CQ TODAY ONLINE NEWS
– POLITICS
June 1, 2009 – 3:35 p.m.
Anti-Abortion Leaders Rush to Repudiate Doctor’s Slaying
By Jonathan Allen, CQ Staff
Richard Land, head of the Southern Baptist Convention’s political arm, was traveling through eastern Tennessee after giving a Sunday morning sermon when he heard that late-term abortion doctor George Tiller had been gunned down.
Wasting no time, Land dialed a press aide on his cell phone as he drove west on I-40 and dictated a statement condemning the act.
“If the perpetrator of this violence proves to be someone who was acting in the name of the pro-life movement, everyone in the pro-life community must swiftly and soundly repudiate him and his actions,” Land said.
Christian conservatives who would not have defended Tiller in life were among the quickest to acknowledge his right to live after he was killed.
Even before a suspect was detained — and long before a certain motive could be ascertained — they well understood the backlash that could follow.
They had to move fast to contain the collateral damage to their movement.
“Every time that there is a horrible incident like this, the pro-abortion forces try to paint all of us with the same broad brush as radicals and nuts and dangerous, and I wanted to make it as clear as possible that Southern Baptists denounce this,” Land said Monday. “This isn’t a killing. This is murder.”
Police have detained Scott Roeder, 51, of Merriam, Kan., as a suspect in the slaying of Tiller, a longtime target of Christian conservative activists.
Tiller had been the subject of a page on Operation Rescue’s Web site, which was down on Monday morning. As one of the handful of providers of late-term abortions in the country, he was a consistent target of anti-abortion groups’ demonstrations and highly charged rhetoric.
Many of them referred to Tiller as a mass murderer.
In 1993, Tiller was shot in each arm by anti-abortion activist Rachelle “Shelley” Shannon and promptly returned to work.
More recently, during consideration of Kathleen Sebelius ’ nomination to become secretary of Health and Human Services, some senators said the then-governor’s political contributions from Tiller were a matter of concern.
Six weeks ago, Family Research Council President Tony Perkins rallied anti-abortion protesters across the street from Tiller’s clinic to highlight the connection between Sebelius and Tiller.
“The depth of Gov. Sebelius’ money connections to late-term abortionist George Tiller is well-known in Kansas,” Perkins said April 19. “Now, the rest of the nation is becoming more aware as new details reveal that she has built her career with abortion industry money, including money derived from the aborting of unborn babies who could survive outside their mother’s womb.”
After the murder, Perkins said he was praying for Tiller’s family.
“George Tiller was a man who we publicly sought to stop through legal and peaceful means,” he said. “We strongly condemn the actions taken today by this vigilante killer and we pray for the Tiller family and for the nation that we might once again be a nation that values all humans], both born and unborn.”
The worries Land expressed about anti-abortion leaders being blamed for contributing to Tiller’s homicide make sense to Stanley Hauerwas, a professor of theological ethics at Duke University’s divinity school who has described himself as a “Christian pacifist.”
“They wanted to disassociate themselves from that kind of violence,” Hauerwas said. “It’s also a concern that this seems to belie their commitment to life.”
Not all abortion foes issued kind words for Tiller and harsh condemnations for who was responsible.
While Operation Rescue President Troy Newman echoed Perkins’ sentiments — saying he prays for Tiller’s family — the group’s founder, Randall Terry, showed little compassion.
“George Tiller was a mass murderer. We grieve for him that he did not have time to properly prepare his soul to face God,” Terry said. “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.”
Terry’s repudiation of Tiller was accompanied by a call to anti-abortion activists to “continue to expose” and “peacefully protest” abortion doctors “in our communities and peacefully protest them at their offices and homes, and yes, even their churches.”
Major newspapers were quoting more extreme elements of the anti-abortion movement who refused to denounce Tiller’s killing.
Land, who wrote a thesis on the debate over slavery just before the Civil War, says he notices a troubling trend among anti-abortion activists that mirrors what he says was a counterproductive transition among abolitionists into focusing on punishing slave owners rather than ending slavery.
“We have to be very, very careful in the pro-life movement that we don’t fall victim to that same temptation,” Land said. “If we’re pro-life, we’re first and foremost about saving babies, not punishing abortion providers.”
Comments
Where is Keith Overbite and other leftist rag reporters on the story about the US military recruiters shooting? Overbite e was all aghast at the killing of the abortion mill doctor last night - wailing and ranting about the DHS exterism report saying right wing groups are dangerous, now the Black Leftist Muslim kills 1 and wounds 1 US military members - where's the outrage from the LEFT. These white liberals are the worst of the worst - toatl hypocrites. Lets see how the NY Slime, Washington Compost, and LA Ragtime handle this story.
First of all Dean, calm down, go back to school, and learn how to spell. Then, recognize the topic at hand for what it is, a horrific tragedy that epitomizes the very word you use, "hypocrisy!" How can one say they love Jesus and the Bible and say they value life and then kill someone? We're not talking about the Muslim extremist who killed an American soldier, which in itself is horrific. That's another topic. We're talking about how some crazy, prolife-extremist wacko killed an innocent man who was practicing medicine within the framework of the LAW!!! In your sick little world, I bet you would argue that one should kill the CONSERVATIVE Supreme Court Justices who made abortion legal!!! I love how you strawman the left for something you ostensibly know nothing about.
Dean, the Muslim convert who murdered the recruiter is not a leftist. Why on earth would you claim he is? He's exactly the kind of religious fanatic that Dr. Tiller's assassin is. There's a reason these fruitloops are called the Religious Right, you know. All religious fundamentalists are the same under the skin; they think their "hotline to God" gives them the right to dictate how everyone else should live, even to the point of assessing the death penalty against those who don't knuckle under.
This is just one more step in a coordinated campaign of domestic terrorism by the "anti-choice" (since they refer to their opponents as "pro-abortion"). They won't be called what they are only because they are so important to the GOP. It's a no-fail strategy: express outrage every time this happens, then continue spewing the rhetoric that drives their most fanatical supporters to take matters into their own hands. Repeat again and again until all those who feel otherwise have been silenced.
FIrstly, the pseudo-debate between right and left liberals cannot but fall short of the vast differences of opinion that exist within American society, and to force ethical debates into this mold serves only to disfigure the actual arguments at hand. The real source of conflict is between those that accept some variant of liberalism and those that remain within traditionalist (note: I did not say conservative) visions of the good. To even have a discussion about the immorality of this killing-let alone to discuss the issue that prompted it-would require a close discussion concerning the nature of the good, which, tragically, is precluded by liberalism's unwillingness to submit to any particular conception thereof.
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