Michelle Malkin » Notes on the murder of George Tiller

Notes on the murder of George Tiller

By Michelle Malkin • June 1, 2009 12:48 AM

*Late-term abortion doctor George Tiller was gunned down at his church in Kansas Sunday morning in a thoroughly evil, cold-blooded act of domestic terrorism. Yes, terrorism. Not “extremism.” Interesting how the t-word has been rediscovered.

*Every mainstream pro-life organization has unequivocally condemned the killing.

I repeat: Every mainstream pro-life organization has unequivocally condemned the killing.

*Princeton University professor Robert P. George is right about this: “Whoever murdered George Tiller has done a gravely wicked thing. The evil of this action is in no way diminished by the blood George Tiller had on his own hands. No private individual had the right to execute judgment against him. We are a nation of laws. Lawless violence breeds only more lawless violence.”

*President Obama is right about this: “However profound our differences as Americans over difficult issues such as abortion, they cannot be resolved by heinous acts of violence.”

*Unfortunately, some are not content to leave it at that for now. They fail to respect that there is a proper time and place to indulge in political battle.

You can go here, here, and here for all that. Another round-up here.

Tiller’s family is grieving. Those who have jumped to score political points before Tiller is even buried are no better than the Phelps family thugs of the “Westboro Baptist Church” who respect no bounds of civility.

Unfortunately, it’s too much to ask the cable news networks and hyper-partisan snipers on the Internet to have the decency to restrain themselves.

Prepare for a wall-to-wall onslaught of gleeful finger-pointing on the Left and heated responses on the Right.

Prepare for whitewashed hagiographies of Tiller’s career as an abortionist.

Prepare for DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano’s defenders to gloat about vindication.

Prepare for collective demonization of pro-lifers and Christians — and more gratuitous attempts to tar talk radio, Fox News, and the Tea Party movement as responsible for the heinous crime.

Prepare for the continuing redefinition of any and all sharp political disagreement as “hate” — a ruinous trend that inevitably comes back to haunt the hysterical accusers decrying “hate” the loudest.

How unhinged has the discourse gotten already? Here’s the left-wing Daily Kos going after the left-wing John Aravosis for going after Barack Obama because he didn’t go after “right-wing extremism” hard enough.

It’s going to be a long week.

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#711359

On June 1st, 2009 at 6:11 pm, melinda said:

Papa Louie,
The courts obviously weren’t goign to do anything about this- or they would’ve done so already.

Again- I don’t condone murder- but I do rejoice in the fact that no more babies will be murdered by this man. An eye for an eye- he got what he deserved. How many more babies wuold have to die before the court decided killing them was unlawful?
#711361

On June 1st, 2009 at 6:16 pm, dadmin said:

The problem is that no DA charged him with murder as one did with Kivorkian?

How can they when the courts have ruled in abortionist’s favor? The leftists are banking on the legality of abortion not its morality. The SCOTUS is ultimately responsible for this heinous act and needs to be brought to justice by the other two branches of our government. That’s what they are there for, to keep each other in check. I know what you’re thinking because I’m thinking it too; it’ll take a miracle.
#711377

On June 1st, 2009 at 6:39 pm, Papa Louie said:

How is it that the murder of Tiller is a clear act of terrorism, but the mass murder by a Bosnian Muslim against random Americans in a shopping mall is not terrorism? In one case we can assume a motive before the facts are known. In the other case we must bend over backwards not to infer a motive without clear proof:

Salt Lake Police say they’ll likely never know what motivated the shooting that left six people, including the shooter, dead at Trolley Square… But the report concludes there’s no evidence that the shooting was motivated by religion or terrorism.

The terror people felt during the shootings must have been all in their heads because the FBI could find absolutely no evidence the shooter intended to terrorize anyone. Case closed.

But would they have come to the same conclusion if the shooter was not Muslim? I don’t think so, because there is no reason to go to a crowded mall and start randomly shooting people other than to bring about a maximum of death and terror.

Isn’t it interesting how all “truth” must now be filtered through the prism of identity politics? Certain groups, like right-wing extremists, can commit terrorism, but not others. Certain groups can commit hate crimes, but not others. Certain groups have experiences that qualify them for the Supreme Court, but not others. Just how far are these evolving standards of identity politics going to take us? How far can a pendulum swing before it reverses course?
#711382

On June 1st, 2009 at 6:54 pm, Tazed and Confused said:

I’m astonished that the cruel, tortuous murder of millions of children aren’t met with the same level of professed alarm echoed in the MSM.

It’s sad that our president justifies the murder of these same millions of innocent lives while at the same time admonishing the loss of a child terrorist.

A nation is best judged by the manner in which treats its children.

Obama, you now reap what you have sewn.
#711388

On June 1st, 2009 at 7:00 pm, bjc said:

*I condemn equally the killing of Tiller the Killer and the 1.2 million babies through abortion over the past year; That’s 1.2 million +1, or 1.2 million more than the pro-abortion crowd will condemn.
#711405

On June 1st, 2009 at 7:26 pm, Ed Mahmoud abu al-Kahoul said:

Get ready to be sick…

From that site:
What Does Tiller Do With The Dead Babies?

There is a screen cap on that page from his site where he lists what women can do after they’ve had an abortion at his clinic.

Here’s what it says:

Many patients request a remembrance of their baby to take home with them. The following lists items and services that some of our previous patients have found helpful in their emotional recovery.

…All of these features of our program will be discussed with you while you are with us:

-Viewing your baby after delivery
-Holding your baby after delivery
-Photographs of your baby
-Baptism of your baby with or without a certificate
-Footprints and hand prints of your baby
-Certificate of premature miscarriage
-Cremation
-An urn for ashes
-Arrangement of burial in either Witchita or your home state
-Arrangement of amniocentesis/autopsy
-Medical photographs and x-rays for your health care professional

Grief is a very complex emotion which is expressed in many different ways. We will attempt to accomodate your individual requests to the very best of our abilities.

I am not grasping that at all.

Why would a woman who went in for an abortion want photos, etc., of her dead baby?

And what is up with the phrase “premature delivery” used as a euphemism (spelling?) for “late term abortion?” That’s a bit like calling used cars “pre-owned.”

If you scroll down that page, there is more mind-blowing/ depressing stuff.

The page linked to above linked to another page with this content (and this page has photos of the dead baby):

Wichita Memorial

Wichita abortionist George Tiller offers a memorial service in his facility after he performs a partial-birth abortion. The mom and the dad in the pictures below paid Tiller a few thousand dollars to kill Tess, their baby girl.

A pro-life sidewalk counselor had failed in her effort to dissuade the mother from entering the abortion mill, but did succeed in giving her address to the mom.

Afterward, the mother and the pro-lifer corresponded and became friends. In that way, the pro-life community obtained these photos.

We at KGOV.com have decided to share with our listeners the mother’s pain, and the photographic proof of the depravity of abortionists, in hopes of furthering our battle against legalized child killing.

Little Tess, in swaddling clothes, with a beautiful rose, a teddy-bear, and a picture of Jesus, all implements to soothe the guilty conscience of the parents who have just killed their unique and precious daughter.

Top link and italics are to/from Tiller’s own web page

Commentary from here

Killing Tiller, especially in cold blood in his own church was wrong, and the killer rightfully will face the criminal justice system, but I have a hard time feeling too much sympathy for a butcher, even a murdered one.
#711423

On June 1st, 2009 at 8:12 pm, tettes said:

On June 1st, 2009 at 7:26 pm, Ed Mahmoud abu al-Kahoul said:

Get ready to be sick…

It sounds like you and many others assume Ziller was just aborting healthy fetuses, willy-nilly, because he enjoyed it and because the moms couldn’t be bothered with a kid.

Makes me wonder if you’ve read any testimonies from the families who used his services and the incredibly heartbreaking dilemmas they faced.

Read one.

After you read this story, the list of items Ziller’s office offered to his clients makes complete sense.

If you’re assuming Ziller is offering late-term abortions because the mom is fickle and decided at the last minute she didn’t want the kid, the list you provided would be sick.

It’s just not the reality of most situations, as far as I can tell.
#711433

On June 1st, 2009 at 8:34 pm, Cosmo said:

I join all other sane and rational individuals on either side of this debate in condemning this senseless murder.

The main question I have after all the news coverage I’ve seen on this today is this: Why don’t sane and rational individuals on either side of this debate condemn the senseless murders committed daily by doctors like Dr. Tiller?

Life is life. Murder is murder.
#711437

On June 1st, 2009 at 8:39 pm, MtsEdge said:

Why don’t sane and rational individuals on either side of this debate condemn the senseless murders committed daily by doctors like Dr. Tiller?

We have entered the age where men call good evil and evil good.
#711443

On June 1st, 2009 at 8:59 pm, purplepeep said:

Papa Louie said:
George Tiller, even if he was a “baby killer”, did not receive due process. His killer is a vigilante and his death was a murder not an execution. I wanted him stopped and I wanted him punished, but only if it could be done legally through due process.

I don’t think anyone who gets into the business of taking lives should be at all surprised to meet an end like their own occupation. Not pleasant, obviously, but it does go with the territory.

Even though I have no use for drug dealers to start with, I wouldn’t run with ‘em. Their end is usually not all that pleasant, either, and I don’t wanna be around when it happens.
#711451

On June 1st, 2009 at 9:29 pm, Tazed and Confused said:

On June 1st, 2009 at 8:12 pm, tettes spewed:

… nothing useful …

May you share his hatred for the human race while you celebrate your eternal damnation.
#711457

On June 1st, 2009 at 9:47 pm, Pasadena Phil said:

Now that we know about the murderer’s intense involvement in Operation Rescue, that organization has some serious explaining to do.
#711481

On June 1st, 2009 at 10:31 pm, Ed Mahmoud abu al-Kahoul said:

I don’t imagine Tiller specialized in killing the babies of fickle women.

From what I understand, many late term abortions are when the parents discover the child will have a birth defect, like Downs Syndrome.

Downs Syndrome babies have a shorter expected life span, and most suffer some degree of mental retardation, but if you ever read George Will, you’d know his Down’s son, now an adult, can read and write, lives on his own, and has a job.

But if that makes it ok to stick scissors through the base of the skull of an already delivered child, then vacuum out the brains, well, no reasoning with you.
#711483

On June 1st, 2009 at 10:33 pm, Ed Mahmoud abu al-Kahoul said:

On June 1st, 2009 at 9:47 pm, Pasadena Phil said:
Now that we know about the murderer’s intense involvement in Operation Rescue, that organization has some serious explaining to do.

How is that? Did they give him a gun and tell him to kill the abortionist?

I suppose every abolitionist had some serious explaining to do for John Brown’s actions?

I thought you were smarter than that.
#711496

On June 1st, 2009 at 10:55 pm, Pasadena Phil said:

On June 1st, 2009 at 10:33 pm, Ed Mahmoud abu al-Kahoul said:

I suppose every abolitionist had some serious explaining to do for John Brown’s actions?

My comment pertained to Operation Rescue specifically, not “every pro-life” advocate. Big difference.

Earlier today, I listened to a 30-minute interview of Operation Rescue founder Terry Randall by radio KABC’s John Phillips. He was defending his organization’s tactics of posting “wanted” posters of abortion doctors, their wives and children complete with pictures and providing their home addresses, phone numbers, where they work etc…

He was also defending sending threatening letters, vandalizing their property, and worse. Although he did not specifically defend the murder of Dr. Tiller, he made it crystal clear that he deserved it. A reasonable person could make a very good case that he is a terrorist.

I don’t know what your world is like, but in mine, that kind of thinking (backed by deeds) needs explaining.
#711502

On June 1st, 2009 at 11:00 pm, Pasadena Phil said:

Correction: that should have read Randall Terry.
#711645

On June 2nd, 2009 at 6:51 am, pokenhorn said:

Full sympathy for the family of Tiller, who somehow found a way to love this murderous rogue. The sixty thousand abortions he committed will not grow in number. The pile of little hands, feet, and body parts that his work created will not climb higher. A pity he lived as long as he did. He really was ‘Tiller the Killer”.
#711659

On June 2nd, 2009 at 7:38 am, Jason L. said:

I am reading some of the garbage on DKOS. Where were these people when god was handing out brains and common sense?

They probably thought God said “trains for fifty cents” and figured they could catch the last one out…
#711662

On June 2nd, 2009 at 7:47 am, Jason L. said:

He wasn’t given the chance to repent.

happyscrapper, the man was 67 years old, and you say that he didn’t have the chance ot repent? I wonder, how many chances did he really have? How many times did he look at his scalpel, at a young, teenage mother in her 3rd trimester and scared out of her wits, or look at yet another destroyed baby and hear a Voice telling him, “You know, George, if you’ll just understand that this is murder, and give it up, I’ll help you and lead you to the Way, the Truth, and the Life…” How many times did he hear that Voice, turn away from it, and call in his next victim….er, patient?
#711665

On June 2nd, 2009 at 7:54 am, Jason L. said:

And I wholeheartedly believe the rise in homicides, child abuse, and a general disregard for fellow man in today’s world has a direct link to abortion. If we’re going to say it’s okay for us to define a human being based on our own individual beliefs and feelings, then expect people to act accordingly and not confine a disregard for life to the unborn.

–englishqueeno1

EnglishQueen01, I agree 100%. In fact, the root problem of abortion is selfishness. Whether ocerced into it, or doing it freely, abortion is nothing more than sdelfishness. The left can cry “Rape and Incest warrant abortion”, but when less than 1% of all performed abortions have been for rape, incest, and the mother’s life being endangered, there can be only one other reason for abortion: SELFISHNESS….
#711666

On June 2nd, 2009 at 8:00 am, Jason L. said:

The problem is that no DA charged him with murder as one did with Kivorkian?

–ChiefRZ

I don7t know if the charges were for murder, but Former Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline — before he was unwisely voted out of office by a majority of dunderhead Kansans — brought criminal charges on several occasions against Mr. Tiller, even right up to his final day in office. None of the charges stuck, and he was released. I don’t know if the charges were for murder, but I believe some of them were for criminal negligence, negligent manslaughter, and/or criminal activities thanks to a couple of womens’ families requesting charges be broguht for their female relatives who died….
#711668

On June 2nd, 2009 at 8:12 am, Jason L. said:

tettes: how do we know that this doctor’s analasys of the baby’s condition was right? Of course, now we’ll never know because the baby was never born. You have one story, so now, I have one that I heard from the parents themselves:

A mother and father were faced with a dilemma. They were told by their doctor that their unborn baby would be born with horrible physical defects, mentally handicapped, and terribly deformed. This doctor gave these parents a worst-case scenario, and encouraged the mother to have an abortion. This couple went ot a second doctor and got the same news: baby would be deformed, terribly brain-damaged, and would likely be totally dependant on Mom and Dad for the rest of its life. This doctor also recommended an abortion. The parents decided to stick it out, have the baby, and let God be and remain in control. Their family doctor, who’d given the first diagnosis, said that they were foolish to have the baby, and again, encouraged the mother to have an abortion. The doctor said the same thing time and time and time again when the expectant mother continued to see him in her prenatal check-ups. finally, the due date arrived, and the baby was born…..a beautiful, perfect, and 100% healthy baby girl. Had they gne with these two doctors’ recommendations, tettes, they’d have killed a perfectly healthy baby for no other reason than convenience (read: selfishness). So to counter your story, tettes, remember that doctors can misdiagnose. Doctors aren’t 100% perfect, especially whern it comesd to the unborn.
#711986

On June 2nd, 2009 at 12:54 pm, dadmin said:

Full sympathy for the family of Tiller, who somehow found a way to love this murderous rogue.

But not a word about the enablers of this murderous rogue. Look to the source, people, all 546 of them!
#711994

On June 2nd, 2009 at 12:57 pm, Mainah said:

so tettes, its ok to kill a baby just because it has Down syndrome? (What if it is black, or gay?) That woman’s child had Down syndrome and a related heart defect, corrected all the time these days.
For the record: children with Down syndrome do NOT hyave shorter life spans, their life spans are on a par with typically-developing people now that they receive health care. In fact, they have a VERY low rate of cancers, so much so that there is current research as to why that is. They do have a highre tendency to Leukemia, which they also survive far more often.
People with Down syndrome (Tiller’s gloated about these babies being aborted) work, go to school, marry, and have lives they enjoy. Their families LOVE THEM. Sadly, the abortion rate for those prenatally diagnosed exceeeds 90%!!
Tiller was the most vile of killers, he targeted the disabled. People should not worry too much about his thriving business, it has been announced that he will be replaced by the infamous LeRoy Carhart. Google that one, his was the Supreme Court case for partial birth abortion, some of the most graphic and abominable testimony ever given in any court was from his mouth.

http://supct.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/99-830.ZO.html

QUOTING:

There are variations in D&E operative strategy; compare ibid. with W. Hern, Abortion Practice 146—156 (1984), and Medical and Surgical Abortion 133—135. However, the common points are that D&E involves (1) dilation of the cervix; (2) removal of at least some fetal tissue using nonvacuum instruments; and (3) (after the 15th week) the potential need for instrumental disarticulation or dismemberment of the fetus or the collapse of fetal parts to facilitate evacuation from the uterus.

In his dissent, Justice Thomas said
http://supct.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/99-830.ZD3.html

Although the description of this procedure set forth above should be sufficient to demonstrate the resemblance between the partial birth abortion procedure and infanticide, the testimony of one nurse who observed a
partial birth abortion procedure makes the point even more vividly:

“The baby’s little fingers were clasping and unclasping, and his little feet were kicking. Then the doctor stuck the scissors in the back of his head, and the baby’s arms jerked out, like a startle reaction, like a flinch, like a baby does when he thinks he is going to fall.

“The doctor opened up the scissors, stuck a high-powered suction tube into the opening, and sucked the baby’s brains out. Now the baby went completely limp.” H. R. 1833 Hearing 18 (statement of Brenda Pratt Shafer).

Justice Scalia in his dissent:
http://supct.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/99-830.ZD1.html

I am optimistic enough to believe that, one day, Stenberg v. Carhart will be assigned its rightful place in the history of this Court’s jurisprudence beside Korematsu and Dred Scott. The method of killing a human child–one cannot even accurately say an entirely unborn human child–proscribed by this statute is so horrible that the most clinical description of it evokes a shudder of revulsion. And the Court must know (as most state legislatures banning this procedure have concluded) that demanding a “health exception”–which requires the abortionist to assure himself that, in his expert medical judgment, this method is, in the case at hand, marginally safer than others (how can one prove the contrary beyond a reasonable doubt?)–is to give live-birth abortion free rein. The notion that the Constitution of the United States, designed, among other things, “to establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, . . . and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity,” prohibits the States from simply banning this visibly brutal means of eliminating our half-born posterity is quite simply absurd.

Indeed. Tiller the Killer is dead, and Satan took his place.