Homegrown Terrorism, America at War on Women
This got long, what with the links and the rants. I am not cut-tagging it. It is too important.
In what shouldn't be a surprise to me, but is:
Dr. George Tiller was murdered at church this morning.
Dr. Tiller's Women's Health Care Services in Wichita, KS was one of the ONLY in the country providing some of the termination services to women with needs for late-term terminations. He had faced threats, bombings, shootings, and ongoing terrorist activity trying to shut down his legal operation to provide services to women who came from all over the country since so few showed the courage and tenacity of Dr. Tiller.
This is terrorism, pure and simple. While there are many, many people who do not believe that abortion is right and who make those beliefs known in gentle, positive, and constructive ways that help women, there continue to be very vocal Anti-Choice activists who try to use fear and threats and criminal activity to try and strong-arm others into adhering to their belief system, in spite of living in a country where freedom of religion and choice are at the center of what it means to be American.
I had hoped that Dr. Barnett Slepian's murder would have provided enough outcry and attention to the WRONGNESS of a movement claiming to be "pro-life" participating in armed murder against law-abiding citizens. Ironically, just as Dr. Tiller was murdered inside (not outside as I first read) his church as he was handing out programs and in front of his wife who was in the choir, so was Dr. Slepian murdered just after returning from synagogue, shot from a distance, shot in front of his wife with his children in the next room.
The violence against living people goes on and on. Emily Lyons was permanently disabled as a result of a clinic bombing. Others have died, been injured, property has been damaged.
Dr. Tiller's murder is yet more in the ongoing effort to intimidate medical providers into NOT providing reproductive care to women, yet more in the ongoing effort to intimidate women into NOT seeking medical care, yet more in the ongoing effort (whether this is the conscious intent or not) to keep women from having power over their own reproduction and bodies.
This affects me and I am angry.
I know julietma, who is the niece of the man murdered today who now has more burdens in a life already filled with much family strife.
After we had our kids, we had to find someone in private practice and pay out of pocket for my husband's vasectomies because insurance didn't cover it. I have had terminations, and, while grieving, have had to deal with strangers who think I should answer to them on the way in and out of one of the ONLY locations in a city as large as Chicago where I could get the care I needed. I have had a tubal ligation, and could not do so at a hospital in the area because they're nearly all owned by the Catholic Church, which, based on papal orders, stands against reproductive freedom by refusing to perform permanent sterilizations.
My government has spent years trying to pass more and more restrictive laws, allowing people to refuse to make appointments, refuse to provide care, refuse to assist in procedures, forbidding people to provide information about where further womens' health services can be obtained...and the list goes on. There is some hope: President Obama has reversed the 'gag laws' that denied funding to groups that provided abortion services or abortion counseling or even the phone number you could call to find out where an abortion could be obtained. The fact that there was such a measure that had to be repealed in 2009 horrifies me, as a woman, a friend of people who are women, a mother, a teacher. Such widespread efforts to force beliefs onto someone else in an instance that will affect their health, their lives, their continued existence...it's disturbing.
There are lots of folks out there trying to make sure women can get care. Medical Students For Choice. NARAL. Planned Parenthood. The ACLU. Note that ALL OF THESE have been consistently under attack and denigrated, labeled as "evil" and "liberal" and "anti-American" to try and undermine their efforts.
This affects me.
This affects all of us.
This is terrorism, and the target are those uppity women who think they should have the right to choose their own health care, to control their own reproduction, and those traitor men who support them in that. I hope to hear this CALLED terrorism by the wider media. I hope to hear outcry not just against the murder of Dr. Tiller, but against the climate of terror that has made his life and his services so precious and difficult. I hope. I hope for the future. I hope for women. I hope for my daughter.
ETA: As many have done, do link at will.
browngirl linked to an article where several people acting as spokespeople for pro-life/anti-choice positions have already begun to express concern about the backlash and say that Dr. Tiller's murder should not be discussed/used "for political gain"...like, maybe, to point out how the admonishments of the more extreme groups such as Operation Rescue/Operation Save America to respond to "murder" in kind result in illegal and dangerous actions from some who take those admonishments seriously. pecunium has outlined just that in this post about What Domestic Terrorism Looks Like. liz_marcs posted about how extremist acts like this may, hopefully, alienate the moderate, rational, reasonable people who have similar beliefs about abortion but who are unwilling to commit murder or violence in the name of those beliefs.
There are excellent (and disturbing) bits of background on the legal issues regarding women's health care at the tags at neadods's post. Dr. Tiller's patients are starting to comment, and continuing to comment, and posting more stories, including here as part of the "Pro-life does not mean what you think it does" discussion. Also, Dr. Tiller in his own words.
ETA2: I've been adding links as I find them, including the man who may be the last doctor performing late term abortions decrying the "pro-life" movement as fascist and as having put all doctors who provide terminations on death notice if they don't bow to movement demands.
Melissa McEwan's open letter to President Obama stating the necessity of CALLING this terrorism "terrorism" to have a chance at defeating it.
And, from mer1973, about halfway down (search "Tiller"), the Washington Post prints comments from Tucker Carlson on Bill O'Reilly's accusations toward Dr. Tiller, and the discussion of whether language such as calling him a "monster" and "the moral equivalent of NAMBLA and al-Quaida" and saying he's "guilty of Nazi stuff" and "executing babies" is inflammatory enough to cause people to take illegal action. And I say...DUH! I understand the thought-police concerns about hate crimes legislation...but I also think that when violent crimes are committed to create fear and inhibit the rights of an entire group by making them afraid, that there should also be charges of terrorism in addition to the violent specific acts, because Dr. Tiller's murder is not the only issue at present.
luna_the_cat has more excellent links and wisdom such as, "Saying that it is right to make the real, living, conscious woman suffer for the benefit of a fairytale -- that is inexcusable" and a link to The Salon article "Where Will Women Go Now" which points out that the one possible benefit to come out of this tragedy is perhaps "the opportunity to have a conversation about the reality of termination in the second and third trimesters."
In what shouldn't be a surprise to me, but is:
Dr. George Tiller was murdered at church this morning.
Dr. Tiller's Women's Health Care Services in Wichita, KS was one of the ONLY in the country providing some of the termination services to women with needs for late-term terminations. He had faced threats, bombings, shootings, and ongoing terrorist activity trying to shut down his legal operation to provide services to women who came from all over the country since so few showed the courage and tenacity of Dr. Tiller.
This is terrorism, pure and simple. While there are many, many people who do not believe that abortion is right and who make those beliefs known in gentle, positive, and constructive ways that help women, there continue to be very vocal Anti-Choice activists who try to use fear and threats and criminal activity to try and strong-arm others into adhering to their belief system, in spite of living in a country where freedom of religion and choice are at the center of what it means to be American.
I had hoped that Dr. Barnett Slepian's murder would have provided enough outcry and attention to the WRONGNESS of a movement claiming to be "pro-life" participating in armed murder against law-abiding citizens. Ironically, just as Dr. Tiller was murdered inside (not outside as I first read) his church as he was handing out programs and in front of his wife who was in the choir, so was Dr. Slepian murdered just after returning from synagogue, shot from a distance, shot in front of his wife with his children in the next room.
The violence against living people goes on and on. Emily Lyons was permanently disabled as a result of a clinic bombing. Others have died, been injured, property has been damaged.
Dr. Tiller's murder is yet more in the ongoing effort to intimidate medical providers into NOT providing reproductive care to women, yet more in the ongoing effort to intimidate women into NOT seeking medical care, yet more in the ongoing effort (whether this is the conscious intent or not) to keep women from having power over their own reproduction and bodies.
This affects me and I am angry.
I know julietma, who is the niece of the man murdered today who now has more burdens in a life already filled with much family strife.
After we had our kids, we had to find someone in private practice and pay out of pocket for my husband's vasectomies because insurance didn't cover it. I have had terminations, and, while grieving, have had to deal with strangers who think I should answer to them on the way in and out of one of the ONLY locations in a city as large as Chicago where I could get the care I needed. I have had a tubal ligation, and could not do so at a hospital in the area because they're nearly all owned by the Catholic Church, which, based on papal orders, stands against reproductive freedom by refusing to perform permanent sterilizations.
My government has spent years trying to pass more and more restrictive laws, allowing people to refuse to make appointments, refuse to provide care, refuse to assist in procedures, forbidding people to provide information about where further womens' health services can be obtained...and the list goes on. There is some hope: President Obama has reversed the 'gag laws' that denied funding to groups that provided abortion services or abortion counseling or even the phone number you could call to find out where an abortion could be obtained. The fact that there was such a measure that had to be repealed in 2009 horrifies me, as a woman, a friend of people who are women, a mother, a teacher. Such widespread efforts to force beliefs onto someone else in an instance that will affect their health, their lives, their continued existence...it's disturbing.
There are lots of folks out there trying to make sure women can get care. Medical Students For Choice. NARAL. Planned Parenthood. The ACLU. Note that ALL OF THESE have been consistently under attack and denigrated, labeled as "evil" and "liberal" and "anti-American" to try and undermine their efforts.
This affects me.
This affects all of us.
This is terrorism, and the target are those uppity women who think they should have the right to choose their own health care, to control their own reproduction, and those traitor men who support them in that. I hope to hear this CALLED terrorism by the wider media. I hope to hear outcry not just against the murder of Dr. Tiller, but against the climate of terror that has made his life and his services so precious and difficult. I hope. I hope for the future. I hope for women. I hope for my daughter.
ETA: As many have done, do link at will.
browngirl linked to an article where several people acting as spokespeople for pro-life/anti-choice positions have already begun to express concern about the backlash and say that Dr. Tiller's murder should not be discussed/used "for political gain"...like, maybe, to point out how the admonishments of the more extreme groups such as Operation Rescue/Operation Save America to respond to "murder" in kind result in illegal and dangerous actions from some who take those admonishments seriously. pecunium has outlined just that in this post about What Domestic Terrorism Looks Like. liz_marcs posted about how extremist acts like this may, hopefully, alienate the moderate, rational, reasonable people who have similar beliefs about abortion but who are unwilling to commit murder or violence in the name of those beliefs.
There are excellent (and disturbing) bits of background on the legal issues regarding women's health care at the tags at neadods's post. Dr. Tiller's patients are starting to comment, and continuing to comment, and posting more stories, including here as part of the "Pro-life does not mean what you think it does" discussion. Also, Dr. Tiller in his own words.
ETA2: I've been adding links as I find them, including the man who may be the last doctor performing late term abortions decrying the "pro-life" movement as fascist and as having put all doctors who provide terminations on death notice if they don't bow to movement demands.
Melissa McEwan's open letter to President Obama stating the necessity of CALLING this terrorism "terrorism" to have a chance at defeating it.
And, from mer1973, about halfway down (search "Tiller"), the Washington Post prints comments from Tucker Carlson on Bill O'Reilly's accusations toward Dr. Tiller, and the discussion of whether language such as calling him a "monster" and "the moral equivalent of NAMBLA and al-Quaida" and saying he's "guilty of Nazi stuff" and "executing babies" is inflammatory enough to cause people to take illegal action. And I say...DUH! I understand the thought-police concerns about hate crimes legislation...but I also think that when violent crimes are committed to create fear and inhibit the rights of an entire group by making them afraid, that there should also be charges of terrorism in addition to the violent specific acts, because Dr. Tiller's murder is not the only issue at present.
luna_the_cat has more excellent links and wisdom such as, "Saying that it is right to make the real, living, conscious woman suffer for the benefit of a fairytale -- that is inexcusable" and a link to The Salon article "Where Will Women Go Now" which points out that the one possible benefit to come out of this tragedy is perhaps "the opportunity to have a conversation about the reality of termination in the second and third trimesters."