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Late-Term Abortion Doctor Shot Dead Inside US Church
A doctor who was one of the few in the US to continue carrying out late-term abortions was shot dead in a church today.
Dr. George Tiller was one of the few U.S. physicians that performed late-term abortions.
George Tiller, 67, who had been picketed, bombed and shot in the arms in previous incidents, was killed at his church in Kansas, according to police sources.
Tiller was a controversial man, whose clinic has been the site of protests for two decades. He was shot and wounded by a protester in 1993 and someone placed a bomb on the roof of the clinic in 1986, seriously damaging the building.
Police spokesman Gordon Bassham would not confirm the victim's identity but said a 67-year-old "high-profile individual in the community" was shot and killed. He was shot at 10am in the lobby of Reformation Lutheran church in Wichita, police and city officials said.
According to the reports a white man carrying a handgun shot the doctor and then fled in a blue Ford Taurus.
"It's an unfortunate incident to happen on a Sunday morning," Wichita police captain Brent Allred told reporters. "These things should not occur at any time."
The FBI and state police were called in to help search for the gunman, whose licence plate was registered to a home in a suburb of Kansas City, 200 miles away.
The shooting came just two weeks after Barack Obama sought "common ground" over the divisive abortion debate in a controversial speech at one of America's leading Catholic universities.
The president has attempted to defuse one of the most emotive issues in US public life by arguing that while abortion should remain legal, the government should do all it can to limit unwanted pregnancies.
Tiller had been regularly targeted by abortion opponents who protested outside his clinic. Some 2,000 protesters were also arrested outside the clinic during summer-long demonstrations in 1991.
He was acquitted in March on charges that he performed 19 illegal abortions in 2003. His lawyer described the prosecution as a witch-hunt. Tiller testified during the trial that he spent years under police protection after the FBI discovered an anti-abortion hit list in 1994 that named Tiller as the top target.
The doctor also testified that he owns one of only three clinics in the US that perform late-term abortions, which are performed on foetuses that could survive outside the mother's womb.
Late-term abortions are legal in Kansas if two independent doctors agree that the mother could suffer irreparable harm by giving birth.
34 Comments so far
Show AllAmerican Taliban. I'm guessing this genius flunked out of flight school, so he couldn't fly an airplane into a tall building. Did he yell "God is great!" before pulling the trigger?
I'm not a fan of Salon's Joan Walsh, but she wrote this on her early report of the crime:
"The suspect is currently on the run, and we don't know his identity yet, but it seems safe to assume that Wichita Dr. George Tiller is the latest victim of right-wing American terrorism against abortion providers and supporters. [...]
It's safe to assume the killer was a so-called 'pro-life' wingnut..."
________________________________
Walsh, to her credit (ouch, that stings!), doesn't see the two descriptions she offered as mutually exclusive.
But I wonder if the Corporate Media coverage-- and the maladministration's official reaction-- will present this as an either/or. That is, will the reporting and reacting characterize the shooter as more of a "lone nut" or a domestic terrorist?
(In the unlikely event that the shooter is Muslim, or of Middle-Eastern ancestry, the point is moot.)
Otherwise, is it likely that Obama and Holder (or lesser spokespersons) will categorize the shooter (unconfirmed reports are that "he's in custody") as one of the Worst of the Worst, a Super-Terrorist who can't be confined in a Stateside correctional institution lest he either convert his fellow prisoners to his twisted ideology, and/or escape and wreak a terrible vengeance?
Or will he be treated like your Average White Violent Felon? If he has one of those three-part names including "Lee", "Earl", or "Wayne", it's a foregone conclusion.
· Yr Obd't Servant
I believe that the mass slaughter of innocent babies in this country is a crime against humanity, but shooting the abortionist is equally indefensible. So now we have another whacko like Sirhan Sirhan and John Hinkley to add to the list as soon as they capture him.
The Anti-Abortion movement isn't about babies or fetuses or zygotes or whatever you want to call them. It is about the control of women through FORCED PREGNANCY. That's what the "abstinence only" promotion by our previous administration of nutcases is about, too. If you don't want abortions, then stop promoting stupidity and ignorance. Teach our young people about family planning and contraception, so they won't accidentally get pregnant.
I am very much pro life ... yup, I'm completely in favor of it; I like living and don't have any interest in dying yet ... but the use of the term "Pro-Life" to talk about anti-abortion nutcases is a misnomer, since most of them also support war and the death penalty.
Will the 'pro-life' movement lionize the killer like they did to Paul Hill? The answer is: Probably.
I'm not a gambling man but I'll bet my next paycheck that says the killer was a "bible believin'" Christian. If so this is another piece of evidence that most Christians are hypocrites of the highest caliber.
And in a state like Kanasas don't be suprised that he gets the 'kid gloves' treatment.
You Christophobe! LOL!
And it's the good Christians that's bring the sword or the Bible to the people of Iraq and Afghanistan.
"lifers" would be alot more credible as compassionate humans if they showed passionate defense and gave the same "love" for the already born as they show for Foetuses.
Great point, Glenn. They should really be called "pro-birthers" because once a child is born, they don't give a damn about them. It's in their language and their legislation.
The fetus is only a pawn of the faithful, himself only a pawn of the elite, in the elite's war on people.
They believe "life" starts at conception, and ends at birth.
Great way to capture their thoughts.
Threaten/vandalize/shoot abortion docters = BAD
Threaten/vandalize/shoot animal researchers = GOOD
False generalizations = Counterproductive
Kill = Bad
Watch out guys, you could be asked to program our new hunter seeker killer SAND robots …
SAND =
_____ S_earch
_____ AN_d
_____ D_estroy
The nut bag wing of the anti-abortion movement just got their latest Eric Rudolph or Paul Hill. If whoever did this is caught and goes on trial in Kansas, expect them to take a page from Adolf Hitler's playbook (who turned his treason trial for the failed 1923 Beer Hall Putsch into a political forum thanks to sympathetic judges) & turn the trial on its' head by putting abortion on trial...as Kansas is the perfect venue for this sort of thing.
I am pro-abortion. I have been all my life but being a man I have always felt that abortion was not my issue. I would never have to undergo such a medical procedure and handle the emotions that come with such a medical procedure. All major medical procedures are wrought with life confronting issues for oneself.
The added horrors the anti-abortion propagists, abortion-terrorist, chisto-fasist, right-wing agenda driven opportunist and the weak courts who allows the terrorism of medical facitities, clinics, conseling centers and private doctor's offices are apart and parcel of what a girl/womem has to confront simply by choosing to have an abortion. That is unconscionable!
Where is the Homeland Security appartus? Get a silly group of Muslim girls talking on the internet of a bombing without the means to execute it and they are arrested and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. The ridiculous cases the government has prosecute of so called terrorist are laughable to some degree.
Yet the abortion-terrorist(christians based) get away with murder! Yes! An arrest will be made but what efffort was made that lead to this assassination. The doctor was extremely brave to proform a legal and moral medical procedure. I respect him for not bowing to the Anerican-born terrorist.
Does the Department of Homeland Insecruty do so little because they are christians, bible fearing, anti-abortionist politically and share many of the views of the abortion-terrorist. I suspect so!
It may take a village to raise a child, but it a society to raise a terrorist. We in America are raising terrorist, in our schools, churchs, military and various community orgaizations throughtout America. The bible is the weapon used to brainwash with a hypnotic repeatition of the evils and sins that exist in the non-believers who are fair game for hatred, harressment and killing.
Theat the doctor was also a christian is of no consequence, since he had the wrong religion. Ignoring that simple fact he read from the same vile bible. The hate exacted from this system of religious-bible-brainwashing techniques is the most dangerous thing man has created!
The Bible is a Weapon of Mass Distruction. Everywhere the bible goes hate follows. Ingorance trives. Fear insues. Imagine a day where no bibles exist, then peace might have a slim chance to exist. Might!
Ghandi said "Christians are the only people who do not know that Jesus was a pacifist"
.Recently a Catholic Priest explained in his sermon that Obama should not have been invited to Notre Dame to speak because he is against human life in the womb. The priest said there can be legitimate discussion about moral principles for" just war",but the protection of the unborn is an undeniable and absolute right. These are not moral equivalents because an unborn child is utterly defenseless,destroying this innocent life is the gravest of moral evil.Considering the fact that drones, uranium tipped, white phosphorus,cluster, smart bombs and land mines do not discriminate in collateral damage and many unborn are killed during war, totally defeats the priests argument that war can be justified to protect lives but not abortion because the unborn is utterly defenseless.War destroys the unborn, and thousands and hundreds of thousands of other innocent , utterly defenseless children, disabled, sick, elderly and utterly defenseless good people are injured seriously in wars.
The Catholic rational for forcing a girl or woman to die for an embryo or fetus under penalty of law because the embryo or fetus is a human life totally dismisses the human life of the pregnant girl or woman. Wars may be justified to protect the priest's life or the church's power but a woman may not have an abortion to protect her life. The Catholic Church is wrong.They support presidents and dictators who will punish women for abortions with prison sentences and yet deny women the right to use contraception or sterilization to prevent risky and unwanted pregnancies.Many who are in keeping with the church teaching on abortion, support wars based on lies and support deep cuts in budgets needed to fund programs that help single mothers to survive. Catholic rhetoric inadvertently encourages people who kill reproductive health care physicians.
False Christain rhetoric, sometimes murder and bombs good, condoms always bad.
Yeah, that's why the majority of Italians use them ... in spite of the Pope.
What the hell does some celibate old man know about it, anyway?
I see that the Saudis have a way with egregious killers - decapitation followed by crucifiction.
I doubt that will impress the faithful attending their Hour of Hate within their white rood topped covens.
ah yes
killing people with guns is "pro life"
......
words fail me.
That's exactly what i was thinking.
A woman's right to choose is sacred. To terminate her pregnancy.
So is a baby's right to continue being alive.
IF, IF a baby can survive outside the womb it should not be murdered.
By definition the unwanted pregnancy can be terminated....what kind of human being would insist that that is not enough, to kill the baby too?
Should a mother have the right to abortion at 8 months? 8.9 months? 7 months? 6.9 months?
People who favor late term abortion may say they would have, but in reality they would NOT favor it having been performed on themselves, circumstances be damned to hell and back again. Never. That was "different."
As men, since we can never experience such a decision ourselves, we have absolutely no right to make judgment on it.
Azjoe, given a society that EATS children for the sheer pleasure of hearing their screams, I find your statements surprising. We now live in a society where mommies and daddies, after they are thrown under the bus, are shooting their small children in the back of the head before they shoot themselves because they know that killing those children is a MERCY compared to the degradation and debasement that OUR society will inflict on those children with callous pleasure. A MERCY. Any time the woman wants to terminate a pregnancy the decision is between herself and whomever she trusts. Nobody else.
Think about one fact for a moment: Not all the religions of the Book (Judaism, Xrstianity, & Islam), Not the United States as a nation, Nor most of the nations on this planet would last a week without Authoritarian Patriarchy, Male Supremacy, & Gender Slavery - their entire social order would collapse. THAT is why a "Woman's Right To Choose" is such a diabolical threat to them all. Far worse threat than the right to Vote is the Right to say "No" to pregnancy and child birth - that makes a Woman, NOT a slave. This isn't over yet. Ugly coming. Big Ugly...like people here haven't seen since the days when my melanin deficient cousins put the heads of First People on pikes as trophies and decorations.
luckylefty, Hi, I'm about as strong a supporter of women period and their right to choose what they do with their bodies as ever existed. Or so I thought. I don't know the lexicon of the minutae of this topic and maybe this is relevant ignorance. The concept of aborting a baby that "could live outside the womb," is new to me. I don't understand why a baby should die that does not have to.
Late term pregnancies don't come via rape, those are terminated instantly. So a woman voluntarily concieves. Fact one....makes it to late term then changes her mind. Fact two. Wants to kill the baby fact three? When a choice exists that would let the child live and her excersize her will too?
Where are the lines drawn? Is it ethically okay for a woman to abort herself at 6,7,8 months? Answer anyone? If anyone says yes, how about the day before delivery?
ALL I'm saying is if a woman wants an abortion and the baby is SO developed it can live outside the womb....what does it HURT her if the baby lives? If it is the idea that somewhere on Earth it breaths air, well, then she has a problem that should not cost the child her life.
And the Right begins its praise for this murder...
http://mediamatters.org/blog/200905310022
"All rise. All rise hear the recommendation
All rise. Sometimes the guide's disguised in pain
All rise. All rise hear the recommendation
Meet the guide with an open light, all rise"
Honestly, on behalf of Tiller, who no doubt SAVED many women by aborting fetuses that had become a danger to their lives, I'd like to raise a glass (Kansas law prevents such abortions unless two independent doctors agree that the mothers life is at risk):
Dr. Tiller, you took the hard path on behalf of women in a time of their dire need. You are a true Christian, in the best sense of the word. As you pass into that place we're all going to pass, I salute you.
Thanks for the additional context on Kansan abortion law, I did not know that. And ditto on the salute to a brave man who did a most difficult job.
Are our conservative politicos and pundits going to be as fearful of this pro-life terrorist as they are of the Guantanamo detainees and request that he be incarcerated at Guantanamo upon his capture by the police?
That will be the test of the genuineness of their fears and of their relentless concerns about terrorism.
Without economic and biological self-determination, we are slaves. The authors fail to point out in the article that while technically, the right to terminate a pregnancy remains legal, no one can exercise that right in 85% of the counties of America...and if I understand correctly the monsters are jacking up the price of the pill so that working women can't afford it...the message is plain- gender slaves have no right to refuse pregnancy...and as Malcolm pointed out before he was executed, "There are no 2nd class citizens, there are free citizens and there are slaves." Given that this genocidal abattoir was designed to mirror the Roman Slave Republic ruled with impunity by feral patrician clans and we are now a slave republic ruled by feral patrician clans, none of this is at all surprising...
May any Justice that may exist in some distant galaxy bless you George Tiller, you passed your finals, you don't ever have to come back to this male-made Hell on Ea...
Kill all the babies! kill all the terrorists! kill all the doctors ! kill all the sexually active young ladies! Kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill !!! kill kill!
We got to keep america safe!
building seven...