George Tiller: Abortion and murder

A lone religious fanatic murdered Dr. George Tiller in a Wichita, Kan., church on Sunday, said Mike Hendricks in the Kansas City Star, but "everyone who has ever called Tiller’s late-term abortion clinic a murder mill" was an accomplice. Anti-abortion activists at Operation Rescue say they're shocked that Tiller was gunned down, but they're hypocrites. The hatred that anti-abortion groups focused on Tiller made it easier for a "maniac" to justify pulling the trigger.

What we know about the suspect, Scott Roeder, suggests that the murder of George Tiller "may indeed have been political," said Allahpundit in Hot Air. But it's only the "right-wing nutroots degenerates" who are cheering the killer on. Mainstream pro-life activists see this murder for what it is—"domestic terrorism."

"Whoever murdered George Tiller has done a gravely wicked thing," said Princeton law professor Robert P. George in National Review. Violence against abortionists is not the way the pro-life movement defends "the lives of abortion's tiny victims." For that, we have "the chaste weapons of the spirit."

The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

Join more than 350,000 subscribers and keep yourself informed with a selection of The Week’s most interesting, enlightening and entertaining stories - plus daily puzzles.

Join more than 350,000 subscribers and keep yourself informed with a selection of The Week’s most interesting, enlightening and entertaining stories - plus daily puzzles.

Sign up

Please, the shaming of women and "hounding, even murdering," of people at clinics has become routine, said Gloria Feldt in Salon. George Tiller was "compassionate and courageous," helping "women in some of the most distressing circumstances imaginable, when their pregnancies had gone horribly, tragically wrong," and our leaders, from President Obama on down, go beyond words to stamp out the violence. "I am done with candlelight vigils."