June 3, 2009
Column #1,449
Tiller: Martyr or Killer?
By Mike McManus
Dr. George Tiller, a physician who performed late term abortions, was
murdered while serving as an usher at church on Sunday. To Rev. Katherine
Ragsdale, president of Harvard's Episcopal Divinity School, "This is about the
loss of a man who was a saint and a martyr. He was a prayerful man who put his
life at risk to protect others and died for it."
She said Tiller "has provided critical abortion and reproductive health care
at great personal risk. In doing so, he saved the lives and futures of countless
women and girls across the country."
The pro-life community was unanimous in condemning Tiller's murder, calling it
"horrific," "disturbing," and a "cowardly act."
For example, Tony Perkins, President of the Family Research Council, said "As
much as we detest and condemn the work of abortionists like George Tiller, we
also detest and condemn this act of vigilante violence. George Tiller was a man
whom we publicly sought to stop through legal and peaceful means.
"We are a nation that is governed by the rule of law, not by individual acts of
`justice.' The words of scripture could not be clearer - for someone to
intentionally murder another human being is wrong."
Randall Terry, founder of Operation Rescue, called him a "mass murderer" and
"one of the most evil men on the planet, every bit as vile as the Nazi war
criminals who were hunted down, tried and sentenced after they participated in
the `legal' murder of the Jews…He reaped what he sowed.
"But even Mr. Tiller - like other murderers - deserved a trial of his
peers, and a legal execution, not vigilante justice," said Terry.
So was Tiller a martyr or a murderer?
He bragged that his abortion clinic performed 60,000 abortions. That is
more than all the deaths in the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, the Vietnam
War, Iraq and Afghanistan Wars combined. Tiller was a mass murderer.
However, The New York Times described him as a hero: "For his principled
devotion to women's health and constitutionally protected rights, Dr. Tiller was
the target of protests at his clinic, his house and his church. Indeed, Tiller
has once seen his clinic bombed and in 1993 was shot in both arms by an abortion
opponent.
MSNBC Host Keith Olbermann went much further, flatly blaming Fox News
Host Bill O'Reilly for inciting the murder of Tiller. Olbermann noted that
O'Reilly aired 28 stories on Tiller, with such statements as: "Killing babies in
America. That's the subject of this evening's "Talking Points Memo."
"For $5,000, `Tiller the Baby Killer' - as some call him - will perform
late-term abortion for just about any reason…No question, Dr. Tiller has blood
on his hands… "There's got to be a special place in hell for this guy."
Olbermann called such comments "propaganda without conscience." adding
that when "hate speech turns into murder, when phrases like `Dr. Tiller the Baby
Killer' become network slogans; when there is a straight line between what was
said on that network and that Kansas church, the time has come to quarantine Fox
News."
Specifically, he requested viewers who see Fox News in restaurants or
bars to ask that the channel be changed, or leave the place "and say calmly why
you are taking your business elsewhere…The goal here is to get that blindly
irresponsible man and his ilk off the air."
However, Olbermann is being as vindictive, destructive and as
irresponsible as he claims O'Reilly to be. I have watched Olbermann several
nights a week for years, and he attacks O'Reilly regularly.
Both men have poured poison into the national psyche, fueling a growing
bitter divide between the political left and right.
The more fundamental issue, however, is the destructiveness of men like
Dr. George Tiller. He was no martyr. After all, as a physician he took the
Hippocratic Oath pledging to "do no harm." How could he rationalize aborting
60,000 babies?
Money. Tiller admitted in a trial he charged $6,000 each, and he
recently charged $13,000 for a 33 week abortion. Even at $6,000, 60,000
abortions earned him $360 million!
Interestingly, few doctors perform abortions. None will do so in North
Dakota, for example. And there were only three abortion clinics which would
perform "late term abortions" on babies who could live outside the womb.
Tiller was recently acquitted of performing abortions that violated
Kansas law, in part because the Attorney General who filed the charges was
defeated in an election by an opponent funded generously by Tiller.
Ironically, however, the Kansas Healing Arts Board, was about to yank his
medical license for illegal abortions!
Due process would have likely "aborted" his career.
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