Murder of George Tiller

A series of news stories and commentary

Late-term abortion doctor killed at church

By Marisol Bello

USA TODAY

June 1, 2009

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2009-05-31-abortion-kansas_N.htm?loc=interstitialskip

George Tiller knew the dangers of being one of few physicians in the USA who provided late-term abortions

His Wichita clinic was bombed in 1985 and has been repeatedly vandalized. He survived a shooting by an activist more than a decade ago. Opponents protested daily in front of his clinic, his home, homes of his staff and volunteers and almost weekly in front of his church.

On Sunday, Tiller, 67, was shot dead as he served as an usher at Reformation Lutheran Church in Wichita. The killing was condemned by abortion rights opponents and mourned by abortion rights advocates as a devastating loss. Police have not provided a motive for the shooting.

"He was constantly harassed, threatened. The man never escaped it. ... He knew it would someday cost him his life," said Marla Patrick, who worked with Tiller on abortion rights issues as the state coordinator for the Kansas National Organization for Women.

Police have a suspect in custody, a 51-year-old man from Merriam, Kan. Johnson County sheriff's spokesman Tom Erickson identified the man as Scott Roeder, the Associated Press reported.

Sedgwick County District Attorney Nola Foulston indicated that charges will not be filed Monday. Foulston noted that the state has 48 hours to charge anyone who is in custody and said she planned to take the full two days to decide. She said any charges would be filed in state court.

"We have taken jurisdiction," she said.

Also, a law enforcement official said investigators have searched two homes as part of the inquiry into Tiller's killing. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the investigation, said the homes are in Merriam, Kan., and Kansas City, Mo.

The official did not know what turned up during the searches.

Roeder's former wife, Lindsey Roeder, said he had lived at a house in Merriam but moved out months ago and was currently living in the Westport area of Kansas City. His brother, David Roeder, told The Topeka Capital-Journal the family is "shocked, horrified and filled with sadness at the death of Dr. Tiller" and the possible involvement of their relative.

He called his sibling "kind and loving," but said he suffered from mental illness at times in his life.

"None of us ever saw Scott as a person capable of or willing to take another person's life," David Roeder said.

Scott Roeder, 51, was returned to Wichita and was being held without bail on one count of first-degree murder and two counts of aggravated assault.

On Monday Tiller's killing brought an outpouring of reaction from both sides on social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook. "Tiller" was one of the top "trending topics" on Twitter in the hours after the shooting, with sympathies and vitriol texted from opposing sides of the debate over abortion.

Supporters of abortion rights used Twitter to publicize vigils Monday evening for Tiller, with events planned from Yakima, Wash., to the White House. On Facebook, more than a dozen groups honoring Tiller or announcing vigils sprung up.

More than 1,200 people joined the Rest in Peace Dr. George Tiller, dedicated to the abortion provider who was "martyred May 31, 2009 at his church."

Abortion rights opponents denounced the killing on Sunday, saying they support peaceful, legal avenues to stop doctors who perform abortions. Troy Newman, director of Operation Rescue, said his organization had been working through the Kansas board that licenses physicians to have Tiller's medical license revoked.

However, he said, Tiller's death, "is a setback for the cause. Mr. Tiller will likely be seen as a hero from the pro-choice perspective."

Supporters wondered where women will go now for late-term abortions. Tiller "provided a service that got him demonized because he believed in it," Patrick said.

President Obama said he was "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," Obama said in a statement Sunday.

Tiller was shot in the foyer of the church, as his wife, Jeanne, sang in the choir in the church's main sanctuary, Stolz said. His family, which also includes four children and 10 grandchildren, released a statement calling his death an unspeakable tragedy.

A candlelight vigil was held for Tiller in Wichita on Sunday night.

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Suspect in Kansas abortion doctor's slaying reportedly belonged to anti-government militia

Scott Roeder, who is being held in the slaying of Dr. George Tiller, attended the doctor's trial, and reportedly advocated violence against abortion providers.

By Nicholas Riccardi

Los Angeles Times

June 2, 2009

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-tiller-suspect2-2009jun02,0,5499521.story

Reporting from Wichita, Kan. — The 51-year-old man held on suspicion of killing prominent abortion provider Dr. George Tiller belonged to anti-government militia groups, had been convicted of carrying explosives in his car and was outraged by the doctor's speedy acquittal on abortion-related charges, authorities and antiabortion activists said Monday.

Scott Roeder had attended a demonstration outside a Kansas City, Kan., abortion clinic two weeks ago and spoke of traveling to Wichita for Tiller's trial, said longtime antiabortion activist Eugene Frye.

Authorities and friends described Roeder as a soft-spoken but intense man who held low-paying jobs and normally spent his time chatting about the illegality of the federal income tax or esoteric interpretations of the Old Testament.

But Frye said he noticed a difference on May 16.

"He said he'd been down to Wichita for George Tiller's trial, and he said it was an absolute sham," Frye said. "He seemed agitated -- but agitation for Scott, for a lot of people would be normal."

An investigation spurred by former Kansas Atty. Gen. Phill Kline, a strong abortion foe, led to charges that Tiller failed to consult with an independent physician, as required by state law, before performing late-term abortions in his Wichita clinic. Antiabortion activists recall seeing Roeder in the courtroom. On March 27, the jury took less than an hour to find Tiller not guilty.

One of the last doctors in the country to perform late-term abortions, Tiller, 67, was shot to death in the foyer of his Wichita church Sunday.

Three hours later, authorities stopped a 1993 Ford Taurus matching the description of the shooter's outside Kansas City and arrested Roeder. According to media reports from the scene, there was a lone rose in the rear window, a marker of the antiabortion movement.

He is being held without bail in Wichita by the Sedgwick County Sheriff's Department.

Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr. sent U.S. marshals to protect various abortion providers nationwide from copycat attacks. Federal authorities, echoing police, said they thought Tiller's killer acted alone.

For nearly 20 years, Tiller had been a lightning-rod in the abortion debates for his insistence on performing abortions into the ninth month of pregnancy. He said he was trying to save mothers' lives or terminate pregnancies that would have led to the birth of deformed children who never could have survived.

Tiller's clinic sits along a frontage road of a state highway and is normally the site of daily protests. It was closed Monday, and bouquets of flowers lay against its fence, along with a sign from one of the groups that leads demonstrations there, Kansans For Life: "We prayed for his conversion to the prolife viewpoint, not for his murder."

Most foes of abortion rights have condemned the slaying, but some were heartened. "If anybody needed killing, George Tiller needed killing," said Kansas City antiabortion activist Regina Dinwiddie. "The gut reaction from everybody who doesn't have their thoughts filtered by fear is 'Yahoo!' "

Dinwiddie said she met Roeder at pickets outside a Kansas City clinic in the mid-1990s. Roeder walked inside the clinic and asked for the doctor, who came to the front desk. Roeder looked him over and said, "Good, now I've seen you," and walked out, she said.

"I said, 'Scott, you can get in a lot of trouble for that, you'd better get out of here,' " Dinwiddie recalled.

Roeder remained an occasional participant in the weekly pickets. Frye, who has helped organize antiabortion pickets for 25 years, said Roeder never discussed violence.

Others, however, had long feared Roeder could be dangerous. He was stopped by Kansas authorities in 1996 for driving with an illegal license plate that said "Sovereign private property." The deputies found he had no driver's license and was carrying explosives in his car. He was convicted of one count of criminal use of explosives.

He was sentenced to 24 months of intensive probation, requiring him to disassociate himself from violent anti-government groups and visit his probation officer daily.

He went to state prison after violating that probation, according to the Topeka Capital-Journal. An appellate court voided his initial conviction, ruling police improperly searched his car.

Suzanne James, who was then the director of victim's services for the Shawnee County District Attorney's Office and tracked militia groups in Kansas, attended some of Roeder's court hearings.

"I found him to be very intense," she said. "Some of these guys had that John Brown look in their eyes. You developed an instinct for the ones who could be dangerous based on that intensity."

Roeder's ex-wife, Lindsey Roeder, said her husband became obsessed with anti-government theories and abortion in the early '90s and that it poisoned their 10-year marriage. The couple had one son and Lindsey Roeder told reporters Monday she insisted on custody because she feared for the child's safety.

"The anti-tax stuff came first, and then it grew and grew. He became very antiabortion," she told the Associated Press. "That's all he cared about is antiabortion. 'The church is this. God is this. Yadda yadda.' "

Roeder became friendly with Shelley Shannon, who shot Tiller in 1993, wounding him in the arms, and is serving a life sentence in a Kansas prison. Another of Shannon's visitors at the prison was David Leach, who published Prayer and Action News, which advocated using violence to stop abortion doctors.

While in Kansas in the mid-1990s, Leach dropped in on Roeder, a newsletter subscriber.

Leach recalled that Roeder was living with his father and talked about government intrusion into people's lives.

A decade later, someone using the name Scott Roeder once posted ominous messages to antiabortion websites, suggesting activists target Tiller's church and comparing him to notorious Nazi concentration camp doctor Josef Mengele.

"It seems as though what is happening in Kansas could be compared to the 'lawlessness' which is spoken of in the Bible," read one 2007 posting on chargetiller.com. "Tiller is the concentration camp 'Mengele' of our day and needs to be stopped before he and those who protect him bring judgment upon our nation."

Mark Pitcavage, director of investigative research for the Anti-Defamation League, said the organization had kept a file on Roeder since 1996 and found links between him and right-wing hate groups in eastern Kansas as recently as 2006.

"I don't feel like I have a bead on him or truly understand him," Pitcavage said. "But some people, and perhaps Roeder was one of them, are like mousetraps in that they can go on for some time at a high level of tension, waiting for that final trigger to come and set them off, and then they can snap with a lot of force."

Roeder's brother David on Monday released a statement to the Topeka Capital-Journal on behalf of the family:

"We are shocked, horrified and filled with sadness at the death of Dr. Tiller. We know Scott as a kind and loving son, brother and father who suffered from mental illness at various times in his life. However, none of us ever saw Scott as a person capable of or willing to take another person's life."

Abortion protester Robert Schilling, who became close with Roeder after meeting him at Kansas City pickets, said his friend held "fringe" beliefs but was no hard-line lunatic.

After his 1996 arrest, Schilling said, Roeder got a driver's license. Later, he got a Social Security card so he could secure a job at Taco Bell. Roeder lived a marginal existence, working minimum-wage jobs and rooming with other men who subscribed to an anti-government philosophy, Schilling said. The two debated political and religious issues over the years -- Roeder belongs to an obscure Christian sect that celebrates Jewish rituals.

They also discussed whether homicide was justified to stop abortions. Schilling was against it, he said; Roeder believed murder could be justified. Nonetheless, Schilling was stunned by Roeder's arrest. "I believe he's at peace with himself," Schilling said. "I think he's weighed it out and accepted the consequences."

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Tiller Murder: It Wasn't a Lone Killer's Sick Plot; This Came Out of the Radical Anti-Abortion Movement and a Hate Speech Media

By Jill Filipovic,

June 1, 2009

http://www.alternet.org/story/140387/

George Tiller, a Kansas physician, was shot to death in church on Sunday. He was one of only a handful of doctors in the United States providing late-term therapeutic abortions for women in need -- women whose pregnancies threatened their lives or their health, and women who learned that they were carrying fetuses with severe abnormalities. Women traveled across the country to see Tiller when their own physicians and local medical providers couldn't help them. For many women, Tiller was, as one of his patients put it, "the one shining light in the worst week of my life".

He was also a major lightening-rod in the abortion wars. Anti-choicers harassed his patients, day in and day out. They bombed his clinic. They shot him once before. They filed lawsuit after lawsuit and even convinced local prosecutors to launch criminal investigations and trials (none were successful). They published his home address and the full names of his family members on their websites. They posted information about anyone who did business with him, from where he got his coffee to where he did his dry cleaning.

They had him and his staff wearing bullet-proof vests to work every day. Tiller drove an armored car and protected his home with a state-of-the-art security system. And, to better enable stalking and harassment, they posted his daily comings and goings -- including the fact that he attended services every Sunday at Reformation Lutheran Church, the place where he was ultimately shot and killed.

All because he was a licensed physician who performed legal medical procedures.

Not surprisingly, his killer is strongly suspected to be affiliated with the "pro-life" movement. If that's the case, it makes Tiller the 10th person in the United States to be murdered by anti-choice terrorists.

And that's just the tip of the iceberg. Since 1977, there have been at least 17 attempted murders, 383 death threats, 153 incidents of assault or battery and three kidnappings committed against abortion providers in North America. Tiller himself survived an assassination attempt in 1993.

Some pro-life groups are issuing statements of condemnation and attempting to paint this murder as the work of an extremist. But this latest act of terrorism is, sadly, not an anomaly. It is part of a clearly-established pattern of harassment, intimidation and violence against abortion providers and pro-choice individuals. And mainstream pro-life groups shoulder much of the blame.

Pro-life organizations routinely refer to abortion as "murder,"”genocide" and a "holocaust." They post the full names abortion providers on their websites, along with their addresses, their license plate numbers, their photos, the names of children and the schools those children attend (sometimes with helpful Wild-West-style "Wanted" posters offering $5,000 rewards).

When you convince your followers that abortion providers are the equivalent of SS officers slaughtering innocents by the millions, tell them that "it's all-out WAR" against pro-choicers and then provide the home addresses and personal information of the "monster" "late-term baby-killer" abortion providers you're supposedly at war against, you can't act surprised when those followers conclude that it's morally justified to use the information to kill doctors.

These are not fringe groups. Conservative television personality Bill O'Reilly called Tiller's clinic a "death mill," referred to Tiller as a "baby killer" who was "executing babies about to be born" and said Tiller was doing "Nazi stuff" for which he "had blood on his hands."

Frank Pavone, a Roman Catholic priest, member of James Dobson's Focus on the Family and director of Priests for Life, posted a YouTube video on Sunday to say that he "abhors" the violence committed against Tiller but "we just don't know and we shouldn't jump to conclusions" in assuming that an anti-choice terrorist may have murdered Tiller -- although, he concedes, someone may have assassinated him "in order to stop Tiller from killing more babies". He continued: "When we talk about abortion, we are taking about killing. There's no two ways about it. ... This is a massive holocaust, it is killing."

Pavone is chummy with Operation Rescue founder Randall Terry, who had this to say about Tiller's assassination:

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.

That's some definition of "peacefully protesting".

The prime suspect in Tiller's murder appears to have frequented the Operation Rescue website (which had its own "Tiller Watch" section), and took part in some of those "peaceful protests" that anti-choicers hold so dear. Far from a random extremist, he appears to have been fairly entrenched in the anti-choice movement.

And if he is the person who murdered Tiller, he isn't alone among pro-lifers who embrace Terry's directive that "If you think abortion is murder, act like it." (After all, Terry has posited, "Wouldn't it have been OK to kill Hitler if you knew you could save millions of Jews?").

Self-identified pro-lifers have celebrated Tiller's murder, leaving hundreds of comments on rightwing blogs (and a good number at progressive and pro-choice blogs, just for good measure). Conservative writer LaShawn Barber gloated at the "irony" of "Tiller the child killer, cultivator of death" being murdered at church. A quick perusal of the front page of ProLifeBlogs.com includes such headlines as "George Tiller has killed his last baby," "Baby killer Tiller shot, killed at church," "Tiller the Killer killed," "Today Tiller the Killer, now a martyr for Molech, met God" and "Tiller shot to death!"

These are not "bad apples". They are symptomatic of (and sometimes the spokespeople for) a larger a movement that is disturbed and dangerous.

While individuals who self-identify as pro-life may be well-meaning and against violence, mainstream pro-life groups and the people who run them do not care about life, before or after birth. And while today anti-choice groups are half-heartedly condemning Tiller's murder, they continue to use the same outlandish and inflammatory rhetoric that inspired and enabled it.

Words mean things. Anti-choicers should certainly have every right to express their views, but they must also realize that actions have consequences and their rhetoric is not harmless. If you yell "Fire!" in a crowded theater, it's reasonably foreseeable that people will panic and someone will be injured. And if you yell "Murderer!" "Baby-Killer!" and "Holocaust!" long enough, it's reasonably foreseeable that someone will take it upon themselves to make sure that vigilante justice is done (especially if you provide the name and address of the person who you claim is committing "genocide").

This was not the act of a lone extremist. It is one more act of violence to add to a long, long list of crimes committed by anti-choice terrorists, and it is the logical outcome of years of increasingly violent, dehumanizing and threatening rhetoric and action on the part of supposedly mainstream pro-life groups. The responsibility for George Tiller's death surely falls on the shoulders of the person who actually pulled the trigger. But when pro-life groups did everything but give him a gun, their hands are hardly clean.

Jill Filipovic is a lawyer in Manhattan who formerly served as the Gender and Reproductive Justice editor at AlterNet. More of her writing is available online at her blog, Feministe.

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Piecing Together the Murder of Dr. George Tiller: Right-Wing Violence Rears Its Head

By AlterNet Staff

June 1, 2009

http://www.alternet.org/story/140373/

Dr. George Tiller, one of the few OB-GYNs in the country who performed late-term abortions despite ongoing threats to his safety, was fatally shot yesterday while attending a church service in Wichita, Kan. Scott Roeder, 51, has been detained for questioning.

Roeder -- a registered Republican previously arrested for having bomb materials in his car -- posted this chilling message on an Operation Rescue Web site called Charge Tiller in 2007 (via the Daily Kos):

It seems as though what is happening in Kansas could be compared to the "lawlessness" which is spoken of in the Bible. Tiller is the concentration camp "Mengele" of our day and needs to be stopped before he and those who protect him bring judgement upon our nation.

Tiller had long faced the threat of right-wing violence. The Tiller Women’s Health Clinic clinic was bombed in 1985; in 1993, Tiller was shot in both arms by abortion protester Rachelle Shannon. The heavily fortified clinic was guarded by a private security team, and Tiller relied on a bodyguard outside of work.

Recently, Tiller had aired concerns about his safety to federal investigators. The Associated Press reports:

[Tiller's Attorney Dan] Monnat said Tiller had asked federal prosecutors to step up investigations of vandalism and other threats against the clinic out of fear that the incidents were increasing and that Tiller's safety was in jeopardy. [Wichita Deputy Police Chief Tom] Stolz, however, said police knew of no threats connected to the shooting.

In early May, Tiller had asked the FBI to investigate vandalism at his clinic, including cut wires to surveillance cameras and damage to the roof that sent rainwater pouring into the building.

Tiller had also long been the target of vicious attacks by conservative pundits like Bill O'Reilly, who often denounced Tiller on his show. Brad Reed writes on Brad Blog following Tiller's acquittal in March on charges that he had broken a Kansas abortion law:

O'Reilly continued his series of programs focusing on the Kansas physician, charging him with "operating a death mill" (video here), and alleging that he was "executing babies" (video here).

O'Reilly had previously been highly critical of the state's Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, charging, during his "Talking Points" commentary in 2007, that she was "allowing [Tiller] to continue the slaughter."

Writing for Salon, Gabriel Winant argues that O'Reilly's vicious slander of Tiller may well have served as a provocation for the shooting. Although O'Reilly certainly did not instruct his listeners to commit violence:

... there's no other person who bears as much responsibility for the characterization of Tiller as a savage on the loose, killing babies willy-nilly thanks to the collusion of would-be sophisticated cultural elites, a bought-and-paid-for governor and scofflaw secular journalists. Tiller's name first appeared on The Factor on Feb. 25, 2005. Since then, O'Reilly and his guest hosts have brought up the doctor on 28 more episodes, including as recently as April 27 of this year. Almost invariably, Tiller is described as "Tiller the Baby Killer."

Tiller, O'Reilly likes to say, "destroys fetuses for just about any reason right up until the birth date for $5,000." He's guilty of "Nazi stuff," said O'Reilly on June 8, 2005; a moral equivalent to NAMBLA and al-Qaida, he suggested on March 15, 2006. "This is the kind of stuff happened in Mao's China, Hitler's Germany, Stalin's Soviet Union," said O'Reilly on Nov. 9, 2006.

O'Reilly has also frequently linked Tiller to his longtime obsession, child molestation and rape. Because a young teenager who received an abortion from Tiller could, by definition, have been a victim of statutory rape, O'Reilly frequently suggested that the clinic was covering up for child rapists (rather than teenage boyfriends) by refusing to release records on the abortions performed.

When Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline, an O'Reilly favorite who faced harsh criticism for seeking Tiller's records, was facing electoral defeat by challenger Paul Morrison, O'Reilly said, "Now we don't endorse candidates here, but obviously, that would be a colossal mistake. Society must afford some protection for viable babies and children who are raped." (Morrison ultimately unseated Kline.)

This is where O'Reilly's campaign against George Tiller becomes dangerous. While he never advocated anything violent or illegal, the Fox bully repeatedly portrayed the doctor as a murderer on the loose, allowed to do whatever he wanted by corrupt and decadent authorities. "Also, it looks like Dr. Tiller, who some call Tiller the Baby Killer, is spending a large amount of money in order to get Mr. Morrison elected. That opens up all kinds of questions," said O'Reilly on Nov. 6, 2006, in one of many suggestions that Tiller was improperly influencing the election.

Despite ongoing threats of violence and constant right-wing media attacks, Tiller continued running Tiller’s Women’s Health Care Service, one of just three facilities in the country providing access to abortion after the 21st week of pregnancy.

According to a statement issued by Planned Parenthood, Tiller bravely performed an invaluable service:

He provided critical reproductive health care services, including abortion services to women facing some of the most difficult medical circumstances. He was continually harassed by abortion opponents for much of his career -- his clinic was burned down, he was shot by a health center protester, and he was recently targeted for investigation, only to be acquitted by a jury just a few months ago. None of this stopped George Tiller from his commitment to providing women and their families with compassionate care that others were unwilling to offer.

Tiller's slaying has also brought forth personal testimonials from the women he helped, not just in his role as abortion provider but as an OB-GYN. A diarist writes on the Daily Kos:

In 1980, I was pregnant with my first child.  I had no insurance and couldn't afford a doctor's appointment until I was approved for a medical card. ...  Mom told Dr. Tiller, and he brought me into his office where he examined me, free of charge.  I can credit him with the very first picture taken of my son.

The last story I have to share is about my friends who could not have children. Dr. Tiller’s office worked with several attorneys in the Wichita area to provide adoption services for his patients who wanted this option. My friends have a 10-year-old boy now, who is loved and adored.

Nancy Keenan, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America aired her concerns about the chilling effect Tiller’s killing would have on women’s health providers throughout the country:

Dr. Tiller's murder will send a chill down the spines of the brave and courageous providers and other professionals who are part of reproductive-health centers that serve women across this country. We want them to know that they have our support as they move forward in providing these essential services in the aftermath of the shocking news from Wichita.

President Barack Obama also issued a statement denouncing the slaying: "I am shocked and outraged by the murder of Dr. George Tiller as he attended church services this morning. However profound our differences as Americans over difficult issues such as abortion, they cannot be resolved by heinous acts of violence."

Some anti-choice groups were quick to distance themselves from Tiller’s killing, while reiterating their opposition to Tiller's work. The president of Operation Rescue, the group best known for organizing sometimes-violent protests outside abortion clinics in the 1980s, said the following, according to the New York Times:

"Our prayers go out to his family and the thousands of people this will impact," [Troy] Newman said in a telephone interview from his home in Wichita.

"Operation Rescue has worked tirelessly on peaceful, nonviolent measures to bring him to justice through the legal system, the legislative system," Mr. Newman said. "I'm a tireless advocate and spokesman for the pre-born children who are dying in clinics every day. Mr. Tiller was an abortionist. But this wasn’t personal. We are pro life, and this act was antithetical to what we believe."

But statements by other extremist abortion opponents went so far as to blame Tiller for his own killing, including one by Randall Terry, the founder of Operation Rescue. Randall stated:

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.

Meanwhile, Father Frank Pavone, the national director of Priests for Life, issued a statement questioning the link between Tiller’s slaying and abortion opponents:

I am saddened to hear of the killing of George Tiller this morning. At this point, we do not know the motives of this act, or who is behind it, whether an angry post-abortive man or woman, or a misguided activist, or an enemy within the abortion industry, or a political enemy frustrated with the way Tiller has escaped prosecution ...

Tiller leaves behind a wife, four children and 10 grandchildren. In a statement issued several hours after the shooting, Tiller’s family said:

Our loss is also a loss for the City of Wichita and women across America. George dedicated his life to providing women with high-quality heath care despite frequent threats and violence. We ask that he be remembered as a good husband, father and grandfather and a dedicated servant on behalf of the rights of women everywhere.

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Pro-Life Activist Says Doctor 'Reaped What He Sowed'

By Philip Rucker

Washington Post

June 1, 2009

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/01/AR2009060102058.html?hpid=topnews

Antiabortion activist Randall Terry today added fuel to the debate over the killing yesterday of a prominent Kansas late-term abortion provider, saying George R. Tiller "was a mass murderer and, horrifically, he reaped what he sowed."

Terry, the founder of Operation Rescue, said today that the pro-life movement bears no responsibility for the slaying of Tiller during Sunday church services in Wichita, Kan. In the wake of Tiller's death, Terry said abortion opponents "have to be confrontational" and "have to use highly-charged rhetoric" to advance their movement.

"The pro-life movement right now is at a crossroads," Terry said at a midday news conference at the National Press Club. "We have become steadily politically irrelevant, our leadership is graying, retiring and dying, and many of the new leaders do not have the fortitude and clarity of thought to not flinch in an hour of crisis like this. So the words that I'm going to say today are specifically geared towards shoring up the pro-life movement."

Terry spoke of Tiller in religious terms, saying the doctor will be remembered as "one of the villains of history."

"I grieve for Dr. Tiller because he left this life, perhaps without proper preparation to face God," Terry said. "The thought of him leaving this life with blood on his hands for having killed so many thousands of children and not having been prepared to meet his maker is a dreadful, terrifying thought."

Terry has been arrested dozens of times for antiabortion demonstrations, most recently at the University of Notre Dame, where he protested President Obama's commencement address. Today he criticized the administration of Obama, who is pro-choice, for saying "they want a dialogue" with abortion opponents.

"But they don't," Terry said. "They want us to shut up and go away. They want us to let them continue their grisly trade, and we're not going to."

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Pro-life movement decries murder of Kansas late-term abortion provider

Catholic News Agency

June 1, 2009

http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/new.php?n=16155

Dr. George Tiller, killed on Sunday morning in Wichita, KansasWichita, Kan., May 31, 2009 / 05:05 pm (CNA).- Prominent voices of the pro-life movement have repudiated the murder of the late-term abortion provider George Tiller, who was shot and killed Sunday morning at a Wichita Lutheran church.

Tiller was shot dead by an unidentified assailant shortly after 10 a.m. at Reformation Lutheran Church (ELCA) in Wichita. The 67-year-old was one of the few U.S. physicians who still performed late-term abortions in the country.

Troy Newman, President of the Kansas-based Operation Rescue said in a statement that his organization “has worked for years through peaceful, legal means, and through the proper channels to see him brought to justice. We denounce vigilantism and the cowardly act that took place this morning. We pray for Mr. Tiller's family that they will find comfort and healing that can only be found in Jesus Christ."

Marjorie Dannenfelser, President of the Susan B. Anthony List -a nationwide network of Americans dedicated to representing pro-life women in politics-  also condemned "this anti-life act in the strongest of terms."

"The heart of the pro-life movement is one founded in love. Without this driving powerful center no justice can possibly be achieved. Authentic progress in women's rights has always encompassed the protection of human rights of every person across the board. The rights of one human being can never be honored by diminishing or ignoring the rights of another. This week as we gather for our annual June Tea event, themed Love Lets Live, we will lift up George Tiller's loved ones in prayer," Dannenfelser said.

Fr. Frank Pavone, National Director of Priests for Life, expressed his sadness at hearing of George Tiller's murder.

"At this point, we do not know the motives of this act, or who is behind it, whether an angry post- abortive man or woman, or a misguided activist, or an enemy within the abortion industry, or a political enemy frustrated with the way Tiller has escaped prosecution. We should not jump to conclusions or rush to judgment."

"But whatever the motives," Pavone emphasized, "we at Priests for Life continue to insist on a culture in which violence is never seen as the solution to any problem. Every life has to be protected, without regard to their age or views or actions."

Shaun Kenney, executive director of American Life League, explained that leaders within the pro-life movement "often discuss justice in connection with our mission to end the tragedy of abortion. Today, Dr. George Tiller's life ended in an act defying those principles."

"With genuine sorrow, we reflect on today's events in prayer. Justice for all human beings includes the lives of those with whom we fundamentally disagree as well as the victims of abortion. We firmly hope the perpetrators of this act are apprehended, that the facts be made known, and that justice according to the law is preserved and dispensed," Kenney said.

Rev. Patrick Mahoney, a former national spokesperson for Operation Rescue  who had just completed leading two weeks of prayer vigils in Wichita during the latest trial of Dr. Tiller, also denounced the shooting, and said that he and other pro-life leaders will hold a news conference in front of the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday "to discuss the impact the shooting of Dr. George Tiller will have on the pro-life movement and the Supreme Court."

Tiller began providing abortion services in 1973 but during the 80's became one of the most prominent and vocal late-term abortionists.

In 1991, his abortion clinic was the center of the "Summer of Mercy" protests organized by Operation Rescue. The protests drew thousands of pro-life  activists to Wichita for peaceful demonstrations marked by civil disobedience and mass arrests.

After the protests, Tiller kept mostly to his heavily guarded clinic, but remained prominent in the news. In 1993, Tiller was shot in both arms by a protestor.

Tiller was a significant donor to the political campaigns of the former Kansas governor Kathleen Sebelius, the  pro-abortion Catholic recently appointed as Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services.

Tiller contributed to Sebelius directly and to political action committees that he controlled. During Sebelius' tenure as governor, Kansas City Archbishop Joseph Naumann declared that Kansas had become "infamous for being the late-term abortion center for the Midwest."

Sebelius repeatedly vetoed legislation that would have affected Tiller's business.

According to the Wichita Police Department, a 51-year-old suspect was arrested three hours after the shooting about 170 miles from Wichita.