A Kansas man, Scott Roeder, has been arrested for the murder of Dr. George Tiller (left), 67, who was shot while serving as an usher at his Wichita church Sunday morning. Tiller was one of the few U.S. doctors performing late-term abortions in the country and had previously survived a 1993 shooting outside of his clinic when he was shot in both arms. I discussed this case on this segment of Rachel Maddow Show.
Tiller died Sunday morning in the foyer of Reformation Lutheran Church, where he served as an usher. Witnesses were able to identify the gunman’s car and give police its license plate.
Tiller practiced for 40 years and was the target of fierce criticism and anger. This anger was fueled by commentators like Bill O’Reilly who repeatedly attacked Tiller by name as guilty of “Nazi stuff” and described him as “Tiller the Baby Killer.” For a description of the Fox statements about Tiller, click here.
He is only the latest victim of such an attack. In 1998, Dr. Barnett Slepian was killed by a sniper in his Amherst, New York, home.
In 1994, Dr. John Bayard Britton and a volunteer escort were shot and killed outside an abortion clinic in Pensacola, Florida.
In 1993, Dr. David Gunn, was shot to death outside his Pensacola clinic.
Eric Rudolph also attacked clinics, maimed a nurse, and killed an off-duty police in a spasm of violence in 1998. ,
For the full story, click here.
(CNN) — A Kansas jury deliberated just 37 minutes before convicting an anti-abortion activist of first-degree murder in the fatal shooting of an abortion provider.
The jury found Scott Roeder, 51, guilty of gunning down Dr. George Tiller, who operated a clinic in Wichita where late-term abortions were performed. Roeder, 51, faces life in prison when he is sentenced on March 9.
Tiller’s family said the jury reached a “just” verdict.
http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/01/28/kansas.abortion.roeder.verdict/index.html?hpt=T2
It seems our alleged murderer was no mere crank but a member of a white separatist organization whose tentacles seem now to have spread into the so-called “anti-abortion” movement. Contending that this symbiosis of ultra-right wing nutcases is no coincidence, Mother Jones explains the curious merger of hate and anti-abortion, reasoning it’s all part of a pattern of misogyny.
Here’s the article:
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2009/06/brief-history-radical-right
I think that Pro-Life is talking out of both sides of it’s mouth.
Domino: last 3 postings
Roeder is a thread that seems to be unraveling the dirty and dangerous secret of the incestuous relationship between the hard-core pro-lifers (spits like Craig Ferguson when he wants to demonstrate the irony of uttering the words he speaks) and the militias. I think you mentioned it earlier in fact on this thread or another. The connection between the pro-lifers (spits) the white supremacists and the militia’s paints a clear enough picture for me to call it a terrorist cabal.
While I worry about the terrorist label being used inappropriately to suppress otherwise lawful activity, in this case it fits the legal and historic definition. The pro-lifers (spits) after all print up ‘Wanted’ posters of abortion providers and supply their address’.
The FBI completely fumbled the ball and even though I know it was the policies and political agenda throughout the Bush years (but not the Clinton years) to let the issue slide, I think FBI people need to be fired over this. Dr. Tiller did not need to die. This was preventable.
If a left wing group did that with right-wing pundits you can bet there would be a firestorm of protest that the government wasn’t doing enough to contain the terrorists on the left.
Some pro-life groups are issuing statements of condemnation and attempting to paint this murder as the work of an extremist. But this latest act of terrorism is, sadly, not an anomaly. It is part of a clearly-established pattern of harassment, intimidation and violence against abortion providers and pro-choice individuals. And mainstream pro-life groups shoulder much of the blame.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2009/jun/01/george-tiller-abortion-doctor-murder
The revelation that Scott Roeder, the alleged murderer of Dr. George Tiller, belonged to an anti-government, white separatist group called the Montana Freemen might seem like an unlikely twist. After all, such groups are generally thought of as either indifferent to the issue of abortion or actively enthusiastic about its potential for reducing the nonwhite population. As it turns out, however, the journey from radical racialist to anti-abortionist isn’t as unusual as you might think.
http://www.alternet.org/story/140458/a_brief_history_of_the_radical%2C_violent_right%3A_how_racist_hate_groups_joined_up_with_abortion_terrorists/?page=1
Neal Horsley wants to kill abortion doctors. He publishes what is widely regarded as a hit list of medics and openly advocates the execution of women who have terminations.
…Horsely is at the forefront of a movement to criminalise abortion and put men such as Hern on trial for mass murder, and then have the state execute them.
He is running for governor of Georgia and has drawn up what he calls the “Nuremberg list” of those deemed guilty.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jun/05/abortion-america-george-tiller
Leo, you wrote: Author: Former Federal LEO
Comment:
{Quote: Most anti-abortion groups avoided the funeral, having denounced Tiller’s shooting. But 17 demonstrators showed up from Westboro Baptist Church, known for picketing soldiers’ funerals to present its message that their deaths are God’s punishment for Americans’ tolerance of homosexuality.”
They held signs such as “God sent the shooter” and “Abortion is bloody murder.” End Quote}.
me: how surprising is that? I’ve been following the activities of this church, known for their website “godhatesfags.com” for a decade. most christians i know have done everything they can to run from these people accusing them of not being “real christians”
I think that they are real christians, certainly not representative of mainstream christianity, but right there on the spectrum of those who believe themselves to be saved.
every religion has its whack jobs. I should know. I’m a Jew and we certainly have ours.
{Quote: Most anti-abortion groups avoided the funeral, having denounced Tiller’s shooting. But 17 demonstrators showed up from Westboro Baptist Church, known for picketing soldiers’ funerals to present its message that their deaths are God’s punishment for Americans’ tolerance of homosexuality.”
They held signs such as “God sent the shooter” and “Abortion is bloody murder.” End Quote}.
The photos on the main HuffPo page show the placards with the words “God Sent the Killer” Good ‘ol pious Baptist’s!
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/06/06/george-tiller-funeral-att_n_212155.html
GWLawSchoolMom,
Thank you for the compliment, I enjoy your postings also and it’s always illuminating to find someone that has had similar life experiences; you get a reality check about weather your just being sappy/nostalgic or your perceptions were/are correct.
YOU “My father still does not know the difference between a straight and Phillips head screw driver and I got my first tool box at 25, a birthday gift from my ex, a Viet Nam vet, a marine who came back with a screwed up head and went on to become a neonatologist but taught me to fix just about anything before picking up the phone to call “the guy”
I demo’d out a bathroom 2 years ago and when I went to Home Depot to get implements of destruction the guy laughed at me. I reported him to his supervisor who also laughed at me. I then got the store manager into it and wound up buying everything at Lowes where they did not laugh at a pretty hot older blond in Manolos who needed a girly sized sledge hammer”
ME: One of the most delightful and necessary gifts I ever got from the better half was a gift certificate to a hardware store and a card with a not that said it was for a good circular saw- my choice- since he didn’t know enough about tools to pick one out to meet my needs. Precious.
I got the saw and built an exploded pyramid shaped gazebo that we dubbed the Temple of Doom, once it was overtaken by the the flowering vines I planted to grow up it and shade it. It was a nice place to sit and have a beer and read. The vines pulled it apart after about ten years and I had to have it removed but it was a neat bit of ‘plans, we don’t need no stinking plans’ wood-butchery.
I’ve never had the wherewithall to tackle the dreaded bathroom overhaul we’ve needed for years. I stand in awe of your courage. Srsly. 🙂
Your experience with Home Depot is unfortunate in the extreme. My HD was always helpful. A lady friend of mine (now in stage four of terminal breast cancer) and I would hit my local HD to ‘shop’ for fun. We ended up rerouting some of her AC/heating ducts and the guy we talked to at HD spent a long shopping trip with us assembling the components and planning the job out on scraps of paper. Even he had fun. I really miss her and my shopping trips.
Memoirs: yes, an book of women’s interviews/reminiscences of the 1950-2000 time period like Studs Terkel did about work (“Working” is the the name of it) would be fascinating.
YOU: “Me? I can’t imagine wanting to serve in the military. the thought that there are very able people who do and the thing that stops them is based on who they love?
I just can’t wrap my head around it.”
ME; I thought about it when I was a teenager but my parents talked me out of it. It seemed like a good way to see the world and get some education for someone like me that didn’t really have the economic wherewithall to attend college.
A high school friend of mine (female) did join the service though and I ran into her about a year after graduation. She ended up getting a hardship discharge but from her conversation that was the easy way out. All she would volunteer about the military was ‘it’s not what you think it is’. I suspect that the role of the military now (for females and most men) is no different than it was then, a career choice of semi-last resort for po’ folks.
I like the color of green poison frogs 🙂
Lotta: Your wrote: too was lucky to have a couple of generations of very strong, creative, independent women. It was a matter of necessity for them but the personal character was there to pull off the needed actions to overcome what life threw at them.
Me: I really enjoy your contributions and if I don’t respond to most of them its mainly because I want to sit with them and think about them a bit longer than it takes to type the usual response and then days go by and I’m still pondering log after we have moved further along the conversational road.
You: I also had the benefit of being my fathers only ‘son’ since there were no boy children. He had me wiring lamps and building my own book shelves by the time I was twelve. The family joked about it but I was the better for it. I’m still the DIYer in my household, the better half is mostly the tech guy. It works.
Me: Ha! I used to get dragged to Lakers games during the golden years of Jerry West, the consummate point guard of the 60’s and started going to Dodger games when I was so young I still thought that there were 2 teams, the Brooklyn Dodgers and the LA Dodgers and they played at the old Coluseum. My father still does not know the difference between a straight and Phillips head screw driver and I got my first tool box at 25, a birthday gift from my ex, a Viet Nam vet, a marine who came back with a screwed up head and went on to become a neonatologist but taught me to fix just about anything before picking up the phone to call “the guy”
I demo’d out a bathroom 2 years ago and when I went to Home Depot to get implements of destruction the guy laughed at me. I reported him to his supervisor who also laughed at me. I then got the store manager into it and wound up buying everything at Lowes where they did not laugh at a pretty hot older blond in Manolos who needed a girly sized sledge hammer
You: My maternal grandparents were subsistence farmers in Tennessee and in the summer my mother would take me with her, by Greyhound bus, to visit them for a few weeks. I recall as a child wandering away from her late one night (she fell asleep) at a bus station down south and ending up in the ‘colored’ waiting room and eventually being removed by a station clerk as not belonging there.
Me: now there is a story. something that should go into your memoirs. why don’t more women our age write memoirs about their journey from the 50’s to modernity?
You: There’s a long way to go and I think it’s taken way too long to get where we are but looking back I am heartened that progress has been made. It was all brought from the bottom up too. Huge demonstrations and cities burning. That’s what’s wrong with the last 8 years and even today with issues like torture and near-universal surveillance. There just aren’t enough people in the street. The politicians never recognized the citizens (or any segment of the citizenry’s) rights without a show of force from those citizens. We need more of that these days.
Me: we need more of everything and we need it now. what we don’t need are AM radio hosts and right wing politicians deciding who should love who and who is fit to serve in the military based on who they happen to love. They want smaller government but they want to legislate love. Me? I can’t imagine wanting to serve in the military. the thought that there are very able people who do and the thing that stops them is based on who they love?
I just can’t wrap my head around it.
anyway, keep it up.
I’m waiting for a call from my congressman today. he called yesterday while I was out getting a pedicure. then he said he’d call after a vote on the floor but guess my line was busy talking to friends about really important stuff like the upcoming Malibu art fair. Oh and in case anyone is interested my toes are the color of poisonous green tree frogs.
GWLawSchoolMom, We’re about the same age and I lived through the same institutional discrimination you did and speak eloquently about. I was working and contemplating moving away from home at 18 and had to argue to get a credit card from a local business without having my dad or husband co-sign for it and I had been working for 2 years, I had an employment history.
I too was lucky to have a couple of generations of very strong, creative, independent women. It was a matter of necessity for them but the personal character was there to pull off the needed actions to overcome what life threw at them.
I also had the benefit of being my fathers only ‘son’ since there were no boy children. He had me wiring lamps and building my own book shelves by the time I was twelve. The family joked about it but I was the better for it. I’m still the DIYer in my household, the better half is mostly the tech guy. It works.
My maternal grandparents were subsistence farmers in Tennessee and in the summer my mother would take me with her, by Greyhound bus, to visit them for a few weeks. I recall as a child wandering away from her late one night (she fell asleep) at a bus station down south and ending up in the ‘colored’ waiting room and eventually being removed by a station clerk as not belonging there.
There’s a long way to go and I think it’s taken way too long to get where we are but looking back I am heartened that progress has been made. It was all brought from the bottom up too. Huge demonstrations and cities burning. That’s what’s wrong with the last 8 years and even today with issues like torture and near-universal surveillance. There just aren’t enough people in the street. The politicians never recognized the citizens (or any segment of the citizenry’s) rights without a show of force from those citizens. We need more of that these days.
FFLEO,
I used the word terrorism for the same reasons (and with what I hope was the same care) as Gyges. I share your concerns, but I think that they should be addressed by fighting against government’s totalitarian urges rather than by conforming what we say to avoid the consequences of growing totalitarianism without attacking the root problem.
FFLEO,
Understood, but to me that’s not a discussion on what words should be used, but how people should be treated.
Gyges,
Understood, regarding your previous definitions. I am just concerned about us common citizens becoming lumped and labeled as terrorists by a seemingly growing totalitarian government.
Lotta you wrote: Wow. Your mother really stood by her principles. What a role model. It’s easy to have principles if you’re not facing jail time for living by them. What an amazing story.
Thanks. My mom was pretty amazing for her time, but her mother was even more amazing. Considering the time and place my grandmother owned property in her own name as a married woman and had credit in her own name as a married woman. This is in the 1930’s and 1940’s.
There are women who did not have private bank accounts or credit cards i their own names in the 1960’s 1970’s or 1980’s. They might have had savings accounts, but no ones that were held without their husbands approval and husbands had the ability to withdraw funds without their wives permission.
I was a kid when one of my friend’s father died and her mother had no idea how the family would live, where the money was, how to write a check or pay a bill. This was in the late 50’s.
My mom sat me down and gave me a lecture on financial equality for women that set my hair on fire. She learned this from her own mother, who had her private ATM system…. money, in sealed envelope,s all over the house, taped the undersides of drawers, to the ceilings of closets. everywhere you can imagine. She hid loose diamonds in the sugar canister in the pantry. Maybe that comes from the Holocaust mentality of what you have to do if you need to escape in a hurry but it translated quite neatly into a feminist lesson of women teaching others to be financially independent. Political independence is just a piece of the total picture of feminism. Medical independence is another piece.
Another kid I knew in the olden days had a mom who died of cancer. The doctors told her husband who decided that she, the patient, should not be told. She died in agony never having the whole story made available to her. This is just one side of the story of why women need the ability to have self-determination with regard to medical decisions — abortion and family planning is just a piece of that.
Our stories as women unfold through the histories we inherit from our mothers and grandmothers. I’m 57 and a 3rd generation feminist. I don’t need to be concerned with the cosmetic stuff– not when there are real battles left to be fought.
FFLEO,
I was more advocating treating ALL politically motivated violence in a similar fashion, regardless of if it was performed by someone who’s considered us or them. I was using the Pavlovian reaction to the word terrorist on purpose. I wanted to highlight the discrepancy in treatment in the boldest way possible, and hope I accomplished that goal. Sometimes strong language is called for to prove a point, I think this is one of those cases.
However I always try and take the time choose my words carefully, and try to stay away from empty rhetoric. To that end I made sure that I checked to see that this did in fact meet the definition of terrorist that is separate from the popular connotations.