The murder of George Tiller: Life v choice

SATURDAY, JUNE 6, 2009

by Biodun Iginla of biodun-iginla@bbcnews.com

A CRIME THAT UNDERLINES AN UNBRIDGEABLE DIVIDE

GEORGE TILLER was helping out at his local church in Wichita when he was murdered. Witnesses say a man walked up, shot him in the head, threatened bystanders and fled in a car. Three hours later, the police arrested Scott Roeder, an anti-abortion zealot. On June 2nd he was charged with murder.

It was the first killing of an American abortion doctor in more than a decade. It came less than a month after Barack ObamaBarack Obama, addressing students at a Catholic university, called for Americans on both sides of the abortion debate to seek common ground, perhaps by working together to reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies. Dr Tiller’s slaying reminded Americans how far they are from achieving their new president’s dream.

For many pro-choice campaigners, the murder was evidence that inflammatory rhetoric begets violence. Dr Tiller was one of the most frequently denounced doctors in America—one of a handful who offer very late-term abortions. Bill O’Reilly, a popular cable pundit, fulminated about “Tiller the Baby-Killer” on at least 29 of his shows, according to Salon, an online magazine. Such “demonising language, at times, has consequences,” says Peter Brownlie, the head of the Kansas and mid-Missouri arm of Planned Parenthood, a pro-choice group.

Pro-lifers disagree. “We’re just as distraught as anybody else,” says Troy Newman, who runs Operation Rescue, a group that often picketed Dr Tiller’s clinic in Wichita. It is not pro-life to murder someone, argues Mr Newman, sitting in his office, a former abortion clinic that the group bought and “redeemed in the name of the Lord”. And besides, he says, “we were two months away from shutting him down.” Mr Newman says the Kansan medical authorities were about to revoke Dr Tiller’s licence following ethical complaints, though Dr Tiller had stayed open for decades despite a barrage of similar ones.

Pro-life groups worry that Dr Tiller’s murder will make the public think pro-lifers are violent. “This guy, I’d never heard of him [before this week]” complains David Gittrich of Kansans for Life. Reports suggest that the murderer acted alone. The suspect had a history of mental illness, according to his family. In the 1990s he associated with anti-government militia groups and was caught with bomb-making materials but freed on a technicality. More recently, he became obsessed with abortion and apparently posted comments on pro-life websites likening Dr Tiller to a Nazi.

Pro-choice groups fear that Dr Tiller’s murder will deter doctors from providing abortions and women from seeking them. It will surely scare those who offer abortions in the third trimester, as Dr Tiller did, but it will not come as news to such people that they have enemies. Dr Tiller was shot in both arms in 1993. His clinic was bombed in 1986, blockaded in 1991 and repeatedly vandalised. He hired a bodyguard, but was defenceless on the day he was murdered.

To activists, abortion is either murder or the inalienable right of every woman. Despite Mr Obama’s soothing words, it is hard to find common ground between those two positions. The public are split, but trending conservative. For the first time last month a Gallup poll found that a majority (51%) of Americans call themselves pro-life, up from 33% in the mid-1990s. Only 42% call themselves pro-choice. But these labels hide a lot of nuance. Most Americans would restrict abortion, but not ban it completely.

To ardent pro-lifers, the law today is immorally lax. Kansas, for example, allows late-term abortion only if two doctors agree it is necessary to save the woman’s life or prevent “substantial and irreversible” harm to “a major bodily function”. This has been interpreted to include damage to mental health, which pro-lifers say creates a big loophole.

Pro-choice groups say they exaggerate. Most abortions are done early, sometimes by means of a pill. Only about 1% occur after 21 weeks. Pro-lifers retort that this is still a huge number. Some 820,000 legal abortions were reported in 2005. The Guttmacher Institute, a pro-choice think-tank, puts the true total at 1.2m. That is down a quarter since 1990; still, more than a fifth of American pregnancies are terminated. Meanwhile, in Washington, DC, the Senate is preparing to grill a Supreme Court nominee whose views on abortion are unknown. Expect fireworks.

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View all comments (16)Add your comment POSTED BY BIODUNIGINLA AT 3:37 PM LABELS: ABORTION RIGHTS, BBC NEWS. BIODUN IGINLA, GEORGE TILLER,PRO-CHOICE