What To Do About George Tiller

Hi Everyone,

On thursday, I celebrated my birthday. Yes, I am now 19 years young. Now that I am using that phrase, I guess I am getting up there. I got a new camera and I have enjoyed using it. I enjoyed taking a day to relax with my family. So if any of you have any idea of what I should do in this next year, send me a comment below. So, this was the easy part.

Now, on to the much heavier business we have ahead of us. We have a topic which inflames tempers on both sides. This is a subject that has come up in the wake of the murder of a doctor in a church in Kansas last weekend. The doctor, as you likely know, performed abortions. I know that this can inflame many of your tempers, as well. I even debated whether or not to do this post, for fear of inciting tempers. But as I said earlier, this blog is not about ducking controversial issues. So I am going to take this gamble and examine this fiery issue, even if I am playing with live ammunition.

First of all, let me start by saying I am torn on the issue. Unlike gay marriage, which I discussed before, believe this is a genuinely ethical issue. Whatever you may think, I do not like the thought of abortion. I want children to be born. I like life. Don't let anyone tell you differently. I believe that women do need to take the baby's life into account when thinking of such a decision. I am deeply torn by my consideration for the baby's right to be given a chance at life, and what is often the reality of the situation.

The reality is that women rarely, if ever, take such a decision lightly. Many anti-abortion people chant, again and again, "babykiller," "babykiller," "babykiller." They compare people who get an abortion to nazis, terrorists, pedophiles, and murderers. But look at the attributes of an actual killer or despot. The key attribute that enables them to inflict pain, suffering, and death, is the inability to feel the other's humanity. To the killer, the victim has no worth as a person. They are just a fragment in the killer's mind, so they can be destroyed without any thought or feeling. Think about how illogical this statement is. "I hate my baby, it's worthless, I have to kill it!" How many women do you think have that in their minds when they get an abortion? Seriously?

Some reasons that women do have to resort to this are health reasons, for their health and the child's health. As Randi Rhodes put it, women do not get abortions because they are procratinators, because they had meant to get one before going to a concert, but they forgot. It is wrong, in my mind, to belittle the concerns for the health of pregnant women. Would it really be good for the child if the mother died giving birth? If the mother is ready to have the child live without its mother, then she can have the baby. But it would be wrong to force a mother to deny the care that would keep her alive.

Then there is the concern for the child's health, too. The child could be born with a mental or physical deformity. It could be born without key organs or limbs. Still, many women do choose to have the baby anyway. My bottom line here is that if a woman wants to have a baby with the condition that it is in, more power to her. But, I also believe that if someone is going to have a child, they must be ready to raise the child. But again, this must be a decision for her to make.

The next key issue in this is the disturbing attitude of pro-life activists. Since the murder, many of the main prolife people have refused to back down or admit any wrongdoing at all. Fox News, in particular, one of its top commentators, Bill O'Reilly, have referred to Dr. Tiller as "Tiller the Baby Killer," several times. O'Reilly has said on several different occasions that Tiller was "executing babies" and said that "there's gotta be a special place in hell for this guy." What sort of reactoin do you expect this will elicit? Not the type of deep ethical considerations the issue warrants.

When confronted with the fact that things he said may have lead to this murder, O'Reilly chose to attack the critics. He complained, as he often does, of a "far left" effort to "hate Fox News." He also said, "if these people [his critics] were so compassionate, so concerned for the rights and welfare of others maybe they might have written something, on things, about the 60,000 fetuses who will never become American citizens." O'Reilly neglected to mention that the vast majority of those "60,000 fetuses," if that's even close to the actual number, would have lived with huge physical difficulties. And you can bet that O'Reilly would raise objections to providing health care for these children. Some compassion Mr. O'Reilly has for others' welfare. Sometimes O'Reilly can border on comical (as in the Inside Edition meltdown) but there's nothing funny about this.

Another organization worth paying attention to is Operation Rescue, the antiabortion activist group. The names and numbers of this group's leaders were found in possession of Scott Roeder, the man who murdered Dr. Tiller. The words and actions of its founder and leader, Randall Terry, raise particular concern.

Now let me digress for a moment here. I was originally going to do this post a lot earlier. I got the idea for talking about abortion back in January. This was because I had heard an NPR interview with two prolife activists, one of which was Mr. Terry. One of the activists made some productive points. I forget who he was, but he did acknowledge some genuine intent on the part of the prochoice people to lower the number of abortions, and he seemed willing to work with them to do so. Mr. Terry ignored all these points, trodding out an extreme "abortion is bad, any woman who gets an abortion is Hitler" argument. He acknowledged none of the complexity and none of the considerations that this issue entails.

A woman from Ohio called in to the show. She said she was 31, and that she had had to get an abortion for some medical reason that I forgot what it was. She also said that her position was prolife, and that she too wanted to see the number of abortions go down, as do I, as does almost anyone I can think of. Tellingly, Mr. Terry acknowledged none of the points the woman raised. He brought up the same line of argument again. Such brazen and dogmatic an argument struck me at the time as being sort of arrogant. I thought of responding in a post, but you know how these things go, other stuff came up, and I had to move on, and it kept slipping my mind.

Back to the present, this George Tiller was murdered, and the subject of abortion came up for discussion again. And Mr. Terry came up again. This time, in response to the murder, he said, "We [prolife activists] must not give an inch." He raised fears that the Obama Administration would "take away [the prolife movement's] most powerful weapon." He said again and again that "Tiller had blood on his hands." He urged his followers to "say again and again" that "Tiller was a mass murderer."

When Air America's Randi Rhodes confronted him and asked him what he would do to quell the violence and hate speech, he replied "hate can be a very good thing." Terry said he regretted that "[Tiller] didn't have a chance to make things right with his maker, to be tried and properly executed." What? Executed? So this guy is pro-life, but he thinks executions are okay, and he thinks hate can be a good thing? Tell me, is this really pro-life?

I am not alarmed so much by the words of O'Reilly, Terry, and others, as I am by the actions that they refuse any responsibility for. These actions are the murder of Dr. Tiller, and, more importantly, terrorism. Not, let's be clear, Terry is not a terrorist, nor is Operation Rescue a terrorist organization. Roeder, the assassin, is. He does fit the description of terrorist. He killed a man, he has been spotted vandalizing property, and he has assaulted people. And to top it all off, he was arrested for possessing explosives in 1996. So, he uses violence and threats of violence to impose his ideas on others. There's only one thing to call this: domestic terrorism.

This is hardly the first episode of such violence. Remember, back in the early '90's, there were multiple instances of this: bombings of abortion clinics, harassment of doctors, medical workers, violence against them, stalking, threatening, on and on. Is this how people seek to safeguard the sanctity of human life? By ruining or destroying the lives of other humans? Then there is the fact that many who consider themselves staunchly pro-life, when you ask them about the death penalty, world hunger, poverty, and war, they are often deafeningly apathetic. This inconsistency is what sticks out in my mind.

Also, many of the pro-life activists are opposed to measures that would give better health care for young children, including those with mental and physical disabilities, whom they insist must be born. They continually cut funding for such measures, and continue to rail against the "socialist" health care methods that would give care to the very children they fight so hard to keep from being aborted. The message here seems to be "We'll fight to the death for you in the womb. But once you're born, good luck, you're on your own. Oh, and if you grow up to be a criminal, an Afghan, an Iraqi, a Palestinian, an Arab, or an abortion clinic worker, we may just have to take your life away. Because that's how pro-life we are." Is this the pro-life legacy that conservatives are so proud of?

I'm not trying to deny the validity of pro-life sentiments. I believe that life should be safeguarded and abortion should be avoided wherever possible. However, I think life needs to be safeguarded and taken into consideration at all of its stages, not just during conception. Once a child is born, it must be given the care its life warrants. This care must be adequately funded. If the child acts up and becomes a criminal, any possible attempt should be made to cure it of its criminal tendencies, or at least to keep it so that it does not have to be executed. If the child lives in a poor nation, some organization needs to be out there working so that it may survive and have its life improved. All this would be my pro-life activism.

In closing, all I want to say to those who disagree with me is this: it is your right to see things differently than I. You may have some valid reasons for thinking the way you do, and I have mine. But, with every point of view you decide to advocate ask yourself, honestly, does this perspective provide the most benefit for the most living beings as effectively as possible? Ask yourself, is this perspective truly pro-life? Well, thanks, everyone, for listening. Thank you for baring with me on such a divisive topic. I will have some more lighthearted material for you up soon.

This is the Daily Reeder, Over&out.