Right-Wing Reactions to Tiller Murder

“Paul Dirks Says:
Sunday, May 31, 2009 at 2:37 pm
Amy Sullivan post valiantly trying to see both sides of the debate in 7…6…5…4…3…2…”
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2:37 until 7:17–she must have been on a long conference call with Jesus.

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Seems to me that any group whose primary concern is the elimination of abortions ought to also promote contraception.
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Otherwise, wouldn’t a label such as “Anti-Sex League” be more accurate?
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When Amy and her fellow stenographers were repeating McCain talking pts. about Obama’s terrorist buddy Bill Ayers, where were the “left wing” responses? Why is it fine to link to 4 nutters on the right, but we will never see Chomksy, Zinn, Goodman, Hightower…?

It is most troubling to me that the legacy media, Amy Sullivan and all, go out of their way to seek out and dutifully print statements from American terrorist organizations and their leaders. Randall Henry is a rightwing American terrorist whose organization has been involved in bombing medical clinics and assassinating abortion providers for 20 years or more. Why do you give him a respectful platform to make a statement? Operation Rescue should be treated as the terrorist organization that it is. Do you assemble reactions and give a respectful platform to other terrorist organizations when they perform an assassination, Amy?

The United States has defined terrorism under the Federal criminal code. 18 U.S.C. §2331[25] defines terrorism as: …activities that involve violent… or life-threatening acts… that are a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or of any State and… appear to be intended (i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population; (ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or (iii) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping…."

Amy – this is self-serving in the extreme. We’ve all seen a great many right wing reactions that are not nearly so temperate as this,and I assume you have too – if you’ve been giving even a cursory look at the blogs. So spare us the implication that this is representative of the right wing. I am glad to see that there is not universal loonydom on the right, but you have been extremely selective.

And, finally, one anti-abortion group that actually says the only thing that can and must be said in the immediate aftermath of such an ugly act.
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Amy Sullivan, if that’s how you really feel, why did you print the other three pieces of self-righteous terroristic bullsh!t? Why are you legitimizing this stuff? If you’re after “balance,” where’s the “other side”?
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Please. Find. Another. Job.

2:37 until 7:17–she must have been on a long conference call with Jesus.
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There’s a difference between covering your ass and getting it all nice and padded. A good job takes a lot more time.

Christian News Wire – Vanity Press for Right Wing Nut Jobs? You Decide!
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http://www.christiannewswire.com/index.php?module=content&SectionID=1

In other news, the KKK lynched a young male African-American in Mississippi today. Time Senior Editor Amy Sullivan reports from the scene about what segregationists and other sheet-clad hatemongers think about the murder.
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F@ck me, could MSM armageddon come any slower?
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And Stuart, if you’re about, where is that adulatory comment you made about AS recently? I couldn’t find it, but it sure bears repeating here. Actually, I think we could print it on namecards, turn it into a stencil ready for graffiti on all flat surfaces etc.

Can we call these creeps terrorists and terrorist sympathizers yet?

jcapan, this one’s for you:
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And Amy – how about Randall Terry saying “I’m more concerned about Obama’s reaction than Tiller’s murder.” You left that part out.

Here is a great blog post written by someone who actually went to Tiller when they found out they had conjoined twins that would not survive in our world:
http://www.balloon-juice.com/?p=22002
Really sad.

I think you all are being a little hard on Amy, here. It seems to me like she’s implicitly criticizing the self-serving nature of the first three reactions she cited here. (And rightfully so, I might add.)

surrendering our most effective rhetoric and actions.
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Interesting choice of words.
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I was unaware that gunfire qualified as effective rhetoric.

I think you all are being a little hard on Amy, here. It seems to me like she’s implicitly criticizing the self-serving nature of the first three reactions she cited here. (And rightfully so, I might add.)
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Yeah, same here. Her comment before the fourth quote is damning (and rightfully so) of the previous three.

“KMBC-TV in Kansas City reported that the suspect had a post-it note with the phone number of anti-abortion group Operation Rescue in his car”
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http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2009/may/31/tiller-shot-death-wichita-church/

It seems to me like she’s implicitly criticizing the self-serving nature of the first three reactions she cited here.
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My objection is giving the terrorist Randall Terry a platform in the mainstream media to comment on every event relevant to the controversy over reproductive rights and other issues. Randall Terry was front and center during every single day making statements during the Terry Schiavo controversy as if he were a respected leader and had never participated in clinic bombing and the assassination of medical providers. Every time something like this comes up, they let Randall Terry step up to the microphone. This serves only to legitimize the terrorist and his organization into the mainstream.
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It’s like asking Theodore Kaczynski what he thinks about it. Randall Terry is a deranged, murdering rightwing psychopath and terrorist, and people like Amy Sullivan treat him with respect enough to record his thoughts about events and print them. What do we have next, a statement from Fred Phelps?
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I got Amy’s mild, gentle disapproval. I found it inadequate.

I’m sorry, but showing that Randall Terry is (a) badmouthing a doctor gunned down at his church, (b) crassly trying to play the victim here, and (c) crudely playing politics with this tragedy doesn’t exactly help his cause.
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In fact, what Amy Sullivan has done here is to show, in his own words, how Randall Terry is, in your words, “a deranged, murdering rightwing psychopath and terrorist.” For people who aren’t as well versed in his insanity as you are, all they know are points a-c above, and that’s because she posted it here.

Put another way, here’s how that same Randall Terry quote was headlined at Huffington Post:
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“Anti-Abortion Leader: I’m More Concerned About Obama’s Reaction Than Tiller’s Murder”

My objection is giving the terrorist Randall Terry a platform in the mainstream media to comment on every event relevant to the controversy over reproductive rights and other issues.
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But if you are to rightly ridicule the man and his platform, as I believe Amy is doing here, don’t you have to note what you are ridiculing? Keith Olbermann, Rachael Maddow and a whole host of commentators at places like Media Matters or Daily Kos that I’m sure a lot of you respect more than Ms. Sullivan give air time and extensively quote people they ridicule so you the viewer/reader know to what they refer in their critique.
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I think the reaction to this posting has been very knee-jerk — people who dislike Ms. Sullivan leaping at the opportunity to pile on instead of taking a moment to really read what she posted. That’s my $0.02 anyway.

If Amy was registering her dissatisfaction with Randall Terry, instead of simply referring to him as “Randall Terry, Operation Rescue”, she would have said, “Randall Terry, American Taliban”

Condemning this act of violence is not enough. The late 20th Century fundamentalism in politics and religion has fostered the anger of people unable to assimilate new ideas and new cultural paradigms. We will see more of this violence as the extreme right tries to hold on to their fading movement. …………

http://thefiresidepost.com/2009/05/28/the-rise-and-fall-of-20th-century-fundamentalism/

“Pro-Life Groups Fear Backlash After Tiller Murder”
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May I suggest a slight correction?
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“Republicans Fear Backlash After Tiller Murder”
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Now THAT might be a little closer to the truth…

Operation Rescue is a violent hate group, like the KKK, Christian Identity, neo-Nazi, the KKK.
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Does Time give David Duke a platform to comment on black church-bombings? Did they ask him to comment on the murder of James Byrd and Brandon McClelland?
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I submit that seeking their comments, sanitizing and publishing them, serves to legitimize their terrorist organizations and them as opinion leaders. And they thrive on the attention and the ability to get their message out into the mainstream.

@koabd,
I will thank you not to assume you know how I think, who I like or dislike, and who I respect or don’t respect. Talk about knee-jerk stereotyping.

This is a flashback to the ’90s before the ERM bombings. Anti government agitators, armed groups acting as militias, clinic bombings, and killers lone wolfed by hate groups.
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Killers. Natural born killers. Nothing really changed. The veneer the far right painted themselves with on April 20, 1995 came off today…

I’d like to point out that “Keith Olbermann, Rachael Maddow and a whole host of commentators at places like Media Matters or Daily Kos” do not promote terrorism in the name of religion, nor do they promote racism, nor Southern Strategy, nor do they promote racial hatred for political means as Rush, Hannity, O’Reilly, Pat Buchannon, and many others have done.
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There is no discernible reason why revulsion, mockery, and anger should not be directed at the likes of that foul brood.
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There is a qualitative and quantitative difference between the two.

I’m afraid this is what it’s come to – the prevailing reaction to a murder that grew out of hatred and demonization is more hatred and demonization. The extremists of every stripe have won, and I begin to doubt our ability to survive as one nation.

Digby:
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“It seems as if there’s somebody shooting up churches and killing cops on the basis of some wingnut obsession every few months now. I wonder why?
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How many years has it been since there was a left wing terrorist killing in the US?”

I’d like to point out that “Keith Olbermann, Rachael Maddow and a whole host of commentators at places like Media Matters or Daily Kos” do not promote terrorism in the name of religion, nor do they promote racism, nor Southern Strategy, nor do they promote racial hatred for political means as Rush, Hannity, O’Reilly, Pat Buchannon, and many others have done.
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I don’t think I ever suggested that they did. The rest of that line stated that they extensively quote individuals like Rush and O’Reilly specifically to give context to what they are ridculing. So, I don’t exactly see what parallel you are drawing. Ms. Sullivan doesn’t seem to be promoting any type of hatred — in fact she says that the only appropriate response to Dr. Tiller’s murder is that of the last quotation. And that was the only point I was making in regards to the commentors here who have lashed out because she quoted people who were clearly making asses of themselves.
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I will thank you not to assume you know how I think, who I like or dislike, and who I respect or don’t respect. Talk about knee-jerk stereotyping.
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I don’t presume to know anything about your feelings toward Ms. Sullivan, and if you think I do, then I was not clear. In my initial post, I made a point addressing your complaint that she was giving a platform to terrorists — something that plenty of other commentators have done in order to supply context to what they then dispute. I then made a second point about what I feel is the general tenor of a lot of the knee-jerk reaction to Ms. Sullivan’s post. And it seems to fall in line with the reaction she gets to just about anything she posts — anger, followed by mocking and cat-calling. Once again, that wasn’t directed at you specifically, but more of a general observation.

JLA says: “I submit that seeking their comments, sanitizing and publishing them, serves to legitimize their terrorist organizations and them as opinion leaders. And they thrive on the attention and the ability to get their message out into the mainstream.”
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Substitute Pentagon or Wall St. spokesmen for “their” above, and we have the MSM modus operandi in a nutshell. AS/Time is doing nothing different here than what they do on all the pressing issues of the day.
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Torture–sanitized, defenders legitimized, message given equal weight as that delivered by the sane. Ditto the purveyors of the bubble frenzy (i.e. Jim Cramer). For further ex’s of their fine “objective” work, see Barstow, David:
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http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/20/us/20generals.html

I can only hope there is a backlash. That may not be a civilized response, but I’m not really feeling very f’ing civilized right now.

Operation rescue is like the KKK, without the hoods and nooses…but, at least, they still have the guns. RIP Dr Tiller.

The next time an Islamic terrorist kills someone I look forward to Amy publishing a quote from Osama bin Laden.
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The funny thing is that I can imagine bin Laden saying much the same thing as Randall Terry, ‘I’m worried about Obama taking away our most effective rhetoric and actions: killing people.’
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Amy, maybe you need to explain to your readers how murder in the name of Jesus is different than murder in the name of Allah. And then explain to your readers why the mainstream media treats the utterances of the right-wing nut cases like Terry, and their cheerleaders like Limbaugh and Gingrich, like legitimate political discourse while you – rightly – treat the propaganda from the Islamic extremists as nothing more than propaganda.

@koabd,
then I misunderstood your criticism.
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None of my criticism of this post is personal against AS, it is a criticism of content and output. That should be entirely within the realm of acceptable media criticism. There may be some commenters who make their criticisms more personal but I think you will find that I am not among them. I do occasionally object to the tone of her pieces, which can be off-putting.
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But it is actually a broader criticism against the Washington media culture of aggrandizing and legitimizing rightwing extremists generally. There is no violent rightwing extremism that is off limits or marginalized by the Washington elite media, if the extremist is a white male, or blond, and wears a suit or black cocktail dress.
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This is how these rightwing extremist groups have injected themselves and their violent rhetoric into the mainstream. I think that the media needs to be called on it, and it has gone on too long.
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@cliff, I’m not saying she is “spoon-feeding” you opinions. You are fully capable enough and smart enough to form your own opinions. I am saying that when the media immediately goes to these terrorists for a statement, it is legitimizing them by enabling them to put their message into the mainstream. AS is just reprinting it here. She got it from a Christian Newswire piece which concludes “Randall Terry is available for comment at 904-687-9804.”

So called pro-life are really pro-death
In survey after survey, we see the so called pro-life folks are proud to be:

pro-war

pro-torture

pro-death sentence

anti-taxes

anti-social services

anti-birth control

pro-gun

And before you go off and say I am pro-life, but I don’t support the list above, stop and think — that may be true for you personally — but it is not true for the majority of pro-life folks — and the rest of us are tired of this group. So keep in mind when you in good faith following your believes and giving money to these groups, they are going to turn around and use that money for hate crimes, and to support anti-life polices. We closed down the Muslim charities, that folks gave money to – to feed the poor, because some of the money might have been used by hamas or other groups…. so why are we not shutting down these charities that do use their money to put up websites targeting these doctors and their families and kids? Terrorist is a terrorist, and people who give money to these groups are also terrorist, even if they never lift a gun.

What @James said.
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Tomorrow morning we will get endless hours of Randall Terry and the rest of his filth being treated as legitimate political figures when they are nothing more than the American Taliban.
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Not a single member of the media will put two and two together and realize that people like Terry, Coulter, Limbaugh, O’Reilly, and Gingrich are deadly serious when they say they hope someone ‘bombs the NY Times building.’ Years and years of cheerleading by the right wing has resulted in the bombing in Oklahoma City and dozens of murders of pro-choice health care professionals.
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I’m not trying to be morbid. But you guys in the press have got to realize the only people the GOP hates more than pro-choice doctors are people like youwho work for the NY Times, NBC, or Time Magazine. How long before some nut job takes these guys to heart, and we see a repeat of the anthrax attacks in newsrooms?

I going to watch to see how may pro-life and religious figures are hauled before the media and forced to disassociated themselves from this man and his act. I also want to see how the tactics of these groups are actually covered.
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“Scott P. Roeder, 51, of Merriam, was arrested on Interstate 35 near Gardner nearly four hours after Tiller was shot to death just after 10 a.m. in the lobby of Reformation Lutheran Church in Wichita. Roeder was a member of an anti-government group in the 1990s and a staunch abortion opponent.”
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“Wichita Deputy Police Chief Tom Stolz said at a news conference Sunday that police will “investigate this suspect to the nth degree. His history, his family, his associates … and we’re just in the beginning stages of that.”
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n the rear window of the car that Roeder was driving when police stopped him was a red rose — a symbol that is often used by abortion opponents. On the rear of his car was a Christian fish symbol with the word “Jesus” inside.

Those who know Roeder told The Kansas City Star that he believed killing abortion doctors was an act of justifiable homicide.
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“I know that he believed in justifiable homicide,” said Regina Dinwiddie, a Kansas City abortion opponent who made headlines in 1995 when a federal judge ordered her to stop using a bullhorn within 500 feet of any abortion clinic. “I know he very strongly believed that abortion was murder and that you ought to defend the little ones, both born and unborn.”
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http://www.kansascity.com/703/story/1226712.html

I think many of you are missing the real point here.
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This is about legitimizing the radical right wing agenda of one of Amy’s favorite hate groups, “Americans United for Life”. AUFL is nearly as radical and misogynistic as Randall Terry and his ilk, but Amy wants you to believe that they are responsible. They aren’t — just read some of the crap they’ve written about Sotomayor. ( She is a radical pick that divides America. She believes the role of the Court is to set policy, which is exactly the philosophy that led to the Supreme Court turning into the ‘National Abortion Control Board,’ denying the American people the right to be heard on this critical issue.)
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This post is just another instance of AS promoting well-mannered radical hate groups that operate in the name of religion.

I looked into Americans United for Life not long ago and plukasiak is exactly right. They are just another hate group.

Columnist Mike Hendricks of the Kansas City Star takes.
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However, the motive for the crime we can all surmise in light of the vitriolic campaign that has been waged against Tiller for more than two decades by anti-abortion groups.
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And if we’re right about that, then we already know the identities of his accomplices.
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They include every one who has ever called Tiller’s late term abortion clinic a murder mill.
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Who ever called Tiller “Tiller the Killer.”
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The groups who spent decades fomenting hate toward a man who simply believed that he was serving a purpose by being one of the few doctors in the country performing late-term abortions.
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Hate. Not heated opposition. Not strong disagreement.
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But blind hatred.
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The kind of hate that would prompt some maniac to take a gun into a church and shoot a man to death in front of friends and family.
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His accomplices know they have blood on their hands, which might explain why they were quick to issue statements today expressing disapproval of Tiller’s murder.
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Among them, the anti-abortion group Operation Rescue.
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http://primebuzz.kcstar.com/?q=node/18662

And why must we always have the statements from the right wing on things like this and on Sotomayor? How about a collection of statements from the left?

“And why must we always have the statements from the right wing on things like this and on Sotomayor?”
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Ivy-Funny how this works. No article on Sotomayor could be completed without a statement from the right. KT even included one in the first first article she did without checking out what it was.
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Operation Rescue was just recently given prime-time coverage and credibility when Obama was speaking at Notre Dame.
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And I bet the only television talking heads who unequivically connects this murder to the crazy righwing and their mouthpiece O’Reilly will be Olbermann and Maddow. Everyone else will be too frightened of appearing “liberal” to go after O’Reilly and Fox.

My condolencses to Dr Tiller’s family, friends and collegues.

If this doesn’t sound April 18, 1995ish, then nothing would:
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“The suspect was identified as Scott P. Roeder, 51, by the Johnson County Sheriff’s office. Police were investigating his links to the anti-government group the Freemen in the 1990s; he was also reportedly a subscriber to Prayer and Action News, a magazine that advocated a justifiable homicide position on abortion.”
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Sorry kaobd. I see your point, and I actually am not critical of Amy.

lokhupbafa:
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I have two very simple questions for you:
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If you believe this, then why havn’t you spent your time helping fellow Republicans rigorously correct those peers who promote hatred?
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And, further, why aren’t you posting commentary like this on right wing websites?
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You can’t have both ends of this stick. If you are against this type of stuff, then it is the height of hypocracy to tacitly accept it within your own party while criticizing others who are simply reacting to a murder, and not the first by so-called pro-life terrorists.
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And as an answer to the question of why nothing is being done:
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The Obama administration is only in it’s 120th day approximately. The GOP has shielded orgainizations like these from any antiterror legislation or activity, and have actively supported them under free speech auspices.
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You have work to do…

Fox and the right wing kooks listed here are not even close to being in touch with any value real Americans cherish. The GOP is going down the tubes…

http://www.political-buzz.com/

The murder itself was horrific enough, but the scene is going to weigh heavily on many people’s minds. He was ushering people to their seats in a church on Sunday morning. His wife was there in the choir. I can’t think of situation that would put the militant anti-abortion crowd in a worse light. Some of the comments issued to the media are going to blow up in their faces and make others publicly condemn them. A few of the comments here in Swampland from women who had late term abortions because of tragic circumstances are going to get coverage in the MSM. Dr. Tiller was a last resort for many women who faced terrible news late in their pregnancies. His death may very well cast late term abortions in a new light.

Here’s some background that AS didn’t see fit to provide:
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http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2009_06/018421.php

PD,
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It certainly casts a renewed light on the right-wing’s bleating about “oppression” from the left, doesn’t it?

PD, makes clear exactly the kind of terrorist organization Operation Rescue is.

FT: Good to hear from you. Your comments yesterday were on the spot.

sacred,
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Good to hear from you. This whole situation sucks on so many levels.

I think it’s important that we see reactions like Amy has posted here. It’s very revealing when those who lead the “pro life” movement are more concerned with politics than with flatly condemning murder, committed as a deliberate act of domestic terrorism no less.

It’s like the common troll response to questions about torture: “How come libs have a problem with torture but not abortion?” Wouldn’t the more apt question be if you believe in the sanctity of life before birth, how can you have so little regard for human dignity once born? Those terrorist suspects were unborn fetuses too once.

It’s coming up on noon — I’m still waiting for a post about sensible people’s reactions.

Joe: Sensible people rarely make flamethrower comments. Sometimes a reasoned response is worse than no response at all. Logic is seldom outrageous.

sacredh-
Thanks, and agreed. My point was just that it’d be nice if the wingnuts weren’t the only ones who got to have their views aired on Swampland.
What with this being such a popular, highly-respected news outlet and all.

Joe: Over the last few weeks I’ve started to suspect that giving disproportionate coverage to the wingnut’s comments is actually a very good thing. With the country moving incrementally toward the left, letting the RWers make comments that are out of step and extremist in nature is doing more for the liberal position than our own words could ever do. They’re painting even their more rational factions with the same brush. Letting them condemn themselves with their own words helps our positions more than it aids theirs. Either Amy is doing this on purpose because she thinks they’ve crossed the line or else she’s doing it unwittingly. Either way, she has my thanks.

[...] those consequences. Of course, Terry’s statement on Dr. Tiller’s death suggests that he isn’t exactly saddened by the cold-blooded murder of a doctor and grandfather. That’s pretty sick stuff for a group [...]

PD, thanks for that link. I’m appalled that anti-abortion protesters were allowed to do such privacy violations without getting tossed in the slammer. It’s atrocious that Dr. Tiller is dead as a result of being terrorized for so many years. Where was the law? As far as I know the procedures he practiced were legal. Had he no protection? His office administrator was hassled relentlessly and police couldn’t control that in a private neighborhood? I’m upset today because I fear this is only the beginning of more sick violence as a result of hyped up eliminationist commentary from the right as they struggle to grasp that their time has passed.

They’ll never grasp that their time has passed. They’ll continue to be amazed that most people don’t think as they do. They’ve made a martyr out of someone they despised. Dr. Tiller was their rallying focus point. Now he’s America’s in a way they never imagined. Extremist, irrational violence has become their calling card. They’ve scored a pyrrhic victory.

Sacredh, you’re probably right about that. I heard a woman the other day say “it’s feels like Im living in a bad dream everyday when I see Obama stickers and hear people praising the new administration.” She went on to say “when will everybody realize what a mistake they have made?” Well, on (only) one hand I can relate, and that’s that I felt the exact same way when Bush got elected. But the fact is in a democratic country majority rules so it’s time for them to STFU and deal with it just like we had to. And though I understand the point you are making about giving them a platform to speak being like a noose to hang themselves, I want so badly for someone to have some guts and pwn them on a daily basis. MSM that means you, cowards!

One more point about allowing the right’s hate rhetoric. Though it may dig a deeper hole for them in the minds of us sane people, there are surely nut cases on the brink out there who will be triggered into violence and other extreme measures by their statements. THAT is the reason they should not have a mainstream platform on which to speak.

I actually think this quote from the leader of a movement Dr. Tiller’s alleged gunman was associated with is informative (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/02/us/02tiller.html?hp):
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Commenting on Dr. Tiller’s death, Mr. Leach said, “To call this a crime is too simplistic.” He added, “There is Christian scripture that would support this.”

[...] Right-Wing Reactions to Tiller Murder Randall Terry, Operation Rescue: 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. [...]

Here we go with the blanket statements. I’m glad I’m not as ardently pro-life as some others, because then I might get lumped in with the individuals who have committed acts of terrorism in the name of this cause.

apollyon07: I think that what you may be thinking of as blanket statements may in fact be directed toward the Limbaugh/Hannity/Cheney/Randall right wing conservatives and not toward the conservatives who disagree but are still rational. That group really has no voice in the party any longer. It’s basically individual voices who reject the violence and hate but honestly just have differences of opinion. I’ve assumed from some of your previous posts that you belong to the group that is without representation in DC. I’m not speaking for anyone other than myself, but I at least think that the rational faction of the republican party is either in hiding or biding their time until their civil war is over.

sacred, I appreciate that clarification. I would never approve of a killing like this, even though I think late-term abortions are horrific. And yes, conservatives like me who are legitimately for small government are without representation in DC. Frankly, it sucks.

apollyon07:
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Though I know you are against abortion in general, do you think that what needs to be looked at is not whether Dr. Tiller performed late term abortions, but instead, whether he did so in keeping with his Hippocratic oath?
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My point being is that there are grey areas everywhere, and I, for one, am not buying the blanket statement that he’s a murderer. I think it is entirely possible that he was involved regularly in making very difficult ethical and medical choices between the mother and the unborn child.
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I think this is the single biggest issue relating to this, and it goes unconsidered. I often wonder why he would risk his life, go to church, and practice medicine in the manner he does if his aim was simply murder.

What? No, of course to him it wasn’t murder, otherwise he wouldn’t have done it. That’s beside the point though because he didn’t do anything illegal.

apollyon07:
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“That’s beside the point though because he didn’t do anything illegal.”
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I don’t know but I don’t think you really do get it. Say a choice between a mother and an anencephalitic baby…
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At that point, you get to the meat of the issue. The Right is wrong, in this case. Abortion isn’t such a black and white yes/no issue as you appear to think it is.

And I’m sure that there are many other equally riveting medical conundrums…
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If I were him, I too would be in church, praying that I didn’t make the wrong choices. I’m not implying anything by definition here apollyon07, I’m implying the rhetoric is wrong, and does not capture the whole of the issues that surround his work.

Most pro-life people (like me) aren’t opposed to abortions in the instances of horrific deformation (like anencephaly), or rape/incest for that matter. What I am opposed to is women/men (men who encourage/pressure the decision) who choose abortion because they view the baby as an inconvenience. I’m sure you’ve heard of the infamous account of Amy Richard’s choice to abort (she was fearful of the prospect of shopping at Costco and getting “big jars of mayonnaise”) This to me is the ultimate skirting of responsibility (if you choose to have sex, a pregnancy can result). Of course, responsibility for the kid past birth can be responsibly avoided by having it adopted, since there are thousands of eager, infertile couples.
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I will note that I am completely in favor of pro-lifers and pro-choicers working together to reduce unwanted pregnancies through education, better access to birth control, etc.
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Look, I’m not saying I don’t think that the decision to abort is not a tough, stressful, even traumatic one. I don’t think that someone who gets an abortion is a bad person either. I just respectfully oppose the practice except in certain circumstances.

apollyon07: I’m sorry that the republican party that you would be proud to be a member of is gone. I wouldn’t give up hope of seeing a return to traditional republican values. It may be quite a while in coming, but the quicker that this one self destructs the quicker a new one can rise. Just looking at demographics, even the old school republicans are going to have to adjust their positions to become attract enough to voters to become a viable force again. The longer they adhere to policies that alienate women, minorities (soon to be the majority) and young people, the longer it will mean runner-up status.

I am pro-life and a liberal. No, that is not a contradiction and, no I am neither a Republican nor mysoginistic. I am not an evangelical – in fact, I seldom go to church, even though I believe in God. I am a well-educated thirty-something business woman(multiple degrees, including in philosophy), and consistent in my view of being pro-life: I oppose abortion just as much as I oppose capital punishment and almost all instances of war or killing (only reasonable self-defense is acceptable).
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I say this because there are a lot of Americans like me who are not conservatives, Republicans, evangelicals or less educated who oppose abortion and are not wing nuts. George Tiller’s killer is a murderer and his actions are indefensible. The person on this blog who feel that anyone who is against abortion contributed to Tiller’s murder are not only wrong, but are probably actually responsible for a greater degree of polarization and hatred on this topic than persons like me. Hate breeds hate.

CNN) — An Arkansas man was arrested Monday in connection with a shooting at a Little Rock military recruiting center that killed one soldier and wounded another, authorities said.

Police identified the suspect as Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad, formerly known as Carlos Bledsoe.

1 of 2 Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad — a 24-year-old Little Rock resident formerly known as Carlos Bledsoe — faces a first-degree murder charge and 15 counts of engaging in a terrorist act, Little Rock Police Chief Stuart Thomas said. The terrorist counts stem from the shots fired at an occupied building.

I blame Leftist hatred of the Military. From Code Pink to San Francico liberals and college campus liberals who despise the military. From Jack Murtha who called US Soldiers cold blooded killers to Dick Durbin who called them Nazis and John Kerry who called them terrorists.

I do not support the murder of Dr Tiller but lets make no mistake I shed no tears for him either.

Trying to tarnish all Pro Lifers because of the actions of one sick individual is ignorant and sick in itself. Should we tarnish all black muslims because 2 shot an Army Recruiter yesterday?

You elected a President who befriended a KNOWN and Admitted Domestic Terrorist responsible for 150 Bombs inside the USA. I find you all laughable.

[...] The reactions of right-wing groups who are similarly pro-life/anti-abortion are collected here. [...]

A soldier gets murdered by a terrorist here in the US, and not much from you guys on that. Could it be that the left is more outraged by the murder of a guy who terminated healthy 8 month old fetuses than the murder of a US soldier?