(Brief Interruption) Dr. Tiller–Abortion Doctor Killed
I just heard that Dr. George Tiller–a doctor known for performing late-term abortions–was shot and killed in his church. The news comes as a terrible tragedy, and I am appalled at such an act of violence.
And then there’s the irony…
President Obama said:
“he was ‘shocked and outraged’ by the murder. ‘However profound our differences as Americans over difficult issues such as abortion, they cannot be resolved by heinous acts of violence,’ he said.”
Agreed, Mr. President. We are shocked by heinous acts of violence like these. And we’re just as shocked about the heinous act of babies being killed in the womb as we are over this crime committed against Dr. Tiller.
I am grateful we are still ”shocked and dismayed” over the taking of a life…I just wish it were every life.
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Tags: abortion
abortion | Word Warrior | 
June 3, 2009 5:31 pm
Murder is wrong period, and i do not condone it,but listening to people sing the praises of the murdered murderer sickens me. May God have mercy on is soul.
One of my readers had an article about a colleague/friend of his wants to take over and reopen his clinic. The family has not made the decision as of yet. This doctor performed 3rd trimester abortions.
I am saddened that his life was taken but I am sickened by the work he did under his medical training. Any life should be valued.
Amen!!! Dr. Al Mohler (http://www.albertmohler.com/blog_read.php?id=3866) spoke very intelligently on this same issue and the implications it has for making our pro-life case in a righteous manner.
Love your last line.
Doug Phillips over on Vision Forum had a good article on this.
http://www.visionforumministries.org/issues/life/george_tiller_is_dead_for_whom.aspx
I also second the Dr. Al Mohler entry as well. I know he expresses my beliefs on this.
The Washington Times estimated back in February that Tiller had aborted 600,000 babies!!!!! I can’t even wrap my mind around that! I can’t understand where was the church leadership that allowed him to continue with both his trade and attendance and also took his blood money tithe on Sunday morning. (His income was also reported around a million per year.)
Completely unfathomable to me how someone can use the ends justify the mean reasoning as is the case for late term abortions to excuse the murdering of innocent life. May God have mercy on THIS NATION.
Equally unfathomable is that it is reported that Dr. Tiller “baptized the remains” of the babies he killed and put their ashes in an urn…acknowledging they were humans with souls.
“I am grateful we are still ”shocked and dismayed” over the taking of a life…I just wish it were every life.”
So true…
First, I would like to say that I absolutely condemn acts of vigilante-ism. It is an offense to God. BUT. Why “shocked and dismayed?” Who’s shocked or dismayed when a violent drug trafficer is shot in a disagreement over “merchandice”? In fact this idea of “righteous vigilante” made for a hit book and movie (with an all-star cast: Sam. L. Jackson, Matt. McConnahey, Ashley Judd) for John Grisham: A Time to Kill. Even John Brown is still lauded for his terrorist attacks on the pro-slavery advocates. http://www.americanvision.org/article/selective-condemnation/
Why be so picky about when to be “shocked and dismayed” (Mr. Pres)? That’s a rhetorical question of course. The answer is sin and pandering.
I condemn vigilanteism. But I am far more appalled by this MD’s church.
Letty,
Whereas I am sure there were some legitimate reasons for some of his services, some of the reasons were not. There ARE people who just go in for abortions. Not everyone is like your sister, who I am sure was heartbroken over having to make such a decision. Not all people have pure motives.
This is an interview that Anderson Cooper did with a woman who decided not to have a late term abortion. It is very moving. I KNOW this doesn’t apply to all cases. WARNING-tears may be a side effect of watching this clip.
http://newsbusters.org/people/diane-elder
Letty,
When you can comment without such venom, I will not delete them. I’ve looked at all the comments–NONE of them says “Dr. Tiller deserved to die”–all have defended the sanctity of his life.
Yes, we call ourselves Christians–believing in the sacredness of all life, just as God does. There is nothing for anyone to feel “guilty” over in this thread.
Psalm 106, which I read this morning, speaks of God’s people “sacrificing their children” and the land “being full of innocent blood” for which he sorely brought judgement.
That people was no different than us. God made it clear how he felt about it then, and He has not changed his mind.
Suffering, abnormalities, etc. NEVER condones our authority to snuff out a life. Hardship is bad, but taking a life in an effort to relieve it is much worse. Life is life. Always.
I, too, am appalled that a “church” would allow this doctor to be a member and an usher. I can’t fathom how a doctor could baptize these babies after he’d killed them.
Actually, Mary, come to think of it, if a person believes that ALL babies go to heaven no matter what, by dying before the “age of accountability,” then what he was doing was, in a very real sense, evangelism. 100% success rate of heaven-sent. So if he was rationalizing it that way, sure, why not?
Lori,
I highly doubt that Dr. Tiller was performing abortions in order to ensure the fetuses would go to heaven. In fact, I am quite sure that was NOT his motivation.
He himself has said that he began performing abortions to help women who came to him asking for help. (He was originally going to become a dermatologist, but when he took over his deceased father’s medical practice, he found that women came to him for abortios because his father used to practice them.)
You may not agree with his reasons, but there is no doubt that he was acting on principle. The man endured shootings, threats, vandalism, and prosecution when he could easily have stopped and become a plastic surgeon in Beverly Hills or entered any other lucrative and easy practice.
I will say that I was not shocked by Dr. Tiller’s death. He has had a target on his back for years. But I was dismayed and I have spent much of my week in tears, both for him and for the women he helped in heartbreaking situations.
As for the baptisms, I don’t think that had anything to do with Dr. Tiller’s personal religious belief. It was the WOMEN, along with their husbands and/or other family members who requested such funerals. I am sure Dr. Tiller would have had a rabbi or an imam come to perform rites if women were requesting it. It had to do with accommodating the desires and beliefs of the women, who were often in profound mourning. (The women may have determined that abortion was the best recourse in a situation with no good recourses, but that doesn’t mean they can’t mourn.)
That should read “such funerals and baptisms”!
They cannot convince me that they had abortions for “life-threatening” reasons. They say they would die if they delivered a baby. BUT…to have a partial birth abortion you HAVE to give birth to the baby, so why kill it once it’s out? They were obviously “medically able” to birth the legs and the body, so birthing the head really wouldn’t have been that much of a big deal. So really, all they wanted to do is kill the baby in the first place.
Lori, your point about the acceptance of street gang/drug related slayings is right on -it also calls to notice that if one lives in a world of violence, one is at an exponentially higher risk than the average person to die by an act of violence.
Dr. Tiller was no innocent bystander in a driveby shooting. He chose a life to live, by the same free will most of us believe the Bible teaches, and there are consequences for all of us. His murder is as disgusting as his own acts, but the only surprise is how surprised everyone is. Sadly, this man has lost his life, and his murder is going to be exploited in order to encourage more death. I truly hope he’s with God.
I am a long time reader that has never felt compelled to until I read Mrs. W’s words. Mrs W. your comment is extremely hurtful to me as a women that has had to endure the tragedy of a late term abortion. I also find it extremely distasteful for you to suggest that my husband and I wanted our child to die.
I cannot begin to explain to you the heartbreak my husband and I felt when in the 7th month no heartbeat could be found.The tragedy of carrying my dead child everywhere with me for a week taking antibiotics to starve of an infection in the hopes that my body would begin the process of “birth”. Then finally being told by my doctor that the only way to preserve my fertility in the hopes of having future children was to have to under go this tragic procedure.
Word Worrier baptism service are provided as a comfort to family’s like mine as are funeral arrangements. These services were some of the few comforts that my dh and I had during this tragic time. Do you honestly feel that families are not deserving of these services?
While I know that not everyone that undergoes this procedure for the same reason, I would hope that we could at least show them compassion.
Kelly,
I’m confused by a few of your comments, and I’m wondering if you misread as well.
You said “no heartbeat could be found”. If you have a D&C in the event of an infant death in the womb, that is not an abortion. I’m sure the procedure is very traumatic, but it is not at all the same thing as killing a perfectly healthy baby.
Also, the baptism/funeral of such a baby is certainly not what I was referring to. (We just had a funeral service for a dear friend of mine who lost her baby before it was born.)
I’m talking about his abortin live, healthy children and then “baptizing” their remains.
I don’t think any of these comments here were in any way directed to your situation. We weep deeply for women who lose their children!
Dearest Kelly,
Please, if you don’t mind, would you share with me where this information about Tiller baptizing aborted babies remains came from?
Appreciate it,
~Deanna~ from Kansas
It always amuses me when someone will purposely take my words out of context just so that they can have something to be “hurt” about. I wasn’t talking about moms who went through the heartbreaking ordeal of having a baby who was already dead, I was talking about moms who have partial birth ABORTIONS…you know, MURDERS! Delivering a baby that is already dead from natural causes is NOT a murder. But I suppose it made you feel good that a comment finally came up you could feel “hurt” about if you twisted it out of context bad enough.
Another Kelly,
I too had the heartbreak of loosing a baby late in my pregnancy. No movement was felt at all one day, and the doctor confirmed that there was no heartbeat. The baby has died. I walked around for a week waiting to go into labor. Finally I couldn’t stand it any longer and choose to have labor induced. I delivered my baby like any other baby. Only there was no joyful sound of a baby’s cry, only silence.
Never once did I consider what I did an abortion! I am sad this is how you view what happened to you. (For the record, if your baby was already dead, it wasn’t an abortion, no matter what the doctor told you.) I am sorry for your loss, perhaps you will have some comfort in knowing you did not have an abortion, but a still birth.
God Bless,
Rachel
Deanna,
Here is one source..
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2262571/posts
Jillian,
I accidentally deleted your comment to which I wanted to reply…
You said, “when men start shouldering their responsibility and when every child has a home I’m for being pro-life”.
Let me gently try to point out the enormous fallacy of this reasoning…
Having sex outside of marriage (which makes up the majority of women who choose to abort) is a sin. An unwanted pregnancy is often the consequence of that sin. According to your reasoning, we can do what we want to do, and just “take care of” any undesirable effects, even if it means taking a life.
So, with that line of reasoning, I should be able to kill any of my children who turned out to be “trouble” or inconveniences for me. Or, if my husband leaves…then I should kill my children who are now too hard to take care of?
Or what about my parents–if they get really sick and cost me a lot of money and I can’t take care of them…there is no end to this madness. People inside the womb are as valuable as people without. Until you grasp that, killing them will be easy.
Killing people to solve problems is NEVER the right thing. Two wrongs do not make a right. Never. Foster homes are not ideal, but they have given thousands upon thousands LIFE. No matter what reason you can come up with, it is never justifiable by murder.