The life of a brave man
UPDATE: Word is leaking out that the suspect apprehended for the murder of Dr. Tiller is a 51-year-old man named Scott Roeder. A dude matching that name and description has a history of right-wingnuttery, including ties to Operation Rescue.
I followed the breadcrumb trail from Democratic Underground and found Scott Roeder’s post on the Operation Rescue website back in 2007 (link is to the cached version; scroll down to the bottom to see the comment in question):
Jesus.
A body believed to be that of Dr. George Tiller is removed from Reformation Lutheran Church on Sunday. A gunman shot the abortion provider dead in the lobby of the Church. Travis Heying/The Wichita Eagle
Dr. George Tiller has been murdered. Tiller was a provider of late-term abortions in Kansas, one of the few such doctors still practicing in this country. His clinic in Wichita has been a target for anti-abortion lunatics for years, and Tiller himself was shot in the arms in 1993.
Breaking news out of Wichita is that a suspect is in custody. What do you wanna bet it’s a godbag?
Perusing the Wichita Eagle website, I was fascinated by the photo gallery of Dr. Tiller and his clinic through the years. This is the CliffNotes version:
Charlotte Taft, operator of a clinic in Dallas, TX, hugs George Tiller during a press conference outside his office which was damaged by a bomb in 1986. Gregory Drezdzon/The Wichita Eagle
George Tiller outside his clinic in 1992 after 4 people locked themselves to the entrance gates to the clinic. Richard Hernandez/The Wichita Eagle
Paramedics work on George Tiller after he was shot outside his East Wichita clinic in 1993. Charles Rollins/The Wichita Eagle
Abortion opponents rest along a fence outside of Dr. George Tiller's Women's Health Clinic in 2001. Travis Heying/The Wichita Eagle
An unidentified anti-abortion protester passes by pro-choice supporters as the two groups demonstrate outside a Wichita, Kansas abortion clinic July 17, 2001. The clinic, operated by Dr. George Tiller, was targeted by Operation Save America for a weeklong Summer of Mercy protest. CHARLIE RIEDEL/Associated Press
Dr. George Tiller, center, enters the courtroom Monday, Mar. 23, 2009, on the first day of his jury trial in Wichita, Kansas. Mike Hutmacher/The Wichita Eagle
Attorney Lee Thompson, left, congratulates Dr. George Tiller after bailiff Mary Mazur reads the jury's verdicts of not guilty in Sedgwick County District Court Friday, Mar. 27, 2009. Mike Hutmacher/The Wichita Eagle
Dr. George Tiller was a brave man. May he rest in peace.
86 Responses to “The life of a brave man”
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katiebird says:
Thank you for posting this photo essay, Violet. It shows both sides of Kansas. That a man like Dr. Tiller lived, practiced and was assassinated here.
May 31st, 2009 at 4:01 pm EST -
Toonces says:
Who Would Jesus Gun-Down In A Church?
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simply wondered says:
just saw this on the news in uk.
saddened but not surprised. -
FLAConnie says:
I just heard the news on NPR. Thanks Violet for putting this up so quickly. A tragic loss.
The photo gallery was telling: the “pro-fetal life” supporters leaning on the fence: ALL MEN. Gosh, golly, gee-whiz, isn’t that surprising? Florida has a specialty license plate that is essentially anti-abortion. I’ve always found it interesting that, anecdotally, about 90% of the drivers having those tags are MEN! The fear of losing control over women’s bodies is the engine fueling the anti-abortion movement.
BTW, our local NPR station just aired Intelligence Squared, a show that is an Oxford style debate. The subject: Is it Wrong to Pay for Sex? Catharine MacKinnon and Lionel Tiger were two of the panelists, on opposite sides of the debate, of course. Here’s a link in case anyone is interested: http://www.npr.org/templates/s.....=103639465
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Cate says:
FLAConnie, you are sooooo right. Pardon me while I repeat that if men were the ones who became pregnant through force or accident…or could not deal with a pregnancy due to fear or illness or no money, things would be so different. Damn male dominance.
As for the murder of this doctor, I don’t know about his criterion for performing late-term abortions – can someone tell me if a woman or her fetus had to have serious medical problems? I sure hope so.
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theunmarrieddaughter says:
As for the murder of this doctor, I don’t know about his criterion for performing late-term abortions – can someone tell me if a woman or her fetus had to have serious medical problems? I sure hope so.\
I am confused. Are you saying that women who want late term abortions shouldn’t get that procedure, unless said women meet specific narrowly defined criterion?
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Cate says:
theunmarrieddaughter, no, I am not trying to judge anyone for their choices – all I can say though is *I* would not be able to abort a late-term baby unless my life was in danger or I had just found out that the baby was facing a painful death after birth or a severely crippled life. Saying “I sure hope so” means no more than how I feel. Because that is how *I* feel. I am sorry if that is upsetting to you – I did not mean to offend.
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sister of ye says:
I wish people at this site had a bigger soapbox to smack down these “pro-life” agitators and terrrorists. The leadership of groups supposedly devoted to women’s and reproductive rights sure aren’t doing it.
Heads up, anti-woman activists – there is no prohibition against abortion in the bible. I’ll tell you what there are prohibitions against – usury and grinding down the poor. There is a requirement for debt forgiveness every seven years. There are constant injunctions to take care of the sick and vulnerable.
If your God actually exists and you go in fron of Him boasting of how many women’s lives you made miserable and dangerous, He’s going to ask you why you didn’t agitate just as much to get universal health coverage so kids and adults wouldn’t die for lack of essential care. He’s going to wonder why you allowed poisong the air and water for the sake of a few bucks.
Seems to me Jesus had a good description for you people – whited sepulchres.
Rest in peace, Dr. Tiller.
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Violet says:
Cate, Dr. Tiller’s clinic was one of only three in the United States performing late-term abortions, including critical procedures to terminate medically disastrous pregnancies. Dr. Tiller and his clinic complied with the law in all respects.
I wish I could direct you to the clinic’s website, as I visited it today after news of the murder broke. Unfortunately it has now been taken offline.
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Sis says:
What now? I assume he was the head of his clinic, and there are other late abortion providers there? I’m very sorry for him, and his family and loved ones, but I’m concerned about the women he would have helped. What now?
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slythwolf says:
No. No. Why? Why do they do this?
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Violet says:
Because they’re maniacs.
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Sis says:
Do you think that’s true Vi? Some want to say that about men like Marc Lepine too, the man who massacred the 14 women at Ecole Polytechnique in Montreal 1989. I think Lepine was not a maniac but a women hater. I think that can apply with Tiller’s murderer too.
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Violet says:
I didn’t mean maniac in the sense of being clinically insane.
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Val says:
Pro-life, my ass! There are just no words – not to mention the a$$hole will get a prolonged FREE public platform via his trial to spout untold tons of misogynistic bullcrap…
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Patti says:
I had no idea that there are only 3 clinics that perform late term abortions. Does anyone know if any hospitals perform this procedure?
This is tragic. I hope the murderer rots in jail.
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Briar says:
This is a terrorist assassination. The intention is to terrorise. Those right wing zealots who are saluting the murder are supporting terrorism. Will the government and judicial authorities call it by its right name? Will they prosecute it as such? Will they treat those who cheer on such acts and call for more as terrorists themselves? There are laws for doing so – but will they be used against conservatives who typically see themselves as representing traditional (male) authority – that of the flag, the bible, the gun?
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Lara says:
It is very telling that in the protest pictures, the anti’s are all male and the pro-choice lot are female.
Cate, you just said the essence of pro-choice. YOU decide what you can handle.
I do wish that the anti’s would understand that what the law can forbid, it can also compel.
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anna says:
We need the Freedom of Choice Act. Better yet, the George Tiller Memorial Freedom of Choice Act.
Call/write the Congress and the President. Yes I know they don’t care, but we have to make them care. This man, and the women who are now without his help, deserve no less.
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yttik says:
I realize this is an act of terrorism, a terrible act of violence. But I want to know how come we don’t more often refer to violence against women, as terrorism? It’s easy to see the political agenda behind this particular murder, but so many women are murdered in our country just for existing. We seldom see people wanting to label violence against women as an act of terrorism and it should be. It keeps us fearful and in our place.
And people are quick to point fingers at the media, as they should be, such as O’Reilly referring to this Dr. as Tiller the Killer, etc. Yes indeed, hate speech begets violence, but why is it so difficult to get people to look at the link between hate speech and violence towards women? People like Olbermann saying someone should “take her in a room and only they come out”, is also hate speech. I’ve lost track of all the death threats and hatred directed towards Palin, but she’s also been dehumanized in a way that promotes violence towards women.
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Sis says:
I think it’s also terrorism toward women when the president of your country says something that is heard as to “now now, let’s all get along.” The words of a coward.
None of the media stories I saw did anything but report this statement, so quick were they to rush onto the real news: when the Obama’s dined out, Michelle’s purse was a deep blue to complement her black dress. About two monitor pages of bilge on that topic. Two inches on the other.
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gxm17 says:
sister of ye said: “I wish people at this site had a bigger soapbox to smack down these “pro-life” agitators and terrrorists. The leadership of groups supposedly devoted to women’s and reproductive rights sure aren’t doing it.”
Hey, but thanks to those very women’s and reproductive rights groups we’ve got Mr. SuperFeminist as POTUS. And he’s gonna sign FOCA as soon as he
gets into officefeels like it. -
gxm17 says:
Excellent post. Our “feminist” POTUS should have lauded Dr. Tiller for the courageous and heroic man he was, but as expected the coward cowered. Thank you, Violet, for speaking what the anti-feminist could not.
Ms. needs to revise their cover to: This is what a coward looks like.
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Lexia says:
Sis, whereas your Governor General, also of African descent, has awarded your country’s heroic doctor and advocate for women’s rights the Order of Canada. And women are officially persons and explicitly included in your Charter of Rights, and your laws against discrimination do not have, if I recall correctly, the irrational and unenforceable requirement of intent.
And you have men like Martin Dufresne: activists with the courage to name and fight terrorism against women, rather than tourists expecting to be applauded for the occasional visit to the landscape of violence in which women live.
Sigh – I expect that at soon as your conservatives are out of power, there’s going to be such a stampede north that gender parity in both countries will noticeably tilt.
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Sis says:
Somehow it unofficially exists here too, just as virulently. Our abortion doctors have been shot, and are still under seige. Including Morgentaler.*
It was not so long ago for the Persons case and the women had to fight for it. No one gave it. Really, my comment was not a comparison between the two countries.
However, I was looking here yesterday. Very proud of this. Harper would take it down, if he could.
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Nell says:
Have any of you noticed how many media outlets, while reporting the story of Dr. Tiller’s murder, refer to him as an “abortion doctor”? Even the front page headline in yesterday’s NY Times identified him as such. Such terminology only fuels the hatred of the anti-choice, anti-woman cabal inciting even more right-wing fundies to violence.
Dr. Tiller was a medical doctor, a gynecologist and family practitioner, who devoted his life to providing quality medical care for women. He deserves to be spoken of accordingly.
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orlando says:
We need to get stricter about not extending the supporters of the forced pregnancy movement the courtesy of letting them use the term pro-life.
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jackyt says:
“I want to know how come we don’t more often refer to violence against women, as terrorism?”
I see the terrorism as a tactic used by “Male Supremecists”, a term I think needs to be coined; that is the underlying poison that needs to be addressed.
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Patti says:
Thank you, Nell #26, for mentioning that. Even worse, the media labels him the “controversial abortion doctor” as if what he was doing was illegal. That really steams me.
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Sis says:
Yes, definitely, we need to stop referring to them as ‘abortion doctors’ and start using “male supremecists.” Excellent points.
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Sis says:
In the spirit of sharing: There are a couple of very good informative posts at Women’s Space on this; a statement from Dr. Tiller about why he did what he did, and a statement from a leader of the Quiverfull movement, about why it was not only ok to kill Dr. Tiller, but laudable. http://www.womensspace.org/php.....ere-about/
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In Memory of Dr. George Tiller « The Gender Blender Blog says:
[...] The life of a brave man [...]
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Sis says:
Order of Canada loses three members over Morgentaler appointment
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julia says:
I was thinking yesterday what might be inside the men’s heads, the Anti-abortion men. And I came up with this: their sperm. Their sperm is golden and if it makes a baby, that baby is them, and if you perform an abortion you are killing THEM.
And all of you are right about this president. A coward is the nicest thing I could call him.
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Sandra S. says:
Sis,
Let them leave. Dr. Morgentaler deserves the honour more than they do, anyway. They have every right to choose to renounce the honour, but not to influence who is chosen in future.
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tinfoil hattie says:
But I want to know how come we don’t more often refer to violence against women, as terrorism?
Because violence against women is “domestic” violence.
Rape by strangers – doesn’t exist. Bitchezzz just make shit up because they hate men.
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Sis says:
Note: they are three Catholics who have returned their Orders. So that does not say all Catholics would do this, but the ones who have in this instance, they are Catholics. This is a big deal. The Order of Canada is given as proxy by Michaelle Jean, from the Queen. Even if you do not support the monarchy in Canada, it is the highest honour our country can bestow on a citizen. So this sends quite a message.
Other people whose awards created condemnation and controversy were Brent Hawkes, the minister who performed Canada’s first same-sex marriage; and Sue Johanson, the outspoken sex educator (who taught both abstinence and safe sex practices. I believe it was her television demonstration with a condom and a banana, putting the condom on the banana with her lips, that caused the uproar. She’s in her late 70s.
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Sis says:
Trivia: Sue Johanson is the great niece of Lord Baden-Powell, the founder of the Boy Scout and Girl Guide movement. Motto: Be prepared.
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yttik says:
Oh yes, I just finished watching some old clips of Sue Johanson and read an article about her. LOL, she is really delightful.
Are we going backwards? I’ve been watching some old TV from 30 yrs ago and I swear, women were actually progressive back than. WTH happened?
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Sandra S. says:
Sis, I love hearing from you. I’m a Canadian living in Seattle, but it’s so nice to hear about Canadian news. I love Sue Johanson. I want to be her when I grow up.
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Branjor says:
***I was thinking yesterday what might be inside the men’s heads, the Anti-abortion men. And I came up with this: their sperm. Their sperm is golden and if it makes a baby, that baby is them, and if you perform an abortion you are killing THEM.***
Well, then, maybe they’d feel better after a little biology lesson. Their sperm doesn’t make babies, it makes placenta. Fusion of two eggs results in an embryo, but no placenta. Fusion of two sperm results in placenta, but no embryo.
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Sis says:
I could give a synopsis every day if you like Sandra. Ha.
I don’t like Sue really. She focuses her sex ed on how women can service men. It’s good she does spend time on safety too though that too is all related to servicing men.
Tiller’s clinic did sex ed too, I understand. Unfortunately, with many women who are repeat ‘customers’ it’s because the men who are raping them — their loving boyfriends, partners and husbands, fathers, teachers and priests, won’t let them use condoms or the pill or anything.
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sister of ye says:
Branjor, thanks for sharing that interesting fact. This former pre-med student doesn’t keep up with the scientific research as much as I might.
Speaking as someone who nearly was an aborted baby, and who now suffers from arthritis caused or aggravated by the high doses of steroids I was given to cure the anemia that was caused by the turpentine douche my mom used to try to abort me, I’m waiting for some pro-lifer ecstatic that God saved me to at least come by and cut my f*cking lawn.
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Sis says:
Interesting article. http://www.latimes.com/feature.....full.story
I see in this, and the later one in the LATimes, a gynecologist saying how it is still hard for him to continually abort fetuses. I wonder why. I would not find it hard. I submit most women who are mothers wouldn’t. Female animals will protect their young. They’ll also kill it without hesitation if the fetus is inconvenient, or protecting it threatens their life or the lives of the pack. Why should women be any different? Where abortions aren’t available, and a hundred ago, women smothered their new borns, set them out to starve to death, and frequently attempted dangerous and painful ways to end a pregnancy. As sister of ye has said.
I would have no trouble being an abortion provider. I don’t understand the sentimentality.
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Sandra S. says:
Sis,
I intend to get a subscription for the Globe & Mail at some point.
I like that Sue’s answer to absolutely EVERYTHING is to suggest that the person masturbate. That’s my favorite part.
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cellocat says:
Sis says: “I would have no trouble being an abortion provider. I don’t understand the sentimentality.”
I’d have a hard time with it. And I would guess that you’re wrong, and that once a woman has born a baby she’s less likely, not more so, to be comfortable with abortions or killing her young.
I do wish they’d stop calling Dr. Tiller the “abortion doctor”. He was a man who provided important health care to women, some of which was in the form of necessary and critically important late-term abortions. I’m sure also that some of those abortions could have been less late-term if they were readily available nationally without the encroaching restrictions that have been placed upon them in the past several years. An ability to receive the abortion in a timely manner without having to travel and cough up significant sums of money would reduce some of the stress and agony surrounding this choice that I’d hazard most women feel (in the case of a late-term abortion due to the illness or mortality of a wanted baby).
I agree that calling a first-trimester embryo (it’s not even a fetus until the ninth week, upon the development of the major organs) a baby is neither accurate nor helpful, and that pregnancy has been sentimentalized in our society.
However, I also think that it’s a mistake to ignore the different realities, for example, of aborting a healthy 2nd trimester fetus that could be viable outside the mother’s body, and aborting an embryo many weeks earlier. I think that trivializing people’s feelings as being merely “sentimental” is also not helpful. And I say this as a pro-choice lefty, for what that’s worth.
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Sis says:
They said those abortions were for reasons of an abnormal fetus, a geneticly abnormal fetus, and danger to the mother’s life. Also I would suspect many if not all of those late terminations occur because someone has interferred with the mother’s right to chose, earlier or at all.
“a healthy 2nd trimester fetus that could be viable outside the mother’s body, …”
Remember that viable at birth doesn’t equal a healthy child. Many parents of persons with serious lifelong illnesses not showing or being diagnosed until later child or teen years will tell you about that; a life of pain, fear, illness, and poverty for affected person, parents, siblings and society, with for example, schizophrenia. I use that as one example. Many many lifelong disastrous health condtions are not evident at birth of a “healthy” child. 10 fingers and 10 toes is a huge lie.
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yttik says:
It looks like Obama has now released a talking points memo to appease conservatives on Sotomayor.
“The White House, in talking points distributed Tuesday to Senators, casts Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor as a model of judicial restraint who strictly adheres to precedent and is willing to take on abortion rights supporters and side with conservative judges.”
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cellocat says:
Obama has no spine. Or maybe he thinks being post-liberal is cool. I wonder what/when I will tell my daughter about what we lost the year she was born.
Regarding abortions, I was talking about them in a more general sense than that article, just to say that I think it’s important to recognize the emotional difficulty many have with them, even within the pro-choice community. Not an issue of right or wrong – just a reality that deserves consideration in the ongoing debate.
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Sis says:
cellocat: This is kind of like the mutilated women in the room. We will deal with that first.
*IF* if the pregnancy was desired, and hoped for to term, yes it *may* be hard for the woman to end it. But that has no consideration to whether or not it is her right to, at any time during that pregnancy. Or as many pregnancies as she chooses to end, for any reason.
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Adrienne in CA says:
…just to say that I think it’s important to recognize the emotional difficulty many have with them, even within the pro-choice community. Not an issue of right or wrong – just a reality that deserves consideration in the ongoing debate.
Cellocat, I think it’s been a massive blunder for pro-choice advocates to permit discussion about emotion to seep (flood) into the abortion debate. Not only did it open the door to conferring rights on a pre-viable fetus equal or greater to that of a full grown woman, because after all, the former is a baaaaby(awww). It’s also enabled anti-choicers to frame the only legitimate decider — the woman herself — an irrational actor buffeted by feelings rather than rational self-interest. That straw woman is incapable of knowing what’s “best” for her own life, so needs her husband, doctor, pastor, pharmacist, nosey neighbor down the street, and of course the grinning, triumphant old men in the post late-term abortion ban photo, to make up her mind for her. Now they’ve got her feelings and hypothetical future regrets written into the law!
I wish we’d been as united and hard-nosed about ridiculing emotion as a legal basis for deciding anything as the right-wingers are now over Sotomayor.
*****A
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tinfoil hattie says:
I’d feel as squeamish performing an abortion as I would performing a bowel resection. Bleah. Thank goddess there are medical people who are not squeamish.
Also: the main problem with abortion is that it can’t be compared to anything else, because it’s not like anything else. It’s not like killing someone, it’s not like giving a kidney, it’s not like anything else.
But because it involves women’s bodies, it is the purview of EVERYBODY.
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Adrienne in CA says:
BTW, is mainstream news covering any of this? I never watch the stuff.
On today’s Democracy Now:
http://www.democracynow.org/2009/6/3/jeff
AMY GOODMAN: Did Dr. Tiller have to die? Today, we begin with explosive new information in the case of the murder of the abortion provider Dr. George Tiller. He was fatally shot Sunday while he attended services at his Wichita Reformation Lutheran Church in Kansas.
New information indicates that Scott Roeder, the man arrested and charged with first-degree murder for Dr. Tiller’s death, was seen vandalizing a Kansas City women’s health clinic called Aid for Women on two separate occasions last week, a week before Dr. Tiller was killed and a day before his murder.
The clinic manager, calls himself “Jeff Pederson” to protect his identity, says he called the FBI and local law enforcement, but the vandal, Scott, was not arrested.
The first incident was discovered on Memorial Day; the second, this past Saturday. That’s May 30th. Pederson and other clinic staff recognized the vandal as “Scott” from anti-abortion protests and gave the FBI his first name, his license plate number, and video footage of the incidents from a security camera at the clinic.
Pederson told me that FBI agent Mark Colburn told him, quote, “The Johnson County Prosecutor won’t do anything until the Grand Jury convenes.” Well, the next day was Sunday, when Dr. George Tiller was killed, allegedly by Scott Roeder.
[…] -
Sis says:
At women’s space/the margins, you can read quotes from Christian right pastors (men) saying Mrs. Tiller is as “guilty” as he was, and making incendiary comments to their members. Very frightening.
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cellocat says:
Well, of course I think that a discussion of emotion has no place in the debate about whether women have a right to an abortion (shouldn’t even be a discussion at all, imo). Let me rephrase; I think it does have a place in the discussion, but not the debate of rights.
but perhaps I’m making the mistake I saw so many obats making last year, of hoping that there was a way people on different sides of this issue could get along, could agree to disagree. Perhaps it’s just not possible.
And I don’t mean all people and all sides, obviously; the deranged psychopaths who kill, the people who encourage them, the people who cheer their deeds, the people who think they’re justified are not people with whom it is possible to (or desireable to) negotiate or make any kind of extention to.
I just don’t think that scorn is the right response to a (normal) person’s genuine emotional difficulty with it. I don’t say this to offend or to detract in any way from the larger point that it is absurd that we’re still arguing about a woman’s right to have a safe abortion, and that we’ve suffered so many restrictions on what is plainly our right and should be fully supported in our legal, justice, political, and healthcare systems.
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Sameol says:
I don’t want to be callous, but I’m not a therapist. I don’t really think “emotional qualms” really merit any kind of consideration at all in the ongoing debate, anymore than someone’s emotional fear that those on food stamps eat nothing but steak and pastry has anything to do with a debate on public welfare policy. I’m not going to trivialize anyone’s feelings or tell them what to feel, just ask them to bring it to their ethicist or therapist or pastor or friend. I’m certainly not going to ask anyone to share my private views, I’m just a little tired of being forced to pretend that I have all these moral qualms in order to be “normal” because it’s unfeeling not to. We can’t all agree, nor does it matter if we do.
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soopermouse says:
Cello
@I just don’t think that scorn is the right response to a (normal) person’s genuine emotional difficulty with it.@
you don’t get to have an emotional reation unless you’re the one having the abortion. Unless its YOUR body, you are not entitled to an opinion. -
Kali says:
Let’s talk about it in terms of “governmental violation of the bodily-integrity of women” instead of women’s “choice”. Let’s counter the emotion of forced-pregnancy advocates with the emotion of having the state violate your bodily integrity. Personally, I find the term “choice” or even “privacy rights” very inadequate to counter the hyperbole of the forced-pregnancy crowd. When it is an issue of “choice”, all this talk about women’s feelings, “unborn babies”, the feelings of the pastor, the husband, and everybody else can enter the equation. But when it is an issue of bodily integrity, then it is more difficult to argue that anybody’s “feelings” should take precedence.
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m Andrea says:
The decision to abort a potential baby is a practical one for many/most women. For some women, I am quite sure that the decision is not difficult at all.
Strategy wise, I agree with Adrienne in CA, but would go even further. It is a huge mistake to continually act as if emotional criteria has any room at all in the debate — for either side. Why do feminists continually allow your opponents to decide where the lines are to be drawn? This is an enormous tactical error which occurs in every single feminist issue, plus I’m not sure why you thinking begging for crumbs is appropriate.
A primer on basic negotiation principles would be quite helpful for feminists.
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yttik says:
I’d like to see our attitude towards men’s responsibility change. All these people, Obama, etc, talk about reducing abortions, but they never mention making men responsible for mis-using their semen and causing an unwanted pregnancy. Abortion should be safe and simple, but it’s still a violation of a woman’s body. Women should be respected enough so that there is an effort made to protect them. We put all the responsibility on women and than we pretend they have a “choice” or should be grateful we have “rights”. We need to take the debate to a whole new level. I wish both the fence sitters like Obama and the pro-life crowd would just once would say something like, in order to reduce the need for abortions, we’re supporting a public campaign encouraging vasectomies. Or we’re funding research for a male birth control pill. Or we’re starting a campaign to encourage men to have respect for women’s bodies and to take responsibility for their own reproductive choices.
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Sis says:
You know as we banter this back and forth, two very young Canadian women are in court for bringing a baby to term and “abandoning and killing” it. That was the option presented to them. They are children themselves. Who knows who impregnated them; a father? a teacher? a priest? a brother? perhaps, an older man calling himself ‘boyfriend’. A child alone, she ‘took care’ of it. Neither one had our luxury. I admire their courage, under the circumstances. I think they did what was natural. I think that is NATURAL for women to do when they don’t want a child. Not murder, nature. Of course, they are being publicly flayed.
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m Andrea says:
If somebody thinks getting outraged about a thousand different things is going to solve anything without a focus on strategy or negotiation, I’d really appreciate hearing specific details. Because while hearing about a thousand different incidents does indeed create awareness for the need to act, it does nothing to to actually move from Point A to Point B.
And it appears that while the tradition of outrage porn is a feminist mainstay, the education of strategic and negotiation methods are a private matter which beginner feminists are somehow expected to learn by osmosis.
Really, I think it’s fear of conflict. We can bicker amongst ourselves about the smallest detail, but god forbid we challege anything more difficult head-on. It’s prolly not laydee-like and teh menz may not like us anymore. And after a direct challege it may become obvious that teh menz don’t really care, and then we’d rilly have a problem — best to avoid direct conflict altogether since our sanity is at stake with that one…
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Val says:
I know now, in the fullness of time, if I had been aware of the tremendous outlay of energy/resources/time/etc necessary to raise a child (or at least for MYSELF w/my own competitive nature to feel I was doing the very best I could for my offspring) – it’s possible I might have made different choices…
[I know when I was younger, it WAS an easy decision - no contest between my life & potential fetal life...I wish we could have a more open dialogue - I skimmed something yesterday asserting to the high # of America women who have had abortions, it is simply not discussed.] -
julia says:
Branjor, that was brilliant; how come they don’t teach it in highschool science?
Everyone, please remember: if men could get pregnant we would not even be discussing this. Abortion would be free, legal, and highly moral!
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cellocat says:
I think yttik at no.60 has a good point; there are no good contraceptive options to begin with, and research into options for men has been, shall we say, underfunded. why bother when the onus can be placed so conveniently onto women, after all…
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Adrienne in CA says:
Sis says:
I would have no trouble being an abortion provider. I don’t understand the sentimentality.
cellocat says:
I’d have a hard time with it. And I would guess that you’re wrong, and that once a woman has born a baby she’s less likely, not more so, to be comfortable with abortions or killing her young.
Well, I guess I don’t fit the mommy profile, because some 17 years ago during a recession, with a daughter 2 years old and a husband who’d worked only 9 of the past 24 months, and my income the only thing keeping us from losing our house, and despite a happy and stable marriage that’s lasted ever since, I was ready to have an abortion without hesitation. As it turned out, I got my period (by then maybe 3-4 weeks late) and felt nothing but relief.
Maybe we need to do massive fundraising to recruit women without compuctions to become all-stage abortion providers, getting them trained in other countries if necessary to fast-track the process, then licensed over here. Or maybe not even licensed, just a well-trained underground. Are there wealthy women who’d help with this? Why should women need to depend on men, even ones as generous as Dr. Tiller, to take care of our health needs? And if state or federal laws prevent us from exercising our rights as human beings, maybe we need to just work around them too. A guerilla reproductive health care network.
I remember reading that one Native American tribe offered to make abortion available on their sovereign land if it was outlawed entirely — was that S. Dakota?
*****A
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yttik says:
“Maybe we need to do massive fundraising to recruit women without compuctions to become all-stage abortion providers…”
That’s a part of our history, Sis. That’s exactly what we had to do for centuries, hope you found a good midwife or granny with some experience performing abortions, so you didn’t do anything potentially dangerous yourself. It’s the same thing we’d wind up doing again if it were outlawed, just like other countries do right now. Problem was you didn’t always now what you were getting, how experienced your helper was.
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yttik says:
Ooops, I’m sorry. I was addressing Adrienne.
Sis made an interesting post above, too, and it was on my mind. We also have a local case of a young girl being flayed in the court of public opinion and on trial for murder for putting a baby in the trash. Poor girl was barely 15, home birth alone, living in a house with six men, all over 40. Mother kicked her out when she had an “affair” with her new stepfather. It absolutely outrages me, we have a dozen adults who acted criminally and negligently on behalf of this girl but she’s the one being charged with a crime.
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Sis says:
Of course women aborted themselves and their sisters and friends if they could. They were women who had children and wanted no more. They weren’t all Catholic with Catholic husbands, but it was pre-pill, and as now, you did not deny your husband. I say as now, because even now, women cannot deny men. If they don’t just claim right, they take it by force, or talk us into thinking we love being raped so we comply and call ourselves sex-positive. I can remember women in the ’50s and early ’60s getting as drunk as possible, gobbling laxatives (in the days when that meant Ex-Lax) running around in the minus 50 degrees, or trying repeatedly to drown themselves but gulping air at the last minute (thinking they could deprive the fetus of oxygen), making themselves vomit massively, taking herbs, douching with turpentine, vinegar, and other caustic substances. They wanted it out, dead. They weren’t trying for a live birth cellocat.
The only abortion I remember in one small community was the visiting resident doctor’s French Canadian (read: Catholic) girlfriend. It would interfere with his career, even though he planned to marry her someday it couldn’t be now. Accepted. On the quiet of course, but well, really, it would have been selfish of him/her/them/the Sisters of Charity Hospital to have done anything different. It was a man once again, controlling women’s reproduction.
No. He didn’t marry her. He went back to the big city medical school.
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Sis says:
Sorry, I meant the only “sanctioned” medical abortion I remember.
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Sis says:
More male control of women’s reproductive organs: I wonder if anyone has ever done a count or study on the number of babies born to professors’s wives during reading week, by Caesarean, of course.
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cellocat says:
Ok, I seem to have stepped in it here.
Yes, women should have easy access to complete health care including abortions regardless of location or circumstance. No, this is not a right that should be up for negotiation in part or in whole. Yes, I understand that for many women it is a simple, clear choice. I also believe that for many people it is not. Why is it wrong to point that out? Do you really think that to acknowlege the emotional realities surrounding this issue is anti-feminist?
I never claimed to own the “mommy profile” or to speak for all, or a majority of women. Some women I know regret their abortions; others do not. But since when did having compunctions render a person and/or his/her service invalid? And since when do you have to be a member of a specific class to have an opinion? I believe that we are in desperate need of marriage equality in this country. Is that opinion inappropriate, given that I’m not gay and am not personally affected by the awful DOMA and various states’ passage of similar crap law?
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Kiuku says:
Given how pissy men get just at a woman enjoying herself, you cannot really expect that they would want women to have access to legal healthcare. They want to make life painful for women. They truly want this inside themselves, for whatever reason. Hate for themselves as men.
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Kiuku says:
Everyone understands that a person who is on life support can be terminated by those who have to pay for or take care of them. An embryo is a worse case, on physical life support, cannot exist outside the womb, and an infant cannot physically exist independent.
No one is entitled to life at the physical integrity of another person. No one. But men seem to think that babies should have this right…not because babies are human, but because women are not.
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Nina M. says:
@ m Andrea:
I feel your pain. Seriously. I went to one of the two vigils for Dr. Tiller in Washington DC – the one held Monday night near the White House – and while I must add the caveat that I was an hour late, thanks to my incredibly stubborn dog who WOULD NOT WALK in the direction I wanted her to, thus stretching a 20 minute journey into one that took 1.5 HOURS – whew – anyway – by the time I got to the vigil, it was a group of 50 – 75 women and 5 men conducting what was basically a therapy circle.
Apparently I had missed some moving testimony at the beginning… but what I saw was a lot of young women talking about how bad the murder made them feel, punctuated by some people exhorting the crowd to ‘get angry’ and ‘fight back’ against the right wing. I had your reaction – “fine. Explain how, when, and what this will look like. What do you think will happen, and how will it be an improvement. Get to the fucking details.” Because it feels like I’m stuck in a time warp, with every new outrage bringing the same protest, the same statements, and the same non-results.
Its particularly painful for me to read some of the comments here, not because I disagree with them – I don’t – but as some of you know, “we” had this discussion already, when Congress was debating the partial-birth abortion ban during Clinton’s second term. And the discussion has been held again, in states across the nation where late terms bans have been introduced. In the last election, South Dakota’s voters turned back a referendum that (purportedly) would have banned late term abortions. All the arguments, all the stories, all the facts in the world are out there, have been out there, for more than a decade.
And yet we still have the same damn discussion. Would you or wouldn’t you? Is it okay? What about this circumstance? What about that one? And on and on and on.
A lot of extraordinary work has been done in the reproductive rights community on this issue. The work is ongoing, though not necessarily with the same players as ten years ago. But the big missing piece that I see is leadership at the very highest level. Under the Clinton White House, there was no question that the President would veto late-term bans and make a strong statement about the basic rights of women. The Clinton administration signed the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, which did make a difference in terms of law enforcement resources available to health care providers. Federal marshalls, the FBI, and I believe the ATF worked really well with RH health care providers and advocates to share information and identify threats.
Obviously, that stalled out under Bush.
And now what do we have? Some mealy-mouthed bullshit statement from a president who could do more – but won’t. I hate to sound all authoritarian, but in my opinion it is way past time for the President to say – that’s enough. The law of the land is the law of the land, and we are not having this discussion about legality anymore. Creating a hostile situation outside a RH facility will be treated as a serious crime. Creating a hostile situation around an RH patient or provider will be treated as a serious crime. We will not tolerate terrorism in this country on any issue. If you want to lobby, write letters, visit your elected officials, stand on the steps of your house and shout to the heavens – fine. But create a situation perceived as hostile by an RH patient or provider, and you go to jail. And get an FBI file, with a special flag in it denoting you as a potential domestic terrorist. End of story.
Of course, we’re not going to hear that from a president – not this president, anyway.
Apparently the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act does cover some of this territory, but prosecutions have been next to nil over the past 8 years. I know there are people working on getting the process moving again. But of course a lot will depend on what the top-down message is from the White House. I’m not holding my breath.
Sorry for the rant.
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sister of ye says:
Nina, no, you’re not being authoritarian to expect Obama to enforce the laws. That is his job – not “keeping us safe,” not correcting our moral values. His job is to be an administrator who directs the machinery of carrying out the laws the Congress enacts.
It’s certainly not to act as some big pateralistic figure who has to protect our delicate sensibilities and keep us from hurting ourselves with our weak judgment. **ptui!**
Note that his and most fundies “concern for the unborn” stops at keeping women from ending pregnancies intentionally. If you lose a baby because you have health issues and couldn’t afford medical care, that’s a damn shame, but, hey, nothing they can do about it.
That’s not even getting into this society’s “okay, kid, you’re born, now you’re own your own” attitude.
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Nina M. says:
@ sister of ye – well, I meant authoritarian more in the sense of ‘I’m sick of this crap; where’s a big strong authority figure who can smack some sense into these yahoos.’ Because what I really want, really, is for someone to come down on the movement – and I have a specific idea of who I mean by that – like a ton of bricks. Not just by enforcing FACE, but by making an example of people and purposefully sending a ‘message’ that this was the last straw.
One thing I have seen work is (legal) protesting *outside* of churches when those churches (or their priests / bishops / pastors) are Operation Rescue supporters. Bringing your protest to the church – the noisier, the better, because people need to hear it inside during services – is an important teachable moment for all concerned.
I organized one of these when I was in college. Put the local Bishop right back in his place – afterwards he announced he’d be stepping back from his “rescue” activities. IMO, those fetus-huggers pipe down in a hurry if its their day that’s being ruined, and they are the ones being called names and embarrassed, particularly if its by a bunch of rowdy, atheist, sexually androgynous-looking college kids who have zero respect for tradition or propriety, shouting about coathangers, uteri, and what not, during their Palm Sunday mass. In fact, it kind of rocks their world.
More people should try it. IMHO, of course.
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Adrienne in CA says:
Nina M., that sounds like a blast — and beats the hell out of candlelight vigils. Sign me up!
****A
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donna darko says:
Melissa McEwan wrote about his dishonest rhetoric June 1. Obama does this with every issue:
I also hope that his murder will be a wake-up call to you, sir, to stop relying on dangerously dishonest rhetoric about abortion, its supporters, and its opponents.
Both sides are not just as bad, Mr. President, and it’s high fucking time you figured that out.
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donna darko says:
Dr. Tiller, a speech rolling back women’s rights, a Supreme Court nominee unreliable on choice.
Do you see a f***ing pattern, Third Wave? They keep saying, He’s not sexist.
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Lori says:
I’ve been researching third term abortions – how many are performed per year and for what reasons. It’s very difficult information to find. This is a place where the pro-choice community is failing. Rahter than telling individual stories first, we need to start addressing the overall statistics first. Once people know that it’s only between 300 and 600 third trimester abortions per year, then the stories have more impact.
One of the things I have learned since Tiller’s murder, is that a lot of Americans are under the impression that there are thousands of third trimester abortions yearly just because. And finding definitive information to counter-act that belief is very difficult to do.
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sonia says:
I have no blog right now but if I did I’d throw up a big effing picture of this guy and say thanks for giving your time, reputation, and life so that we can have our rights. thanks for giving a shit when you didn’t have to. you can see from his hug with the woman in yellow that he cared, as well as comments from female coworkers-that what he did was at least in part because he cared about women’s feelings.
that’s awesome-and as much as I hate to use the word hero, I really appreciate that he gave his life to support women’s freedoms.
thanks for covering it!
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Elise says:
Lori -
Here is a longitudinal study of abortion from the Guttmacher Institute that provides data on late-term abortions from 1974 to 2004. As for the reasons for late-term abortions, the only study I’ve been able to find dates from 1987. You can find information on it in Wikipedia under Late Term Abortion.
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Elise says:
Sis, I can’t find a link for your report of two young girls who abandoned a newborn baby resulting in the child’s death but unless there are circumstances you’re not reporting, this is infanticide and it’s wrong. Furthermore, leaving aside the moral aspect, I think it’s a big mistake for a feminist to argue that the ways of the animal world, of nature, justify this type of behavior. In nature males are usually larger and stronger, often get the lion’s share of the food, and often leave caring for offspring to the female.
Everyone understands that a person who is on life support can be terminated by those who have to pay for or take care of them.
Not exactly. A person on life support can be taken off life support by someone with the legal right to do so under specific conditions, including the medical establishment believing there is no hope of recovery. No one can “terminate” someone on life support: if the patient is taken off life support and lives you aren’t allowed to hit them over the head with the nearest bedpan. The correct analogy to removing someone from life support is not an abortion but a Caesarian section. I don’t think that’s a good road to go down if you support late-term abortions.
As I understand it, Kansas abortion law permits late-term abortions only if the mother’s life or health are at risk if the pregnancy continues. Two doctors must independently certify the risk to the mother. Based on anecdotes at Andrew Sullivan and Obsidian Wings, some women choosing late-term abortions do so because they are carrying fetuses with severe birth defects. It appears to me that these abortions are considered justified under Kansas law because of the mental health impact on the mother. Obviously, the mental health aspect can be used to designate any late-term abortion legal.
I’m not entirely sure there are only 3 facilities in the US that do late-term abortions. In the reading I did immediately after Dr. Tiller’s murder anecdotes popped up from people who had obtained late-term abortions elsewhere. It is possible that these other facilities keep a lower profile or do late-term abortions only in cases where there is a clear risk of the mother’s death (one anecdote involved a woman who was terribly ill with pre-eclampsia, I think it was).
Finally, cellocat, I do believe most people have an emotional response to abortion. And, no, this is not an issue easily talked about by people on opposite sides. Those who support abortion believe, as Kali has put it, that this is an issue of bodily integrity for the woman. For them there are simply no circumstances under which anyone should be able to tell a woman that she must continue a pregnancy. Those who oppose abortion believe this is an issue of personhood of the fetus. They believe firmly that it is wrong for a woman to choose to kill another person in order to avoid less than 9 months of pregnancy. There is no middle ground there.
Oddly enough, however, although those who hold firmly to one side or the other cannot talk to their opposite numbers, most Americans seem to have come to a remarkably flexible position on the subject, being more supportive of abortion in the early stages of pregnancy than in the later stages. I think this reflects the public’s attempts to balance the issue of bodily integrity with the issue of personhood.
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Sis says:
Maybe everyone else has seen this? I just watched it online. It’s not too long, about 20 minutes.
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“There’s no debate, this is a civil war. The anti-abortion people use bombs and bullets, and they’ve been doing this for 30 years” « Marge Twain says:
[...] license plates, etc. The man in custody for killing Dr. Tiller has been found on Operation Rescue message boards from years ago discussing bringing him to justice. He is not one lone bad [...]
