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.
Gyges,
“If DNA is what makes us human, at what percentage difference are we not human? Let’s say 2% difference, which is about the difference between humans and chimps. It also happens to be approximately the difference between someone born with Down’s or Turner’s Syndrome (an extra or missing chromosome respectively).”
The 98 percent difference between humans and nonhuman primates is based on differences between the two genomes’ sequences of the letters A, T, C and G, which stand for the nucleotides adenine, cytosine, thymine and guanine. The letters form base pairs (A always binds to T and C always binds to G) that link together to form the rungs on the ladder of the DNA double helix.
It is not the fact that some genes are different, but those specific genes in particular, that make the biggest difference. Are we really having trouble determining chimp from human? Are we having trouble determining if someone with Down’s Syndrome is human? –To both, the answer is no.
Is a zygote that will eventually turn into identical twins one or two human lives? -It was one, then became two. If one dies, the other can still live.
Doesn’t your definition of life mean that my organs are all individual human lives? No. Your heart is just a heart, and your lungs are just lungs. (Without getting too scientific) -They have been assigned their job.
Most importantly: How does your opinion justify shooting a man in cold blood? That’s what you’re talking about. He wasn’t hurting anyone at the time, he was ushering at a church. Nobody was in immediate danger of their loosing their lives except him. Vigilante justice is never justice.
I never justified shooting Tiller. I don’t condone the killing of Tiller. However, that doesn’t mean that someone could not justify killing him to protect the lives of others.
Look! If someone believes that Tiller was killing other humans, and no one else would stop him…that person my have developed personal justification. I’d be interested in hearing such.
Tell me…This right to privacy between a woman and her doctor…If a woman and her doctor conspired to kill her 2 y.o. son (who has Down’s Syndrome); would that be an issue of privacy? Some sort of twisted right?
In 1973, the Court was not privy to the scientific information that we have today. In 1973, the Court stated; “We need not resolve the difficult question of when life begins. When those trained in the respective disciplines of medicine, philosophy, and theology are unable to arrive at any consensus, the judiciary, at this point in the development of man’s knowledge, is not in a position to speculate as to the answer.” Today, medical science can answer that question. If the Court revisisted Roe, with current scientific argument; would they arrive at the same conclusion? I doubt the same minds…given the additional information…would have arrived at the same conclusion.
In my opinion, 7 people got Roe wrong. How long are we to live by uninformed decisions of the Court. Stare Decisis is a flawed doctrine. It forces an entire country to be bound to the ignorance of their past. Roe must be revisisted. Just as DNA has proven the innocence of a large number of death row inmates, that same evidence must be presented to the Court so that others on a similar death roe can be spared.
http://realtruthonline.blogspot.com/
Hmm, I’ve been having posts vanish to nowhere again, but only on this thread. Looks like everything is well in hand though. Nice jobs assorted regulars.
test
MikeA:
“It is absolutely essential that we reach agreement as a society on the legal definition of human life.”
Bad idea. No definition is required. While I don’t like abortion and would counsel my daughter against it, as Mespo said above a human fetus is part of an actual defined person with legal rights and cannot exist up to a point without this support.
How do you define human life, are mentally handicapped people less than human? Was Terry Schiavo a “human” life? Is a quadriplegic a human life?
Is rationality and self awareness the test? In that case we could kill newborns as Dr. Peter Singer has argued.
“Similar to his argument for abortion, Singer argues that newborns similarly lack the essential characteristics of person hood — “rationality, autonomy, and self-consciousness”[28] — and therefore “killing a newborn baby is never equivalent to killing a person, that is, a being who wants to go on living.”
Your idea is impractical at best, society or the government or any group should not be allowed to determine what is and is not human life. I think we went through that once before about 70 years ago, it did not work out very well if I remember my history.
By determining what is and is not human life you are by default determining morality. The state has no business legislating morality. Individual rights do not come from the state.
Even though I am against abortion and see it as killing, I do not want the state involved and my christian friends on the right are misguided. What the state can grant they can take away and in some not so distant future the state may mandate abortions and my christian friends will be complicit in making that happen.
Very well said, Patty C
Now, what was all that right wing criticism of the Bush-commissioned DHS study that Secretary Napolitano had to defend because it mentioned the existence of the dangers of right wing terrorism?
Jim Byrne: “It’s about personhood.”
———–
I wouldn’t hang my hat on the personhood argument, presonhood can be hard to come by these days:
Court Of Appeals Rules Detainees are not “Persons” in Guantánamo Torture Suit
Court Agrees with Obama Administration that Detainees Still Have No Constitutional Right Not to Be Tortured
April 24, 2009 Washington, D.C. – In a suit brought by British men imprisoned for two years at Guantanamo, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals today reaffirmed its previous ruling that Guantanamo detainees lack the fundamental constitutional right not to be tortured and are not “persons” under a U.S. statute protecting religious freedom.
http://ccrjustice.org/newsroom/press-releases/court-appeals-rules-detainees-are-not-%E2%80%9Cpersons%E2%80%9D-guant%C3%A1namo-torture-suit
Better you should leave it up to a woman and her doctor because once it’s handed over to the politicians and courts it just becomes a big bunch of crazy.
Meat eating maniacs?
“So the debate isn’t about human life. It’s about personhood. And personhood inside the womb is hard to establish.”
—
It’s actually not hard because of the same exceptional distinction having been made, yet again, just now by you
ie actual vs. potential human beings.
Despite glaring ignorance, late term abortions are not performed on women who are just too stupid or fickle to seek an earlier abortion, so don’t even go there. These women actually have serious medical concerns.
Ultimately, it comes down to what a woman can live with.
And unless you are invited by the actual persons involved, including the physicians consulting on treatment, keep your personhod out it.
It’s called the doctor/patient privilege, for a reason, and the relationship is still privileged.
I find it incredibly ironic that most right to lifers are pro death penalty, meat eating maniacs, pro gun righters, and hunters too. If they truly value life, then I challenge them to take up for all the causes that would change our culture into a loving, caring, life embracing culture. Given their rhetoric about zygotes being human beings and their inability to argue nothing more, I fear the right wingers will continue to lives in hypocrisy.
Most everyone has done a fine job answering Jim Byrne’s arguments but I merely add one comment about the zygote. This collection of two human cells is not human life since it cannot exist independent of its mother. Because a cell or group of cells contains its maker’s DNA proves nothing. That would apply to your arm or to the skin cells you just scratched off your nose. Human life requires some ability to exist on its own otherwise it is a constituent part of another. Likewise the zygote cannot reproduce thus failing Jim’s definition by its own terms. To call a zygote human life is to call an acorn an oak tree.
Soldier murdered in Arkansas by Muslim convert and opponent of military
June 1, 2009
A gunman with a rifle targeted a military recruitment office today in Little Rock, Arkansas, killing one of the recruiters and wounded another.
Police Lt. Terry Hastings said the recruiter was shot when a man in a black SUV opened fire on the office in west Little Rock at about 10:30 a.m.
Update: More here from KATV:
Authorities say the incident occurred around 10:00 a.m. at a U.S. Army Navy Career Center inside the Ashley Square Shopping Center at 9112 North Rodney Parham Road. According to Lt. Terry Hastings with the Little Rock Police Department, two enlisted soldiers standing outside the office were hit when the suspect drove up and began shooting.
Police have identified the shooter as Carlos Bledsoe. A Muslim convert who said he was opposed to the U.S. military.
American Soldier murdered in Arkansas by Muslim convert & opponent of military
June 1, 2009
A gunman with a rifle targeted a military recruitment office today in Little Rock, Arkansas, killing one of the recruiters and wounded another.
Police Lt. Terry Hastings said the recruiter was shot when a man in a black SUV opened fire on the office in west Little Rock at about 10:30 a.m.
Update: More here from KATV:
Authorities say the incident occurred around 10:00 a.m. at a U.S. Army Navy Career Center inside the Ashley Square Shopping Center at 9112 North Rodney Parham Road. According to Lt. Terry Hastings with the Little Rock Police Department, two enlisted soldiers standing outside the office were hit when the suspect drove up and began shooting.
Police have identified the shooter as Carlos Bledsoe. A Muslim convert who said he was opposed to the U.S. military.
Soldier murdered in Arkansas by Muslim convert & opponent of military
June 1, 2009
A gunman with a rifle targeted a military recruitment office today in Little Rock, Arkansas, killing one of the recruiters and wounded another.
Police Lt. Terry Hastings said the recruiter was shot when a man in a black SUV opened fire on the office in west Little Rock at about 10:30 a.m.
Update: More here from KATV:
Authorities say the incident occurred around 10:00 a.m. at a U.S. Army Navy Career Center inside the Ashley Square Shopping Center at 9112 North Rodney Parham Road. According to Lt. Terry Hastings with the Little Rock Police Department, two enlisted soldiers standing outside the office were hit when the suspect drove up and began shooting.
Police have identified the shooter as Carlos Bledsoe. A Muslim convert who said he was opposed to the U.S. military.
Jim,
Some biological questions for you: If DNA is what makes us human, at what percentage difference are we not human? Let’s say 2% difference, which is about the difference between humans and chimps. It also happens to be approximately the difference between someone born with Down’s or Turner’s Syndrome (an extra or missing chromosome respectively).
Is a zygote that will eventually turn into identical twins one or two human lives?
Doesn’t your definition of life mean that my organs are all individual human lives?
Most importantly: How does your opinion justify shooting a man in cold blood? That’s what you’re talking about. He wasn’t hurting anyone at the time, he was ushering at a church. Nobody was in immediate danger of their loosing their lives except him. Vigilante justice is never justice.
mark 1, June 1, 2009 at 8:47 pm
Breaking: Soldier murdered in Arkansas by Muslim convert & opponent of military
*************************************
So one murder is ok, so long as you agree with it. But if you don’t agree with it, then it is wrong. Can you tell me how this a distinction without a difference? Or is it a difference without a distinction?
Mark,
Do you relish in a person murder? If so, I want nothing your god or conscience has to offer. It sounds fairly miserable. What do you think these people that experienced this procedure? Do you have any empathy for them? But I guess it makes about as much sense for Cheney to be against Homosexuals and his own daughter is open proud and gay. How do you think she felt? Whats your take on that?
Breaking: Soldier murdered in Arkansas by Muslim convert & opponent of military
June 1, 2009
A gunman with a rifle targeted a military recruitment office today in Little Rock, Arkansas, killing one of the recruiters and wounded another.
Police Lt. Terry Hastings said the recruiter was shot when a man in a black SUV opened fire on the office in west Little Rock at about 10:30 a.m.
Update: More here from KATV:
Authorities say the incident occurred around 10:00 a.m. at a U.S. Army Navy Career Center inside the Ashley Square Shopping Center at 9112 North Rodney Parham Road. According to Lt. Terry Hastings with the Little Rock Police Department, two enlisted soldiers standing outside the office were hit when the suspect drove up and began shooting.
Police have identified the shooter as Carlos Bledsoe. A Muslim convert who said he was opposed to the U.S. military.
Tiller conducted over 60,000 late term abortions at $2,000 each is $120,000,000 over a few decades.
Tiller died a rich man…..whoopeee for him.
I wish I could be here to answer questions all day. However, billable hours still control my day.
I’ll try to respond to all at once. I may miss a few things, but I’ll my best.
Mike –“And, contrary to your views, there are scientists who argue that a zygote represents only “potential” human life.”
I think you’re wrong. Please provide a link to support this claim. To the best of my knowledge; scientist are all in agreement that a human zygote is human life. I will concur that scientists consider it to be a potential human person (or being).
For those that are unaware (and by the looks of it..that is many) a zygote is human life.
Human: A human gamete (sperm or egg) typically has 23 chromosomes. Two gametes fuse to create the zygote. Thus, a human zygote typically has 23 pairs of chromosomes, or 46 chromosomes in total. DNA examination of a human zygote results in human DNA. –Only human DNA! That DNA is half from the mother and half from the father.
Life: A zygote is definitely alive: There is a general consensus that a zygote is: “biologically alive”. It fulfills the four criteria needed to establish biological life:
1. metabolism,
2. growth,
3. reaction to stimuli
4. reproduction
The fourth criteria may appear strange. But it can reproduce itself through twinning during the first 14 days after conception. That is how mono-zygotic (identical) twins develop.
So the debate isn’t about human life. It’s about personhood. And personhood inside the womb is hard to establish.