George Tiller and the Paradox of Anti-Abortion Violence
The horrific assassination of Dr. George Tiller is obviously a tragedy for both American women and for those on either side of the abortion debate who care deeply about democracy and civil discourse. At the same time, it is also an unsettling reminder that the hardcore anti-abortion movement in the United States continues its efforts to finesse an inherently untenable position on the subject of anti-abortion violence. Within hours of Tiller’s death, Operation Rescue issued a statement branding the murder a “cowardly act” and deploring vigilantism. However, this same organization has repeatedly described Tiller’s work as “genocide” and a “holocaust”—arguing that no meaningful moral distinction exists between the “murder” of a fetus and the killing of a living human being. I have no way of knowing whether groups such Operation Rescue and the National Right to Life Committee are sincere in their opposition to anti-abortion violence. I do hope that they are. However, as an ethicist, it is difficult to understand how their opposition to anti-abortion violence can be reconciled with their belief that abortion is genocide.
Surely, if one believes that men like George Tiller are perpetrating a holocaust comparable to the mass murders perpetrated by the Nazis, then it is cowardly not to engage in acts of violence to stop them. I recognize that there are a handful of true pacifists in the world who believe unequivocally in the Biblical admonition to turn the other cheek; given the opportunity to kill Adolf Hitler in 1941, and thereby prevent the slaughter of Europe’s Jews, these individuals would draw a line in the sand and refuse. However, I am confident that the vast majority of people would endorse such a killing of Hitler as justifiable homicide—sacrificing one depraved and evil life to save millions of innocent ones. According to this same logic, if fetal lives have the same value as born lives—as the hardcore anti-abortion activists claim—then men like Dr. Tiller’s killer, Scott Philip Roeder, should be hailed as heroes. That is exactly what some anti-abortion extremists, such as Wiley Drake of the American Independence Party, have argued in the wake of Tiller’s death. Drake’s position, while terrifying, is also chillingly logical. It mirrors that of John Brown, the radical abolitionist who raided the federal arsenal at Harper’s Ferry one hundred fifty years ago, intent upon overthrowing an American government that he viewed as inherently corrupted by its sanctioning of African-American slavery. In contrast, the more “moderate” positions of Operation Rescue founder Randall Terry and the organization’s current president, Troy Newman, are not remotely logical. These individuals should be challenged to reconcile their seemingly inconsistent public view—or warned to temper their rhetoric.
I strongly support a woman’s right to choose to terminate a pregnancy, because I do not believe that fetuses possess personhood. However, I acknowledge that well-intentioned people of good faith may feel otherwise: Those who wish to criminalize abortion may believe that fetuses have inherent value, or they may oppose legal abortion for a whole host of other reasons (eg. that legal abortion promotes sexual activity, leads to gender imbalances in the population, etc.) A reasonable person might argue that while developing fetuses are not fully human, they have intrinsic value and should not be destroyed, even if women’s liberty must be restricted to preserve them. I do not agree with that position; at the same time, I do not think it is at all beyond the bounds of reasonable discourse. This is the very sort of question that should be decided in the marketplace of ideas. However, the belief that fetuses have the same inherent moral value as living human beings—that “killing” a fetus is no different that slaughtering a ten-year-old child—is a breathtakingly dangerous position. Because if this is true, then abortion providers are indeed “murderers” and “maniacs,” and the United States Supreme Court is complicit in genocide, and this great democratic nation that we live in is rotten to its very core. I doubt many people truly believe that—not even the most vocal opponents of legal abortion. I certainly hope few people believe this. But if the hardcore anti-abortion activists do not believe this, then they have a moral obligation to step back from this rhetorical brink before more physicians die.
The senseless death of Dr. Tiller ought to be a wake-up call to moderate Americans of all political persuasions that the language of the anti-abortion movement—while likely protected by the First Amendment—is none-the-less socially and morally unacceptable. No other political lobby or interest group in the United States dares use such fiery language. A powerful contrast can be drawn to opponents of capital punishment. While I deeply believe that state-sanctioned executions are immoral, I do not refer to them as “genocide,” nor do I brand the physicians who facilitate these executions murderers. No mainstream opponents of the death penalty do so. Similarly, well-intentioned citizens may oppose American military ventures overseas, particularly those that result in civilian casualties, but our society does not tolerate the incendiary language of those extremists who brand American soldiers as "baby-killers." Nor should it. So why are those who oppose abortion indulged in their use of such inflammatory language? Why do television networks and radio stations invite them to speak? Why don't advertisers withdraw their sponsorship? To be fair, not all opponents of legal abortion use such language. Many do not. But those who do undermine meaningful discourse. Their extreme words lead inevitably to horrors like the bloodshed in Wichita.
George Tiller may now become for American women what Medgar Evers became for African-Americans. That is no consolation for the heroic physician’s friends and family, but it is the lesson of hope to be drawn from this act of terrorism. I am also hopeful that March 31, 2009, will become ground zero in the struggle against anti-abortion extremism and its fanatical rhetoric. From this point forward, we should discuss abortion with the same civility that we do all other matters of social policy, leaving epithets like “murderer” and “holocaust” to those beyond the pale of decency. So the next time someone refers to an abortion provider as a “murderer,” I am hoping that he will be challenged to explain himself more thoroughly: Is he merely exaggerating, embellishing upon what he believes is a moral wrong, or does he really believe that the actions of men like George Tiller’s killer are justified?
Read a response to this article from Suzanne Venker, George Tiller's Late-Term Abortion Were Murder.
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was a tragedy period. Any murder is a tragedy. The sad thing is that Dr. Tiller will only be remembered for one aspect of his life. He was multi-dimensional. Let's just remember that a great person died because he lived by his convictions.
Do you eat out of the same mouth that you talk out of?
I wouldn't hurt the doctor for performing late term abortions. It's the MOTHERS who come to HIM; you can no more blame him for the abortion than you can blame a gun for shooting someone or a pencil for misspelling words it writes. The doctor was a tool. If his murderer wanted to make a real impact, he would have wounded (but not killed ) a woman going in for a late term abortion. This would cause her to be admitted to the hospital, and the stress could possibly cause her to go into labor . At this point, the child would probably be safe , and the whacko would feel himself to be morally justified. I'm not saying that I advicate this kind of strategy; harming another human being is a heinous crime ; but I would rather see someone hurt than killed, and if pointing this out saves even one doctor's life, it was worth it.
For the record, they puncture the child's skull before birth in order to suck out the brain, thus causing the skull to collapse inward. Since the head is the largest part, essentially removing it allows the body to be removed vaginally with a minimum ammount of stress put on the pregnant woman's body.
The moral distiction between Doctor Killer's death and the deaths of the thousands of babies he killed is that Doctor Killer was guilty of murder , and his death prevented him from committing more murders, and those children were guilty of nothing but wanting to live. Their deaths robbed us all of the great joy that children bring to the world.
Had the courts done their job , Doctor Tiller's murder spree might have been stopped before it started.
There has been a shooting at the Holocaust Museum and roads are currently blocked off as police investigate the scene.
Shots have been fired at the Holocaust Museum in Washington D.C., which is only a few blocks from the White House, according to the WTOP.
According to WTOP, a gunman walked into the museum and immediately fired a shot at a security guard. A second security guard shot back at the gunman and his bullet did strike the shooter.
A lot of people have blood on their hands who didn't pull the trigger, including Bill ("Tlller the Baby Killer") O'Reilly and a lot of the people who protested in such extreme ways Obama's appearance at Notre Dame .
The anti- abortion people have systematically driven abortion providers out of most communities, and when they can't terrorize the last abortion provider they simply kill him. I'm sure they salve their consciences, not just by calling him a murderer, but by telling themselves they gave him plenty of warning and time to get out of town.
I don't care what Operation Rescue says, material they disclaim responsibility for (Wanted posters with info on how to locate the man) was circulated at their rallies before the last murder of a doctor performing abortions. James C. Kopp, who murdered a doctor in Binghamton, NY was a close follower and associate of Randall Terry, whose response to Dr. Tiller’s murder was "George Tiller was a mass-murderer. We grieve for him that he did not have time to properly prepare his soul to face God. 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.”
O' Reilly's response to Tiller's murder was immediately to attack the dead man in the same extremist terms as before, and repeat the ridiculous canard that Tiller had performed 60,000 late term abortions. I calculated that it would take 41 one years to do that, with 4 abortions per day, and no Sundays or holidays off. He'd have had to have started in '69 (and abortion would have had to be legal ) whereas he started in '71 and Roe wasn't until '73.
Don't kid yourselves: you and I may not see it on a daily basis, but the rhetoric about Obama is just as extreme as anything that was said by Dr. Tiller. I'm glad he has the Secret Service, because sorry, Mr. Limbaugh, there really are right wingers representing a potential threat to the country's security. One of them blew up the Murragh Federal Building, even when a southern white guy was President. Now we have a black President from Chicago.
And This is not the aberration some people will claim. According to the National Abortion Federation, Tiller was the eighth U.S. abortion provider murdered since 1977, and 17 others had been targeted with attempted murder. Now that Tiller’s clinic has been permanently closed, and this ultimate terror tactic has proven effective, we can expect to see more such violence.
And I don’t know why those who have observed its effectiveness would stop with abortion providers as long as our President is being portrayed in right wing rhetoric either as a figurative or a literal Antichrist. Jon Voight at a Republican gathering just called him a “false prophet” and Congressman Tom Tancredo called him a “cult leader.” All this coded language is doubtless not lost on people like Roeder. Neither is the obvious fact that crime pays.
"According to this same logic, if fetal lives have the same value as born lives—as the hardcore anti- abortion activists claim—then men like Dr. Tiller’s killer, Scott Philip Roeder, should be hailed as heroes."
Many abortion supporters don't view fetal life as life AT ALL. They refuse to distinguish between living and dead tissue, and this instantly puts them at odds with science so it's hard to even begin a discourse on a subject where there's no life to begin with. If there's no life, why does the woman need an abortion, anyway?
Should we be celebrating Dr. Tiller's death? No more than anyone should be celebrating having an abortion.
Are born lives worth any more than fetal lives? Are a few inches all that really matter?
Are all lives in general at every stage of born development also equal? Is a 10 year old as valuable as a 35 year old?
Who exactly can answer this question? Yet we arbitrarily say that the fetal life must not be as valuable, and of course the born life takes precedence. Just as we look upon the elderly as not as useful or fruitful as their 20-something counterparts, we look down on some based on their place in the lifespan.
then one must act violently against it?
"it is difficult to understand how their opposition to anti- abortion violence can be reconciled with their belief that abortion is genocide. "
If people think abortion is genocide, doesn't it stand to reason that they would oppose other forms of violence? I don't understand your reasoning with this statement.
"According to this same logic, if fetal lives have the same value as born lives—as the hardcore anti- abortion activists claim—then men like Dr. Tiller’s killer, Scott Philip Roeder, should be hailed as heroes."
The article is filled with such flawed logic. According to his logic if a murderer is freed on a legal technicality or acquitted by a jury then it would be OK to then kill that individual since the law didn't do it's job.
The answer to your lengthy mindless tirade is simply that two wrongs don't make a right regardless of the language used. The fact is that vigilante style killing of someone you consider a murderer is the ultimate hypocrisy. We do live by the rule of law .