I’m sure everyone’s heard by now the horrendous news that Dr George Tiller, one of the few late-term abortion providers in the US, was shot dead as he attended his local church this morning.
For some naïve reason I thought Paul Hill’s execution had ended this kind of fucked up anti-choice hate. Obviously I was wrong. And obviously the words “pro-life” mean absolutely nothing to some of those who profess to be its staunchest advocates.
American feminists are right: what happened today was an act of terrorism. The targeting of abortion providers is a deliberate strategy designed to scare clinic workers away from providing an essential service, and a deliberate strategy to scare women away from seeking those services.
Let’s hope the bastard who did this is caught soon.
My condolences to Dr Tiller’s family, friends and co-workers.
Update: Apparently Wichita police now have someone in custody.
And Randall Terry, the founder of Christian anti-choice hate-group Operation Rescue has issued a statement about Dr Tiller’s murder:
“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. Abortion is still murder. And we still must call abortion by its proper name; murder.
Those men and women who slaughter the unborn are murderers according to the Law of God. We must continue to expose them in our communities and peacefully protest them at their offices and homes, and yes, even their churches.”
What a fucking charmer.
Too Much To Say For Myself 
Yes, it is terrorism.
~The End~
Spot the difference:
“peacefully protest”
“shoot dead”
It is absolutely terrorism.
I understand why there are people who believe that a fertilised egg is a human life. They’re wrong. I don’t think you count until you are born as a separate entity from your bother…but I understand where those beliefs are coming from.
Here’s the thing I don’t get…if life is sacred to the point that a fertilised egg should be afforded human rights, why does being an abortionist remove those human rights? How can you be pro-life and commit acts of murder? If you call abortion murder, how can you commit murder and call it justified?
I just don’t get it. How can people operate with that sort of double-think?
I know, I know why…it is because they want to hurt women and keep them in their place. It has nothing to do with “unborn babies” – it is about women having control of their womb and some people out there just fucking hate that.
Pro-life my fucking arse.
There’s so much simplification in pro-life argument. An embryo = a baby, a woman = a mother (however physically or socially impossible that might be), an abortionist = a murderer. And it’s a miserable chain of absolutes that’s used to justify the violence of extremists.
I recall coming across a group of Operation Rescue supporters picketing a BPAS clinic circa 1990 (I was there as part of the pro-choice counter demo). And their ‘leader’ had been prosecuted for punching a abortion clinic worker. They really are a bunch of scum-bags! He was eulogising about evil women who have abortions…
And then women from Catholics For A Free Choice turned up, surrounded him and gave him such a hard time it was utterly fantastic to watch…
But they were aggressive and threatening (at a previous event a couple of years before over the Alton Bill it turned violent with the anti-abortionists dishing out the violence to pro-choice women!!) to women entering the clinic and the cops…funnily enough…did nothing to stop them.
Though the cops who took over in the afternoon did and threatened to arrest them. One woman cop shouted to the anti-abortionists, ‘How you tell me how to control my body’….
Sarah – I just wrote this on my blog, but it bears repeating. I heard a ‘pro life alliance’ representative on the radio this morning saying the morning after pill was murder.
Which makes me wonder how genuine these fuckwits are about wanting to prevent abortion.
Oh and those she was a token woman (like barristers who represent rapists), yes, they’re mostly middle aged men. And I can’t help thinking what’s ACTUALLY going through their heads is along the lines of “Why should you be able to have sex you slut, if it’s not with me!”
Just speculating you understand, but what are the odds?
And their ‘leader’ had been prosecuted for punching a abortion clinic worker. They really are a bunch of scum-bags! He was eulogising about evil women who have abortions…
While really meaning evol women who have sex. This isn’t anything to do with the baybeez, it’s about men (usually) and their hell-bent, (literally) desperate measures to ensure the continuation of womens’ subjugation.
I mean, for fuck’s sake there’s these slutty slags everywhere! Who can’t keep their legs shut AND without suffering any punishment or consequence.
Maybe institutions such as the Irish Magdalene Laundries could perhaps be what the religious-extremists are looking for, in order to punish women and girls for having sex. I mean, things have got a bit lax around here.
[/sarc]
This kind of thing makes me utterly despair about what we’re up against.
It doesn’t even make a difference that this guy was mostly helping women whose babies would have died anyway. [NOT, I repeat NOT, that that makes a difference to me – I support a woman’s right to choose without *any* limitations – but just wondering why this makes no difference to the antis]
These people… just… fucksake.
How many Dr. Tillers have been killed, over the last few decades?
The definition of ‘recent’ has become fairly loose.
I always advise activists to ask “is it true?” and it works more or less across board.
Regardless what side of a thing you are on, it doesn’t hurt to have a real perspective.
“Maybe institutions such as the Irish Magdalene Laundries could perhaps be what the religious-extremists are looking for, in order to punish women and girls for having sex. I mean, things have got a bit lax around here.’
There you go, thimble & bucket
more sex abuse ( of girls) in three months in British schools than in all the corporate Catholic sex abuse in the British Isles ( including Ireland) since record keeping began.
Try reading the relevant reports, I did.
That is just three months.
Gregory
Recent cases of abortion-related violence
By The Associated Press – 1 hour ago
A look at recent cases of abortion-related violence:
_ May 31, 2009: Prominent late-term abortion provider George Tiller is shot and killed in a Wichita church where he was serving as an usher. The gunman fled but a city official said a suspect is in custody.
_ April 2007: Authorities say Paul Ross Evans placed a homemade bomb in the parking lot of the Austin Women’s Health Center in Texas. A bomb squad disposes of the device, which contained two pounds of nails. There are no injuries.
Oct. 23, 1998 — Dr. Barnett Slepian is fatally shot in his home in a suburb of Buffalo, N.Y. Militant abortion opponent James Kopp is convicted of the murder in 2003 and sentenced to 25 years to life in prison.
Jan. 29, 1998 — A bomb explodes just outside a Birmingham, Ala., abortion clinic, killing a police officer and wounding several others. Eric Rudolph later pleads guilty to that incident and the deadly bombing at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta. He justifies the Alabama bombing in an essay from prison, writing that Jesus would condone “militant action in defense of the innocent.”
Jan. 16, 1997 — Two bomb blasts an hour apart rock an Atlanta building containing an abortion clinic. Seven people are injured. Rudolph is charged by federal authorities in October 1998.
Dec. 30, 1994 — John Salvi opens fire with a rifle inside two Boston-area abortion clinics, killing two receptionists and wounding five others. Sentenced to life without parole, he kills himself in prison in 1996.
Nov. 8, 1994 — Dr. Garson Romalis, who performs abortions in Vancouver, Canada, is shot in the leg while eating breakfast at home.
July 29, 1994 — Dr. John Bayard Britton and his volunteer escort, James H. Barrett, are slain outside a Pensacola, Fla., abortion clinic. Barrett’s wife, June, is wounded in the attack. Paul J. Hill, 40, a former minister and anti-abortion activist, is later convicted of murder and sentenced to death.
Aug. 19, 1993 — Dr. George Tiller is shot in the arms as he drives out of parking lot at his Wichita, Kan., clinic. Rachelle “Shelley” Shannon is later convicted and sentenced to 11 years in prison.
March 10, 1993 — Dr. David Gunn is shot to death outside Pensacola, Fla., clinic, becoming the first U.S. doctor killed during an anti-abortion demonstration. Michael Griffin is convicted and serving a life sentence.
Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
Cath
Just because it is a movie, doesn’t make it true.
Anti-Catholic lunacy had the police looking for mass graves, there were films, and it turned out the primary witness had never been in a Magdalene institution.
Now that’s hysteria.
Gregory
Gregory, I’m not talking of obvious (alleged or otherwise) sexual/ physical/ emotional abuse. I am referring to the ethos of the institutions whereby they were initially founded to ‘rehabilitate’ so called ‘fallen women.’ This eventually extended to unmarried mothers and abused girls. Even girls, who were considered promiscuous and flirtatious, were sent to an asylum. So this is the comparison that I am drawing upon when I compare modern-day Christian fundamentalist’s obsession with women’s sexuality, because it seems as though nothing much has changed. Anti-choice isn’t about babies it’s about governing women and making sure that men keep control of reproduction by a whole host of methods.
Gregory one of my work colleagues went to a local Roman Catholic school where boys were abused by teachers. It was well known and nobody did nothing about it.
Does child abuse only happen in Catholic schools/orphanages? Of course not.
But it DOES happen. And got covered up because of the unholy alliance between church and state in the republic of Ireland. Yes similar alliances exist here. Most paedophiles go unpunished. Many are in positions of power. But two wrongs don’t make a right. Are you saying 2,000 people are lying?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/8066994.stm
“Gregory one of my work colleagues went to a local Roman Catholic school where boys were abused by teachers. It was well known and nobody did nothing about it. ”
We recuited a lot of the wrong type of gays,
I was referring to schoolgirls, Brit teachers abuse more in three months, than all the Catholic abuses in Ireland since records began.
We had a gay sub-culture problem, as described by Julie Bindel in one of her articles.
It was a gay abuse thing and if you look at James Rennie, gay adoption, dozens of secular fostering, or care home examples, there you have it, except the rest is not ‘counted’ or joined together.
Brit teachers ( their unions) circulate advice in printed form, on how to have sex with kids and get away with it!
Do you want examples? Catholic priests don’t do that, do they?
We recuited the wrong type of gays, that was the major problem.
Gregory
“Many are in positions of power. But two wrongs don’t make a right. Are you saying 2,000 people are lying? ”
I am saying the Brits told the Northern Bishops to shred the records. As it happens, all the statements you refer to, in relation to schoolgirls, that doesn’t compare with even a few weeks of what is happening in England.
So since records began, and no more than three months, re: schoolgirls. There is nothing in the Irish reports, that was not also happening in state schools in Britain.
The example cited, you had tens of thousans of those and at one time, you have quite a few hundreds
That teacher was OPENLY doing gynaecology.
Thimble and bucket
IS IT TRUE
You can’t go wrong with that, Brit teachers are far worse than Catholic priests, Harriet Harman was FAR WORSE from the persective of promoting pedsophilia, than any bishop I know about.
I organized the resistance to the Catholic shredding.
British teachers are on a par with a war zone, they are the most prolific sex abusers I’ve ever encountered
and that includes jail guards, Alabama, Brit teachers are the worst ever.
They are openly saking for legalizaation of statutory rape for foster-parenmts and themselves, and privately also for the legalization of incest.
Just like Harriet
Gregory
Headmaster found guilty of nine sex assaults
WalesOnline – May 29, 2009
Thorley, a teacher for 30 years and a headmaster for the past 22 years, initially denied 19 counts of indecently assaulting 12 girls under the age of 13. ..