Tiller Assassination

[Marelo]

Source

George Tiller (August 8, 1941 – May 31, 2009) was a physician in Wichita, Kansas in the United States. He was the medical director of an abortion clinic in Wichita, Women’s Health Care Services, which specializes in the provision of late-term procedures. Dr. Tiller was shot and murdered while serving as an usher at his Lutheran church on May 31, 2009.

The Women’s Health Care Services clinic is a family planning clinic in Kansas. In particular, Troy Newman and Operation Rescue have made it their goal to see the clinic closed. The clinic has been one of a limited number nationwide that provide late-term procedures.

The clinic itself is unusual in that it offers funerary services to its patients. Some of these services include photographs, footprinting and handprinting, baptism, cremation, arrangement for burial in or out of state, and arrangement for amniocentesis and/or autopsy. Tiller was the target of anti-abortion violence. On August 19, 1993, he was shot in both arms outside of the Wichita clinic by Shelley Shannon, who received an 11-year prison sentence for the crime. On May 31, 2009, Tiller was shot to death as he served as an usher during church services.

George Tiller was shot dead around 10:00 am Sunday, May 31, 2009 while serving as an usher during worship services at Reformation Lutheran Church in Wichita.[7] Local television station KAKE reported that a suspect fled the scene in a light or powder blue Ford Taurus.[18][19]

The suspect fled the scene in his vehicle and authorities are still investigating. The suspect was described as a white male in his 50’s or 60’s, 6′1,” 220 lbs, wearing a white shirt and dark pants. The car is licensed to Merriam, Kansas. The car was later pulled over near Gardner, Kansas and a person was arrested at the time. [18][20]

A candlelight vigil to honor Tiller has been announced for the night of May 31, 2009, in Old Town Square in Wichita.[21]

For my own part, I'm just ashamed of the city I grew up in, the city where I attend my university, because I know that there are plenty of people in that rotten place cheering on whoever killed him.

[I_Like_Swordchucks]

Its no fault of the city. Its a fault solely of the man who committed murder. I'm against most late-term abortions (with a few exceptions), but murder of the doctors are never ever justified.

If there are people cheering his death, then those people have lost sight of being 'anti-abortion' is all about. Its supposed to be about saving lives, not destroying them.

Whatever perverted soul did the deed should know he did his own cause far more damage than he did it good, and he's now more of a murderer than Tiller was ever accused of being.

[Lady Cygnet]

I've never been a fan of Tiller, but whoever murdered him is a dirty coward and needs to turn himself in. He's done no service for the men and women who believe that abortion is wrong.

ETA: And to do it in a church in front of a multitude of innocent bystanders?! That's galling, appalling, and disgusting. What if he missed? What if he killed someone besides his intended target? This murderer needs to be locked away for life.

[Mashirosen]

I'm against most late-term abortions (with a few exceptions)

Really! You mean the abortions almost always performed because the mother's life is in danger, because the fetus is suffering from a condition or conditions that make it what is medically known as "incompatible with life", or because some awful combination of both circumstances obtain? Those abortions? You've been banned before because you persist in crapping up discussions about subjects you haven't clue one about and I would be delighted to do it again. Give me an excuse, today of all days, on this topic of all topics.

Edit:
What Tiller actually did, what circumstances lead to requiring those services, and what he and his patients had to suffer at the hands of the so-called "pro-life":

Each time she visited the hospice, Danielle was reminded that she had a choice. The windowless beige building next door is Women's Health Care Services, one of the best-known abortion clinics in the nation.

Dr. George R. Tiller specializes in terminating late-term pregnancies after the fetus has been diagnosed with a birth defect: a deformed heart, missing kidneys, Down's syndrome, anencephaly.

He calls his work a "reproductive ministry," and he offers his patients many of the same services as the hospice. Tiller encourages parents to hold, dress and photograph their aborted children, whom he delivers stillborn but intact. His staff takes ink-prints of tiny feet and hands; he brings in a chaplain for baptisms. Letters from grateful patients line the clinic's walls.

Antiabortion activists gather outside Tiller's clinic nearly every day, amid dozens of white crosses they have placed along the sidewalk. They yell at the women who turn into the parking lot: "Mommy, save me! I don't want to die!"

Those shouts disturbed Danielle every time she drove to Choices. She felt she was doing right by her baby and by God. But she understood why other women went next door.

Another doctor, on why she performs these same services.

A first-person account of having to have a late-term abortion.

Read, for god's sakes.

[Bob The Mercenary]

Didn't mean to discuss abortion, but in Swordchuck's defense:

Planned Parenthood Medical Director Mary Calderone wrote "[M]edically speaking, that is, from the point of view of diseases of the various systems, cardiac, genitourinary, and so on, it is hardly ever necessary today to consider the life of a mother as threatened by a pregnancy." Dr. Alan Guttmacher, another former leader of Planned Parenthood, said in 1967, "Today it is possible for almost any patient to be brought through pregnancy alive, unless she suffers from a fatal illness such as cancer or leukemia, and if so, abortion would be unlikely to prolong, much less save life."

I don't know who these people are, and of course if the baby is ruled "incompatible with life" that's a given for abortion. Even so, if those quotes are accurate then Swordchucks would be right in saying he has a "few exceptions." Just my two cents. Not trying to start a war.

Also, I was called out for being a Lutheran today as this story was playing on the television. I wanted to defend myself, but it was by a friend of mine so I just kinda brushed it aside. The man who shot Tiller deserves to be shot himself.

[Edit] Read all the articles. Very enlightening.

[Eldezar]

Thanks for posting those links. I just recently started looking for something like this to show some very close-minded people.

[Ryanderman]

People who shot abortion performing doctors or bomb abortion clinics are as bad as those that blow up buses or mosques in Iraq. Terrorists, murderers all. Perverting their respective religions to fuel and justify their own twisted hatred.

But just as Muslims ask not be judged on the actions of their extremists, I beg please know that this is not representative of all Christians and pro-lifers. It's just not.

[I_Like_Swordchucks]

Originally Posted by Mashirosen

Really! You mean the abortions almost always performed because the mother's life is in danger, because the fetus is suffering from a condition or conditions that make it what is medically known as "incompatible with life", or because some awful combination of both circumstances obtain? Those abortions? You've been banned before because you persist in crapping up discussions about subjects you haven't clue one about and I would be delighted to do it again. Give me an excuse, today of all days, on this topic of all topics.

You really need to get off my back, no offense. First of all, I'm in medicine, studying to be a doctor. In fact I've just come off of a week long workshop series on abortions and am being tested on it on Friday. If we were to compare levels of embryology and what is involved in pregnancy termination, I imagine I would blow you away. For you to say that I have no knowledge of the subject matter is ridiculous because you have no idea what I know.

Here's a fact for you: Up to 70% of late-term abortions are done because gestational age was misjudged. The remaining 30%, consisting of an inviable fetus or an endangered mother, are the situations that I totally understand. So no, I don't know all the American statistics, but in Canada most late-term abortions have nothing to do with what you just said.

I'm not an activist. I'm a professional, and if I had met Tiller we probably would have considered each other colleagues. However, I have a right in both the constitution and the Canadian Medical Code of Ethics to say "I have moral problems with abortion in certain situations". If you're going to threaten banning me for merely expressing a viewpoint, and one that isn't extreme by any stretch of the imagination (one that 30-40% of my 100-person class would agree with), then you should probably take a breather and try to come at the topic with a clear head rather than using mod powers merely because you disagree with me.

Besides, this is supposed to be about a sad thing that happened to a good doctor... not the morality of abortion. How about we agree that Tiller's death was a tragedy regardless of our own personal code of ethics? After all, that was the point to my original post.

[Mashirosen]

I don't think I can be blamed for having presumed that you were coming at this from a place of ignorance, given a good chunk of your posting career here, but this time I was wrong and I apologize.

[Marelo]

Originally Posted by I_Like_Swordchucks

Its no fault of the city. Its a fault solely of the man who committed murder.

I wasn't actually saying that it was the fault of anyone else. I'm just lamenting that I'm honestly not surprised that this happened. A more wretched hive of scum and villainy, etc. I am continually astounded at the ignorance and hatred you can encounter in the streets and public places of Wichita, even in the freakin' university classrooms. I mean, you'd think students would be the least likely to hold views like that, seeing as America's students are reputedly very liberal; not at Wichita State, no sir.

So I guess I'm ashamed of my city because, as appalling and disgusting an act this was, I'm not surprised all that much that it occurred here.