George Tiller Killed
Filed under Culture, News on June 2nd, 2009 by Marcus FrenchNotorious late-term abortionist George Tiller was gunned down while at his church on May 31st. For perspective on this murder and the pro-life movement, listen to the following Line of Fire shows from June 1st:
Hour One: The Murder of George Tiller - Part 1
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Hour Two: The Murder of George Tiller - Part 2
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Tags: abortion, george tiller, murder, partial-birth abortion, pro-life
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The Tiller murder was an act of domestic terrorism. It was incited by conservative talk radio, anti-abortion rallies, and Fox News. When you call Tiller a mass murderer, you contribute to this, and you should be ashamed of yourself.
There is no Biblical basis for calling abortion murder. Jesus is totally silent on the issue. The only mention of abortion in the Bible is Exodus 21:22, which says “When men strive together, and hurt a woman with child, so that there is a miscarriage, and yet no harm follows, the one who hurt her shall be fined, according as the woman’s husband shall lay upon him; and he shall pay as the judges determine.” Old Testament law calls for far more severe penalties for actions that we in the modern world don’t even think are immoral.
Like millions of other liberal Christians I would like to join with President Obama when he reaches out to find common ground with Pro-Lifers. Though we are not willing to call Dr. Tiller or the women he helped murderers, we do want to make abortions as rare as possible. We could accomplish this best with a government-run universal health-care program. You need to understand that liberals are deeply concerned about the well-being of innocent children both before and after they are born. We want every pregnant woman to have good quality prenatal care. We are deeply disturbed by our country’s shocking high incidence of low-birthweight babies and equally shocking high rate of infant mortality. We think the government should intervene to prevent the devastating effect poverty has on children. We are equally disturbed by the needless deaths of probably over a hundred-thousand innocent fetuses, babies, and children in Iraq. And we are also concerned by scientific evidence that one of the greatest causes of suffering and death worldwide is human overpopulation. In Biblical times there weren’t enough people. Today there are too many. Both issues should be concerns for people of faith.
It is good that you disagreed with the woman who called Tiller’s killer an hero and expressed a desire to shake his hand, but that is not enough. The talk about mass murder is inflamatory and over-the-top. Why don’t we work together to make God’s Kingdom a reality on earth, just as it is in heaven?
“Why don’t we work together to make God’s Kingdom a reality on earth, just as it is in heaven?”
You don’t understand the Kingdom. I do not understand it either, but I can safely say you haven’t grasped the concept remotely.
Marc
OK, Mark. All I know about the Kingdom of God is what Jesus said in the Gospels. Some Bibles put these words in red letters. The red-letter passages are the heart of liberal Christianity. Jesus talks about social and economic justice, he talks about compassion for unfortunate people, he shows a deep concern for the plight of poor people, he speaks of tolerance and kindness being shown to people who are rejected because they are different or “unclean.” Jesus was a pacifist and - quite frankly - a socialist. Jesus didn’t say anything about calling women who have abortions murderers. Why do you put these words in his mouth? I find too many Conservatives say they believe literally in every word of the Bible, but they don’t bother to check out exactly what the Bible does say.
I repeat my invitation: Let’s work together to bring about the Kingdom of God on earth in ways Jesus asked us to. Let’s build a world where children can thrive, drink clean water, get good nutrition, and breathe clean air. In doing so, we become disciples of Christ.
Larry,
Thanks so much for posting here. I actually interacted with your first post on my broadcast today (during the first hour). You should be able to listen to it online on our Line of Fire site by tomorrow.
And here’s a challenge for you: Let’s work together in building a world where children conceived in the womb — spoken of repeatedly as actual human beings in the Bible — can safely make it into the world. Without that ideal at the foundation, I deeply question the mutuality of our concern for human life. What do you say?
Again, thanks for posting here.
Jesus was a pacifist and - quite frankly - a socialist.
This comment actually made me laugh a bit. I see what you are saying though. I guess that there are three levels to any scripture.
1) A practical purely temporal level available to everyone who can use reason - good principles for living, some poetic references, historical accounts often come into this category but then all of them lead to the second level of meaning.
2) A basic spiritual level with a practical application for our personal/corporate faith - scripture about prayer, the Church, baptism (of various kinds) and spiritual principles governing every day life all come into this category. This level seems to be harder to see than the first but can be reached through study and meditation.
3) A Kingdom Paradigm/Revelation of Christ neither available through reason or study/meditation but solely through revelation and the opening of ’spiritual eyes.’ - this is the deepest level of scripture and it is only available to those who have been given the revelation of Christ. That is not to say that you have to physically SEE Jesus, but that you need to have received this meaning from God. It cannot be attained - it is only received.
Of course, these three ‘levels’ are my opinion but I think that they are fairly accurate. I don’t know where you are at or what you believe. Practical acts of spiritual kindness are good and Jesus commands us to do them, but not the final aim or meaning of our Faith.
Marc
P.S. I’m not a conservative in any sense of the word.
“There is no Biblical basis for calling abortion murder.” Let’s cut through the nonsense shall we? For that matter, there’s no biblical basis for calling someone who condones abortion a “Christian.”
There’s a great collection of articles about this subject now on TownHall:http://townhall.com/Columnists/AnnCoulter/2009/06/03/49_million_to_five
http://townhall.com/columnists/MichelleMalkin/2009/06/03/climate_of_hate,_world_of_double_standards
http://townhall.com/columnists/BrentBozell/2009/06/03/a_pro-life_jihad
http://townhall.com/columnists/BillOReilly/2009/06/03/the_killing_of_george_tiller
The Ann Coulter one is a must read. Here is a sample:
By WALDO L. FIELDING, M.D.
Published: June 3, 2008
With the Supreme Court becoming more conservative, many people who support women’s right to choose an abortion fear that Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision that gave them that right, is in danger of being swept aside.
When such fears arise, we often hear about the pre-Roe “bad old days.” Yet there are few physicians today who can relate to them from personal experience. I can.
I am a retired gynecologist, in my mid-80s. My early formal training in my specialty was spent in New York City, from 1948 to 1953, in two of the city’s large municipal hospitals.
There I saw and treated almost every complication of illegal abortion that one could conjure, done either by the patient herself or by an abortionist — often unknowing, unskilled and probably uncaring. Yet the patient never told us who did the work, or where and under what conditions it was performed. She was in dire need of our help to complete the process or, as frequently was the case, to correct what damage might have been done.
The patient also did not explain why she had attempted the abortion, and we did not ask. This was a decision she made for herself, and the reasons were hers alone. Yet this much was clear: The woman had put herself at total risk, and literally did not know whether she would live or die.
This, too, was clear: Her desperate need to terminate a pregnancy was the driving force behind the selection of any method available.
The familiar symbol of illegal abortion is the infamous “coat hanger” — which may be the symbol, but is in no way a myth. In my years in New York, several women arrived with a hanger still in place. Whoever put it in — perhaps the patient herself — found it trapped in the cervix and could not remove it.
We did not have ultrasound, CT scans or any of the now accepted radiology techniques. The woman was placed under anesthesia, and as we removed the metal piece we held our breath, because we could not tell whether the hanger had gone through the uterus into the abdominal cavity. Fortunately, in the cases I saw, it had not.
However, not simply coat hangers were used.
Almost any implement you can imagine had been and was used to start an abortion — darning needles, crochet hooks, cut-glass salt shakers, soda bottles, sometimes intact, sometimes with the top broken off.
Another method that I did not encounter, but heard about from colleagues in other hospitals, was a soap solution forced through the cervical canal with a syringe. This could cause almost immediate death if a bubble in the solution entered a blood vessel and was transported to the heart.
The worst case I saw, and one I hope no one else will ever have to face, was that of a nurse who was admitted with what looked like a partly delivered umbilical cord. Yet as soon as we examined her, we realized that what we thought was the cord was in fact part of her intestine, which had been hooked and torn by whatever implement had been used in the abortion. It took six hours of surgery to remove the infected uterus and ovaries and repair the part of the bowel that was still functional.
It is important to remember that Roe v. Wade did not mean that abortions could be performed. They have always been done, dating from ancient Greek days.
What Roe said was that ending a pregnancy could be carried out by medical personnel, in a medically accepted setting, thus conferring on women, finally, the full rights of first-class citizens — and freeing their doctors to treat them as such.
Waldo L. Fielding was an obstetrician and gynecologist in Boston for 38 years. He is the author of “Pregnancy: The Best State of the Union” (Thomas Y. Crowell, 1971).
Making abortions illegal would not stop women from having them. It would just make abortions much more dangerous and put women’s health and lives at risk. Fundamentalists actually believe women should have to face these consequences. Anyone who believes their ideology is more important than public safety is very dangerous and downright evil and rotten to the core. Their sick and twisted religiously based motives which are nothing more than a male dominated religion attempting to keep power out of the hands of women, need to be exposed for what they really are.
Larry:
I agree with you that the murder of Dr. Tiller could have been an act of domestic terrorism if its intent was to intimidate or coerce for political purposes. However, attributing it to the rhetoric of conservative talk radio, anti-abortion rallies (pro-life rallies), and Fox News commentary is entirely illogical. It would be like blaming Sharon Tates’s murder on the Beatles. Scott Roeder has to take responsibility for his reprehensible actions. He alone is responsible for the murder of Dr. Tiller. He is in no way a hero or worthy of any type of praise. I pray for his salvation and care for him and his well being just as I would have for Dr. Tiller before his death and still do for Dr. Tiller’s family. It is important to understand that the same Christians that find abortion as unconscionable also see the murder of Dr. Tiller as an abomination before God.
I also agree there is no scriptural basis for calling abortion murder; however, there is a clear scriptural basis for calling a fetus a human being. Further I’m sure we can agree that there are also plenty of scriptural bases for not murdering human beings. This is the essence of the Christian perspective. Abortion is not an area of moral ambiguity. If the fetus is a unique human, imbued with the Holy Spirit, and created in the image of God, then it is murder to take a fetus’ life. It is important to remember that God does not view our existence in the context of the linear progression of time in the dimensional space of our human perception. He sees the unborn fetus and me and you in a non temporal continuum that includes all of our existence (this is also scripturally supported). In God’s eyes, your spirit at this instance in time is not differentiated from you 10 years from now or you as a zygote. This is why Christians strongly oppose abortion; scripturally it is murder.
I can agree with you on some of the other issues you point out as deserving attention from people of faith. You mention health-care, prenatal care, infant mortality, and poverty stricken children. I think if you look into this you will find that Christian hospitals, charitable organizations and missionary groups provide hundreds of millions of dollars and thousands of volunteer hours providing help in these areas.
I’m not sure where the statistic about the death of “over a hundred-thousand innocent fetuses, babies, and children in Iraq” comes from (I assume we can take whatever portion of these deaths occurred to fetuses out of the total count based on your views on abortion). If this is a reference to the US presence in Iraq I honestly don’t know how many non-combatant children have died; however, I do know that, unlike the practices under the Saddam Hussein government, no children have been specifically targeted for murder. Finally, I’ve got to say that evangelicals are with you in regard to overpopulation as well. Sexual purity and restraining ourselves to wait until married to have sex and (therefore) children would help curb population growth.
As far as your assertion that, “Jesus was a pacifist and - quite frankly - a socialist”. This may have elements of truth; however, what ever Jesus “was” when He was cloaked in flesh and Emanuel, what He “is” is God. And I have a tough time seeing God as a pacifist or a socialist. Moreover, even when He walked among us in flesh, Jesus was much more of a radical revolutionary than He was a socialistic pacifist.
Dr. Fielding
First of all:
-I thank you for your compassion and your calling to practice the healing arts.
-I want to recognize that you are of what I consider to be one of the great generations of American society.
-I respect you as my elder and am sure you have a wealth of experience and wisdom.
Those things notwithstanding, I cannot agree with you on your position on abortion. I am sure that your grief and compassion for the young ladies that you cared for made a lasting impression on you. However, I think the horrible circumstance they found themselves in was a consequence of our fallen world, not an unavoidable consequence of the unavailability of abortion. Christians (and all people) should not judge a woman who has an unanticipated pregnancy. I think the fear of the stigma and the scorn of other’s (especially in the late 1940’s early 1950’s) led these women to their unfortunate choices. In reference to your comment:
“Anyone who believes their ideology is more important than public safety is very dangerous and downright evil and rotten to the core. Their sick and twisted religiously based motives which are nothing more than a male dominated religion attempting to keep power out of the hands of women, need to be exposed for what they really are.”
This strikes me as somewhat mean-spirited and, hopefully, more driven by your frustration at the horrible medical conditions you have seen than what is truly in your heart. The Christian viewpoint is not that ideology is more important that public safety, it is that human life is more important than the inconvenience, social stigma, financial impact, psychological distress, change in relationship status, medical risk or any other potential occurrence that would make one seek an abortion. Also, just for the record, true Christianity is anything but male dominated. Read the Bible and check it out for yourself. Christ walked the earth at a time when women and children were treated like property. Christianity introduced radical ideas about the value of women that have reshaped the world. Don’t judge Christians by the extremists that claim to follow Jesus or the warped image portrayed in the media.
Exodus 21:22 refers to a form of manslaughter, not abortion.
Evangelicals such as myself generally consider biblical prohibitions against murder coupled with references to life beginning in the womb (Psalm 139:13) as the biblical case against abortion.
People are looking to the Bible for direct evidence about “abortion” and an ordinance or law regarding it. Would it, indeed, matter if God’s Word (Bible) said directly, “abortion is murder?” The Bible says that it’s an abomination for man to lie with a man, or a woman to exchange her natural affection, for a woman. Plus many other scriptures directly stating that homosexuality is an abominable sin. That doesn’t seem to matter, though it’s in the Bible. However, in this case the humanists are looking to the Bible for evidence regarding abortion.
It has to do with the commandment about murder. The Bible says “You shall not commit murder.” Murder is described as intentionally taking the life of another person. Abortion is about when life begins. There IS evidence, in scripture, about a fetus being alive in the womb; in the book of prophecies and many other places. Also, look at scientific studies about the cognitive responses, and brain/nervous systems of fetuses.
Most Christians believe that life begins at conception. Humanists/Atheists/Evolutionists believe that life begins when the breath enters the body. That’s why late term abortions (on viable fetuses) can be performed… catch ‘em before they take their first breath and it’s not murder.
I propose that if neither side can come up with any “acceptable” scientific evidence when life begins, why not default to life at conception, just in case; therefore, murder will not happen. If life does begin at conception then abortionists will stand before Almighty God and answer for the crime of mass genocide. Also, every person on earth that has ever voted or supported, in any way, abortion, should stand before the world’s tribunal for mass murder, just like world leaders do when charged with war crimes. Also, these “health care” professionals responsible for the quality of life, are murdering our children and getting away with it. If a pregnant woman aborts her baby, with a Doctor’s blessings, it’s OK. However, If a person kills a pregnant woman, that person is charged with a double homocide. Hmmm!! That’s a double standard. It doesn’t make sense. It’s “law as you go” justice.
What we need is a specific blog site that will address (argue) the topic of abortion; for which, plenty of evidence will be presented that abortion is murder. But it’s from the Bible, the “Supreme Court” of evidence, since He created all life. Humanists seems to be looking to the Bible for evidence that backs abortion as murder, will they accept the fact that there is strong evidence support abortion as murder. I would say, NO!! But atleast those who view the evidence will be eternally accountable for promoting and justifying “fetuscide.”
I would like to know what scientific evidence the pro-abortion people use to determine beyond a shadow of doubt, that those aborted fetuses were not living creatures and what is there definition of life. Because, many of the murdered fetuses could live on the outside, but were killed. One person, out of millions, kills an abortion Doctor and all pro-life people are to blame. That is absurd, and proves the unbalanced, unstable mindset of the humanists abortion proponents. Murder of an abortion doctor is just as wrong as murdering an unborn baby. Please understand, if a person thinks something is murder, the activism against it is only plea… “Hey stop Killing!!” We are just concerned for the precious unborn babies; as they are the fruit of our humanity. How can we be monsters if we are trying to stop the destruction of our own kind.
Can anyone put forward any scriptural evidence that someone is a full human being at conception? Exodus 21’s “manslaughter” laws make it clear a fetus and adult are not of the same worth.
Psalms is meant to be very poetic, so using “You formed me in the womb” shouldn’t be taken to mean life starts at conception, especially since “in the womb” could be at month 6-9 for all you know. Same with “You knew me before I was born.” Obviously God has a plan for people sometimes millenia before they actually exist, so this has nothing to do with whether an embryo (not a fetus) is a human life. Yes it’s alive, to an extent, but so are sperm cells and eggs, and even your blood.
In all honesty, the “Abortion = Non-Christian” seems to be something the far right made up and somehow fooled most of the Church.. It simply isn’t there.
You’ll have more luck finding how the Iraq situation was supposed to be solved from a Biblical perspective than abortion. (Good luck with that one.)
–Dan
Hey Dan,
When you said about what you interpret to be poetic references, could you offer an ulterior definition of what they might mean please?
Also, I am interested to know what you mean by “Obviously God has a plan for people sometimes millenia before they actually exist,” Namely, why did you write obviously? What do you mean ’sometimes’?
Have you ever heard of the seven life processes? M.R.S. G.R.E.N?
Marc
Marc,
The psalms are obviously poetry. They have flowerly language all over.
If a speaker says “You formed me in the womb,” that’s him saying “You are my creator.”
God also talks about Cyrus a long time before he’s born, so it’s obvious he has someone in mind long before their grandparents are even born. This does not mean that Cyrus was already a human life before his conception.
Make sense?
–Dan
Dan,
What strange logic! If you want to make the case that particular scriptures from the Psalms, given their genre, are not meant to be scientific texts or statements on metaphysical morality, then I’ll hear you out. But when the psalmist says “you formed me in the womb,” he means that he was formed in the womb by God (which of course implies that God is his creator). Let’s not make the text mean more than it says, but let’s not make it mean less either.
How old, Dan, should a child be, before they’re considered old enough to be worthy of not be killed due to them being an inconvenience? My wife just gave birth to our first son last Monday, June 1st, so I’m particularly interested in the answer to this question. As he lays sleeping next to me, could we have killed him an hour before the C-section and been justified in doing so (or even be honored, for lowering the future unemployment rate, as suggest by a commenter here)? Or would it be days? If we’re counting days, how many days prior to him being born? 10, 50, 100, 200? And what exactly is the difference between a baby that is just old enough to be worthy of not being killed due to him being an inconvenience, and a baby one hour younger?
The Christian church thrived when Roman civilization collapsed, partly due to our valuing life in the midst of a society that didn’t. This is from a Chuck Colson article:
In the midst of societies that think nothing of throwing away life if it doesn’t suit their purposes, we have always been countercultural “pro-family-people.” And we will continue to be so.
Marcus
“What strange logic! If you want to make the case that particular scriptures from the Psalms, given their genre, are not meant to be scientific texts or statements on metaphysical morality, then I’ll hear you out. But when the psalmist says “you formed me in the womb,” he means that he was formed in the womb by God (which of course implies that God is his creator). Let’s not make the text mean more than it says, but let’s not make it mean less either.”
You’re saying it’s strange logic to say psalms are often metaphorical, therefore shouldn’t be taken literally every time? You don’t consider psalms to be religious poetry?
Let’s look at Psalm 23:
“You prepare a table before me
in the presence of my enemies.
You anoint my head with oil;
my cup overflows. ”
If I was to use your logic for interpreting songs, I would assume God puts a literal four-legged table before me and my enemies, and anoints me with literal oil in front of them. A nice thought if you’ve been wronged, but I don’t think that the writer, or anyone reading that thinks it happens as described.
The psalms are full of metaphor, there’s no denying it. I’m not picking and choosing which psalms are literal and which aren’t. What I’m saying is, if your entire case rests on a line of a psalm, then it’s not a solid case, period. A similar concept would be not taking all imagery in Revelation or Daniel to be literal. Sure there’s a lake of fire in some sense, but most theologians are not expecting to see a woman riding a dragon. What will the end of days be like? Because the description is allegorical, no one is really sure.
This isn’t strange logic. This is matter of fact, simple logic.
Even if you were sure this psalmist was literal about being formed by God in the womb, it makes no mention of WHEN in the womb he was formed. It could be anytime between conception and the 9th month. In my opinion it’s probably when the organs and brain are formed, but the psalmist has literally nothing to confirm or deny this.
Congratulations on your newborn, but to prevent this from being any more personal than it has to be, let’s talk about someone else’s. :-)
Suppose Kate is pregnant. Is the baby a fully formed human at one month, five months, or nine months? I think Obama answered it right, “That question is above my pay grade.” God hasn’t clearly given an answer either, no matter what religion you subscribe to, so we have to make an estimate. Third trimester abortions are illegal in most places. If you want to be conservative, I’d stop them before it actually looks like a baby inside with a beating heart and functioning organs. While it’s an embryo (a mass of cells with no body parts), and not yet a fetus, I’d say it’s fair game.
There’s no escaping that it has to be estimated. To be safer, you could push the deadline a few weeks before when you think life begins.
Demanding a firm deadline doesn’t prove anything. It’s like a sobering person at a bar saying “What makes the difference if I wait fifteen extra more minutes to drive.” It’s hard to quantify, but sometimes a little bit of time can make a big difference.
As for the Colson article, you seem to be taking the view that if Christian society is better than Pagan society, it must be better than a secular American society as well. That seems far stranger logic in my opinion. I wholeheartedly agree that Christian practices were better than pagan ones back then. Muslim practices were probably better than pagan ones back then too, from your description.
And please, enough with the “pro-family,” “pro-life,” and “pro-marriage.” These are ingeniusously created right wing terms that are meant to embarass people who disagree with them. You are actually “anti-abortion” and “anti-gay marriage.” I have yet to meet someone who says they’re anti-life or anti-marriage, so your terms are misleading.
If the Democrats were better marketers, they’d have earlier come up with Pro-Life to describe their movement against guns, or Pro-Family for their case that everyone, gay or straight, should be able to form a family with kids.
You’re not stating your cause, just villifying people who disagree with you. Read “Words that Work” by Frank Luntz, a republican strategist, for some fascinating info of how these phrases are come up with.
–Dan
Dan,
Did you know Psalms was written by lots of different authors? It was written over a span of time (or rather the individual psalms were written over time). What I’m saying is the way people write changes from person to person. What if those were two different stages? One literal, one a symbol?
Just a thought,
Marc
Marc,
Either way, it means that you can’t go by something just based one line in a Psalm. The same psalmist wrote a few lines later that he was woven together in the depths of the earth. Does that mean humans start out underground?
–Dan