Seeking common ground on murder and following in the footsteps of George Tiller

I have kind of been beating the same drum over and over here, but this whole tragic event surrounding George Tiller has served for me as a stark reminder of what is going on all around us. I opened up the Lansing phone book this morning and glanced at the glossy color ads for abortion providers touting their services, no doubt kept busy by the college students in the area. There is a Planned Parenthood clinic right on the main drag on the north side of the campus of Michigan State, right amidst the coffee shops and bookstores. I have eaten at Buffalo Wild Wings just a block or so away from an innocuous looking door, behind which young women in the earlier 20’s are make life-altering decisions to kill their own children. It can be easy to get caught up in everything else and really to start feeling hopeless about abortion, but the need is as great today as it has ever been for us to fight. We may not be in a position to overturn Roe v. Wade, but abortion is a war we can fight one woman, one unborn child at a time. We might not be able to save them all but we can spare no effort to see one child live that otherwise would have died.

The latest impetus for a rant was just a horribly disturbing article in the Wall Street Journal this morning, Common Ground on Late-Term Abortion: Anguish. What was so distressing about it was the sheer hypocrisy it exposes among abortion on demand advocates.

I have already made the statement, which I will reiterate now, that there is no place for “common ground” when it comes to abortion. Abortion is not a political issue. It is a fundamental issue of humanity, how do we view children in our society even the smallest and most defenseless ones? The idea that we can find areas for agreement on abortion is ridiculous on its face. People who oppose abortion typically oppose abortion because we consider it the murder of a defenseless human child. When you start from that position, your room for “common ground” evaporates. The entire conversation with pro-abortion folks is so full of misrepresentation and outright dishonesty as to make discussion, much less “common ground”, unfathomable. For example, when you look at the shenanigans that abortionists and their profiteering lawyers engage in to get around the laws, it ought to make you nauseous.

Thirty-seven states, including Kansas, prohibit late-term abortions. But under Supreme Court precedents set in 1973 in Roe v. Wade and its companion case, Doe v. Bolton, state restrictions on abortion must generally include exceptions for the woman's life and health, which includes mental and emotional health.

Medical records subpoenaed by prosecutors in Kansas indicate Dr. Tiller approved some late-term abortions on the grounds that the women suffered from anxiety or depression. To opponents, those are shockingly flimsy excuses. But several attempts to prosecute Dr. Tiller for violating the law failed.

So the law is framed in such a way that a woman can pay someone to kill her unborn child late in her pregnancy because she is “anxious”? How many women are NOT anxious during pregnancy especially in the later stages?

What was really unfathomable is that one person cited in the article has decided on a career in killing because of the slaying of George Tiller.

Dr. Tiller's killing has pushed some young doctors to commit to a career in abortion. Lisa Hofler, a medical student at Emory University, had been mulling over the idea for some time despite her husband's concern for her safety. Now, she said, she's determined to offer abortions as part of her practice.

Still, she expects to limit her practice to first-trimester abortions. She doesn't feel comfortable, she said, pushing the boundaries.

I really have a hard time believing that a substantial number of med students are going to be inspired to abandon healing and take up being an abortionist based on this event. The report cites just this one person and in reading her comments I could only think: What a twisted worldview. Abortion is so important that she wants to take her intellect, a pile of student loan debt and probably nearly a decade of college, med school and internships and put that education to use ending pregnancies. But just in the first trimester, anything later and she might start to feel guilty about it. Why is it OK on one day but not the next?

Even many ardent supporters of abortion look at late second trimester or third trimester abortions, up to and including partial birth abortions, and get squeamish. Being “pro-choice” makes for a swell political slogan, looks great on t-shirts and bumper stickers but when the reality of what is going on hits you in the face, it sort of muddies the waters. If it is just a medical procedure, why not publicize it? A picture of a spleen being removed might be icky but it is not morally offensive. Show someone a picture with the results of making a “choice” and the image of a dismembered baby will shake you, not because of the medical ickiness but because the picture of a tiny child dismembered stirs something fundamental in what it means to be a human. It just screams out that it is wrong. I know we don’t like using a word that is so inflexible like “wrong” today, but some things just are “wrong” and we cannot be afraid to say so.

What is the difference between a first trimester and a third trimester unborn child? Viability is a bogus argument. Can a first trimester baby live outside the womb. Of course not. Could a third trimester? Not without the nearly constant attention of her mother. In fact, a baby after birth requires a lot more time and attention to survive than a baby in the womb. My one and a half year old is smart as a whip and mischievous as the day is long, but even 18 months after she was born she is not “viable” without the care and attention of her mom and siblings to keep her fed, changed, rested and (more or less) clean. So it must be something else, something else that causes people to draw an imaginary line in the sand where a child goes from a mere blob of flesh to something we feel uncomfortable killing.

I am glad for one thing. Even today, thirty years after the gross injustice of Roe v. Wade and the ensuing bloody decades of “choice”, even after the deaths of millions of babies, even after a whole generation has been conditioned to see abortion as a fact of life hidden behind vague terminology and slogans to hide the horror, even after all of that people still feel a sense of revulsion when they think about a child mere weeks or days from being delivered having a doctor end their life. That isn’t much to be glad about but it is something.

Heaping tragedy upon tragedy

There were a number of tragedies that became starkly apparent on Sunday, June 7th when abortionist George Tiller was murdered. It is a tragedy that someone unjustifiably took the law into his own hands and shot George Tiller. It is a tragedy that this man sat in attendance among people who claim the name of Christ and apparently was never called to account (perhaps he was but the fact that he served as an usher suggests otherwise). It is a tragedy that because of the random, unlawful actions of one man that the cause of those who are seeking to outlaw abortion is made harder and perhaps inadvertently more innocent children will lose their lives instead of being saved.

Another tragedy is predictably unfolding as those who adhere to the cult of “choice” are rushing to use this tragedy as an excuse to slander those who oppose murder by linking everyone on the pro-life side with extremists like Scott Roeder or the Taliban. Clearly to any rational person there is no linkage between people seeking peaceful change via changed hearts and the ballot versus those who endorse public beatings and beheadings. That obvious fact has not impeded certain segments of the population from making that very linkage.

There are an increasing number of people in this country and around the world who equate fervent religious belief of any sort as one grouping. It doesn’t matter if they are looking at Muslim jihadists in Tehran or IRA assassins in Northern Ireland, or if they are looking at devout Jews in New York or Christian visitors to the Creation Museum. Anyone who takes religion seriously is suspect and painted with the same broad brush. Some, perhaps many, of these people are merely political opportunists who are using this tragedy to callously advance their agenda. More frightening are those who really have such closed minds that they are unable to make basic distinctions between peaceful, prayerful pro-life advocates and terrorists like the Taliban.

A callous disregard for human life and a basic inability to think rationally is a dangerous combination.

(For an interesting take on this from someone who is NOT on the "religious right", check out this editorial The Religious Right Didn't Kill George Tiller)

Praising a murderer as a saint

I am not normally at a loss for words, but when I read these testimonials in the Washington Times from individuals who claim to be believers in God praising a man who murdered children for profit, I was simply stunned. I expect all manner of excuses for perversity from people like this, I expect to hear all manner of man-made heresies peddled as the Gospel, I even expected to hear some politically charged denunciations but to defend a man who murders innocents as a “saint” and a champion of human rights? Read these quotes and weep for the people who can say these sorts of things…

"This is about the loss of a man who was a saint and a martyr," she said in an interview before the service. "He was a prayerful man who put his life at risk to protect others and died for it. People are in shock, outrage and mourning. They need a place to go."

the Very Rev. Katherine Ragsdale, president of Episcopal Divinity School

Reconstructionist Rabbi Arthur Waskow of the Philadelphia-based Shalom Center said Dr. Tiller "joins the list of martyrs for ethical decency and human rights, killed for healing with compassion."

The rabbi said Dr. Tiller was "a religious martyr in the fullest classical sense, killed in his own church as he arrived to worship, killed for acting in accord with his religious commitments and his moral and ethical choices."

Rabbi Arthur Waskow of the Shalom Center

"He was a hero to many abortion clinic workers, who were aware of his incredible courage and bravery," Ms. Turner said. "I knew him personally, so this will be a service of mourning for his wonderful life. He is the first abortion provider to put a chapel inside his clinic, and he had a chaplain on duty to work with all of his patients."

Rev. Rebecca Turner, a Disciples of Christ minister

I will agree with Mr. Waskow when he described George Tiller as a religious martyr. Not a martyr for being a healer, or acting for ethical decency, but a martyr for a religion where children are not a blessing to embrace, but a curse to be discarded like a paper plate.

If only these people could shed one tear, if only they could utter one word of sympathy, light one candle, have one vigil, offer one prayer for the millions of babies slain on the bloody altar of choice.

This brings to mind a very apt Scripture, one that is reflected ever more in our modern culture as it slips in moral ruin and depravity.

And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Though they know God's decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.

(Romans 1: 28-32, emp. add.)