RIP Dr. Tiller

[willendorf5761]

Yesterday Dr. George Tiller was murdered outside his church in Wichita, KS.  Dr. Tiller was one of the few doctors in the country who performed late-term abortions.  As a result, his clinic has been bombed;  his home, office, and church were picketed;  he was shot and wounded in 1993;  anti-abortion groups have searched relentlessly for evidence

Comments

[tijmetje]

From what I understand (or at least assumed, I've not read much about it and what I've read is mostly about the Dutch situation), late-term abortions are often to do with birth defects.
I'm a member of this email group about babies with the abdominal wall defect I was born with. While abortions are rare (or at least rarely reported there. Overall the group is very Christian and very pro-life) and a relatively uncomplicated case is quite survivable, a fair bit of the results of testing, particularly the genetics (omphaloceles are sometimes associated with two trisomies, 13 and 18, both considered lethal) but sometimes also some associated defect(s) that could well lead parents to consider abortion more seriously, comes back fairly late in the pregnancy. Even the actual omphalocele is rarely diagnosed before 12 weeks.

It probably doesn't make it easier, though.

A tough one

[musikmysterium]

I still have vestiges of pro-life thinking in me. There was a time that I felt that the laws needed changing. I have changed my opinion on that score and don't believe I have the right to tell anyone else what to do with her life, especially since I haven't lived anyone else's life! But never never never in a gazillion years in my most conservative state would I ever have advocated murdering anyone! I don't get how people who are supposedly Xian or supposedly pro-life can kill in the name of God. I know it happens, but I will never understand it! It literally is sickening!
I have come to realize that most of this is about the fear of powerful women. It's about keeping womyn down. I get that now. A man - and more often a woman - who doesn't want to accede to that kind of thinking can often become the victim of this kind of evil.

Re: A tough one

[musikmysterium]

PS: I read the tributes to Dr. Tiller and they were quite moving. It seems he was a man who addressed the hard questions most don't want to face, and he did it with compassion.

Re: A tough one

[willendorf5761]

I've moved in the opposite direction from you. As I've gotten older -- and, I recognize, as it's become less likely that I will feel the need to end an unplanned pregnancy -- I've become less comfortable with abortion. However, I agree with you that I don't have the right to tell someone else what to do with the inside of her own body. And if abortion were illegal, it would continue to happen, but women would suffer more. There's an article in today's Times about Tanzania, where abortion is illegal and the death rate from illegal abortion is frighteningly high.

The issue of whether aborting a baby with severe disabilities is okay is a tough one. My own partner was born with spina bifida, and it is terrible to think that her parents, had they known (and had abortion been legal then), might have chosen to abort her. No one is really in a position to judge the potential quality of someone else's life. But if it's happening inside your body, it's your business, whether I'm comfortable with your decision or not.

Re: A tough one

[musikmysterium]

Yeah, I think we're pretty much on the same page on this issue. To me, being pro-life means something a lot different from what the pro-lifers think it is. Pro-life means really looking at those hard questions and deciding what's right for your own life and trying to do good in the process. Or at least the least bad, which is often the best we can hope for and even then we don't get it right. In our own work, who knows if what we do will make a difference? It is always the hugest blessing to find out that one has done well for a client, but even with the best intentions what we do can have disastrous results. So who am I to tell anyone what to do in such a dire situation?! I can tell you this: being truly pro life does NOT mean hatred, disrespect and intolerance. Abortion has always been a tough issue because it's so often seen in black and white and life just ain't that way....

[lthrdyke]

Personally, I am pro-choice. Even so, I am not an advocate of abortion as a means of retroactive birth control. I believe that if you're going to choose to have sex, you should choose to use protection and that life should not be created casually.

All that being said... I still don't get it... why is it that people who feel that abortion is murder are the same folks who murder to get their point across?

[willendorf5761]

Well, the "abortion is murder" people tend to be pro-death penalty. I'm guessing they see themselves as taking the law into their own hands, executing murderers since the state refuses to do it. There's a certain evil logic to it.