actually prove that he was a member of Operation Rescue.

Absolutely agreed. I’m hoping some interested party has been monitoring their comment boards and taking screenshots over the last few years, because my guess is that Operation Rescue has spent the last 24 hours holding a little digital shredding party to distance themselves from the suspect.

I’m also hoping that the alleged shooter was stupid enough not to wipe his browser cache and his computer’s disk drive before he went on his little mission from God (a fair bet), because I’m sure that the authorities are going over it as we speak.

Call me cynical, but I suspect that any proof of his membership in OR will conveniently go missing. This is one of the reasons I fully support prosecuting anti-choice groups under RICO.

DTG—if the government can classify ELF and PETA as domestic terrorist groups (esp PETA, which has about the same “wink and nod” approach to people who have performed terrorist acts “in their name” without being formally connected or condoned by the organization), then we can classify Operation Rescue as a terrorist organization.

The precedent is already there. If we’re going to declare that a group that fights for animal rights is a domestic terrorist group because their sympathizers go and blow up medical research facilities, then we can classify OR as a domestic terrorist group by the same standards and with a far greater body count.

Agreed, but only if Roeder acknowledges that he was doing this in the name of Operation Rescue.

The individuals who committed crimes who were members of ELF and PETA never attempt to hide their affiliation with those specific groups, and they often explicitly said that they were acting as agents of those groups - ELF members notoriously tag the word “ELF” on property they vandalize, about as much of an admission of membership as any prosecutor could ever hope for.

Right now, we do not have legal proof that Roeder was a member of Operation Rescue.  He wrote a sympathetic post on their message board two years ago.  That alone would not suffice as legal proof of membership in a court of law.  Unless he claims to be a member, or Operation Rescue acknowledges him as a member, or we can find some more substantial tie between him and that group, we don’t have legal proof of his membership in Operation Rescue.

By the way… I want to be clear that I fully share the same feelings about Operation Rescue as most here - and I agree with you, they are a far more vile and dangerous group than ELF or PETA.  But in a strictly legal sense, we cannot presume membership to an organization simply because the individual once posted a message on that organization’s website.  And I’m not saying the Roeder WASN’T an active member of Operation Rescue - quite frankly I think there is a good chance that he was - just that we cannot automatically assume his membership in OR based only the fact that he once posted a sympathetic message on their website two years ago.  If I go post a sympathetic message on the website of Greenpeace saying we need to get rid of coal power plants, and then I vandalize a coal power plant down the road, that doesn’t mean that I was acting as a member of Greenpeace.

In a way, I do hope more information surfaces indicating that he was an active member of Operation Rescue.  Because if a substantial tie to that group can be established, the Tillers would have a solid civil suit they could file against them and hopefully put them out of business.  As it stands right now, however, I am not sure that they would succeed in that effort, if all we have is the lone message board posting.

Absolutely agreed. I’m hoping some interested party has been monitoring their comment boards and taking screenshots over the last few years, because my guess is that Operation Rescue has spent the last 24 hours holding a little digital shredding party to distance themselves from the suspect.

As I understand it, the assholes at Operation Rescue have already scrubbed the particular post being discussed here from their website.  I read the message myself, but it was through a cached copy of the page that it appeared on.

I have a hunch that if you go to OR’s website today, you won’t find a single instance of Scott Roeder posting anywhere on it, as I’m sure they’ve already wiped it clean.

They need to check not only his hard drives, but his financial records as well - see if he ever donated money to those fucksticks.

Not to give anything away, Gracchus, but with the latest in forensic computer technology, the only way to destroy the data on the hard drive is to destroy the disk itself, as some of the folks involved in the Parmalat scandal a few years did to hide their tracks.

Not to give anything away, Gracchus, but with the latest in forensic computer technology, the only way to destroy the data on the hard drive is to destroy the disk itself, as some of the folks involved in the Parmalat scandal a few years did to hide their tracks.

Somehow, I think this Know-Nothing is the type of computer user who has hundreds of files still sitting in his unemptied trash bin.

To Jerry V: yes “my woman”. We’ve been togther for 15 yrs, and it’s just silly to call her “my girlfriend.” (in fact I would say even belittling) So not as revealing as you think. Would you object the same way if she said “my man”? Not about possesion as you imply.

She’s your PARTNER, fuckstick asshole wankstain.

We’re happy with “my man” and “my woman”.  Partner is just a bit too unromantic too us.

“Operation Rescue has worked for years through peaceful, legal means, and through the proper channels to see him brought to justice.”

I did a spit take when I read that little chestnut. As someone who did years of clinic defense in San Diego I have been grabbed, screamed at, blocked from walking, had pamphlets and bibles shoved in my pockets and thrown at me and just generally harassed by Operation Rescue members. On occasion they would mistake me for a woman going in for a procedure or consultation and then I would have to deal with someone falling to their knees, grabbing my legs (or hands) and shrieking “Don’t kill your baby!!! Jesus loves your baby!!!”. This is in addition to the horrendous posters (and top to bottom decorated vehicles) of late term miscarriages and terminations (with medical complications) misrepresented as standard aborted fetuses. And the outright lies they spread in their propaganda. These people have been dangerous for a very long time and Randall Terry is a huge reason why they are such a threat.

The murder of Dr. Tiller is a huge loss and my heart goes out to his family and the many women who will not receive the compassionate help they need in his absence.

...But just as we cannot legally force the KKK not to exist, we cannot legally force Operation Rescue and its ilk not to exist.  Unless it can be proven beyond the shadow of a doubt in a court of law that Roeder was directly acting as an agent of one of these groups on official orders from the group, they will claim that he was rogue agent acting outside of their group’s stated rules of operation. 

A lot of bad law, upheld by bad court decisions and surpassed by worse executive actions, has been enacted and implemented against many groups--overwhelmingly leftist, at least nominally progressive ones--especially since 9/11, but actually all that built on very questionable precedents set long before.

We might take this as an opportunity for a “put up or shut up” moment, by making a meticulous case--but one as sweeping as the police/security machinery routinely makes against environmentalist, labor, and other “radical extremists.” We might show exactly the same sort of regard--or lack of it--for our long-evolved, hard-won, rhetorically beloved principles of due process that they show. And point out, as we go along, what we are demanding and how it is just the same as what is done to certain groups in this country all the time, especially nowadays of course.

We could pressure Obama to consider these terrorists “enemy combatants,” since he has chose thus far to uphold in principle and largely in practice the excesses of the Bush administration. And if he suggests that to do so would be UnAmerican--by all means, let us agree to be fair and meticulous--provided he agrees to apply the same standards to the captives of the previous administration, and to observe such standards himself.

Perhaps this is our opportunity to strike such travesties as the “Patriot Act” from the statues--if we make it very clear to American rightists that yes indeed, it can happen to them too, and that’s why we were so “unpatriotic” as to oppose these mockeries of law.

If Obama and the larger system won’t revise the laws to take into account our long traditions of equal, open justice and rule of law, then I say--take advantage of the sweeping dictatorial powers they have so foolishly given themselves, but do it with greater openness. Detained “enemy combatants” have, according to our practices this past decade, no rights whatsoever, but if we have Randall Terry pulled off the streets and incarcerated in some FBI gulag somewhere, let him have access to lawyers, and as much freedom to communicate as we give any other person held in jail pending trial--then push to have the same standards applied to the detainees in Gitmo and elsewhere.

Let us put once again before the nation, with the example before the rightists of their own, white, male, American born, conservative thugs being treated thus highhandedly (and yet better than their counterparts before them) the challenge to devise a saner response to the reality of terrorism than the incredibly stupid and vicious Bushite “War on Terror.” Let them see that one person’s terrorist is generally another’s Freedom Fighter and we can’t just declare war on a mood and a tactic; we need procedures that balance the right of the public to safety with the rights of the individual to dissent. I think the ones we used to have were basically good, but honored as much in the breach as the observance.

And while I have no doubt that OR is secretly cheering what happened yesterday, there is no demonstrable legal proof that he was acting on direct orders from that group. 

You know, al Qaeda is much the same. They too do not need to rely on some kind of explicit chain of command--they too are organized as much or more by mere rhetoric and inspiration.

If we say we can’t jail and silence Bill O’Reilly, or Glen Beck, or Randall Terry, just because some people actually act on what they constantly suggest--well, we wouldn’t have much of a case against Bin Laden either, if we somehow caught him.

... in a nation of laws that places a strong value on the freedom to express ideas - even vile, repugnant, disgusting ideas - we cannot arbitrarily start rounding people up who say evil, hateful things just for saying evil, hateful things.
DTG in STL on 06/01 at 07:01 AM

I agree. But perhaps we need to use the abuses we have already adopted as leverage to get them fully repudiated.

And drive home the point--people like Terry are in fact pretty much the same as people like Bin Laden, and as dangerous.