Death in Kansas: An act of domestic terrorism?

You could call the recent murder of Wichita abortion doctor George Tiller the act of a single, deranged man, said the Fort Worth Star-Telegram in an editorial. Or you could call it what it really is: “domestic terrorism,” with “deep political, ideological, and moral implications.” Scott Roeder, the longtime anti-abortion activist who allegedly gunned down Tiller in church, was no lone nut; his rage, paranoia, and extremist views were shaped and nurtured in the fetid swamp of right-wing and Christian extremist groups, which actually exulted in the assassination. “George Tiller the Babykiller reaped what he sowed,” rejoiced the Army of God’s website. “God Sent the Shooter!” proclaimed one Topeka church’s website. Roeder, last week, called the Associated Press from jail to say that “many similar events” are being planned across the country, said David Sarasohn in the Portland Oregonian, and you have to wonder if he’s right. There are thousands of disaffected wing nuts like him in militias and Christian extremist groups, and they are in a lather because Barack Obama and other pro-choice Democrats now hold the levers of power. These radicals believe in using threats and actual acts of violence “to create fear and force people to behave the way you want them to.” Murderous coercion of this kind has a name, and it starts with a “T”.

Mainstream pro-life groups, of course, disavowed any connection with Tiller’s murder, said Ellen Goodman in The Boston Globe. But I wonder. Even in trying to distance himself from Roeder, Randall Terry, the founder of Operation Rescue, complained that the media was focused on Tiller, and not on the thousands of “babies” he had killed, calling the late-term abortions he performed “literally demonic.” When you routinely refer to legal abortion as satanic and liken it to a modern-day Holocaust, doesn’t the pro-life movement provide a perverse, “alternative universe’’ in which “a ‘lone nut’ can find a home?’’

That’s an absurd question, said James Kirchick in TheWallstreetjournal.com. In a truly “insidious” tactic, the Left is exploiting this isolated act to liken all evangelical Christians and anti-abortion activists to Islamic radicals. But every mainstream Christian and anti-abortion group in the country denounced the shooting. And the reprehensible actions of this one disturbed man in no way compare to the mass terrorism practiced by al Qaida, Hezbollah, and similar groups, which is applauded by millions in the Muslim world. Unfortunately, said National Review, all passionate political movements breed a few lunatics disposed toward violence. “Without abolitionism there would probably have been no John Brown; without anti–Vietnam War activism, no Weathermen.” All that can reasonably be asked of any advocacy group is that it denounce, and root out, its own extremists. “This pro-lifers have done and are doing.”

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Random act or not, Tiller’s murder will have far-reaching consequences, said Peter Wallsten in the Los Angeles Times. The shooting has dramatically raised “the level of mistrust” between pro-choice and pro-life forces, leaving both questioning whether President Obama is wasting his time seeking “common ground” on the abortion issue. Richard Land of the Southern Baptist Convention said last week that he and other activists resent attempts “to paint all pro-lifers with this bloody brush.” Abortion-rights activist Cristina Page was also in no mood for conversation and compromise. “It’s sort of like having a family member murdered,” Page said, “and then being asked to make nice with the assassin’s family.”