"This is the first time an abortion provider has been murdered in over a decade. I have friends who work in abortion clinics. This is terrorism. And right now, I just don't have the words." -Cara (at Feministe)
For those who don't know, Dr. George Tiller was an outspoken advocate for abortion rights and one of the few late-term abortion providers in the country. He was shot and killed in church this morning. He faced opposition and violent attacks throughout his life in order to protect a woman's right of choice. May his courage always be remembered.
***Additional Information***
1. Kansas law "only allows late-term abortions if two independent physicians agree the procedure is necessary to save a woman's life or prevent "substantial and irreversible" harm to "a major bodily function." - Reuters
2. Dr. Tiller was charged with performing 19 illegal abortions and aquitted of all charges. - Los Angeles Times
The above mentioned are facts that I have been able to research and personally verify. I've been informed that there is a Pro-life website condemning Dr. Tiller and accusing him of breaking the above mentioned law, among other things. Since Dr. Tiller's website is not currently working, I haven't been able to check the Pro-life website's allegations and the context of the quotes used from Dr. Tiller's own site. What I do know is that Dr. Tiller was never convicted of performing illegal abortions. I also want to clarify that I do not support late-term abortions, unless it is "necessary to save a woman's life or prevent "substantial and irreversible" harm to "a major bodily function." We have laws for a reason. I don't not personally agree with all of them, but I do agree with this one. Now it is 3AM and I'm to leave this post where it stands at the moment.
Another edit: Jill wrote an article for The Guardian.
Yet Another Edit: Stories from the women who went to Kansas to see Dr. Tiller, the reasons why, the emotional horrors of the experience, and how Dr. Tiller was able to provide the care these women desperately needed.
***Update*** Facts about Late Term Abortions Click Here for Full Story
"As a result, the dominant narrative is one which perpetuates an assumption that people are electing to have late-term abortions for the sake of convenience. This public perception is shaped by the constant intonement that Tiller was "killing babies" coming from irresponsible journalistic hacks like Bill O'Reilly, the suggestions by Chris Matthews that women are blithely electing to abort fetuses that are viable outside the womb, and the statements of inconsistent moralizers like Will Saletan that "there are cases where there's no real medical situation other than some teenager in denial and it went on for five months [where the argument is] you should make an exception because of the so-called mental health of the girl.""
There is a vast gap between the descriptions of Dr. Tiller by members of the extremist right -- who incite lunatics to violence by protraying Tiller as a mass murderer -- and the many women and men who have been served by Dr. Tiller, who refer to him as heroic, kind, compassionate, professional. This gap speaks to the fact that very few -- not least the mainstream media -- understand what he was doing and, and more to the point, why we are asking the wrong people to comment.
In the words of one of the hundreds of people writing messages on the memorial website to Dr. Tiller:
Dr. Tiller was a hero, plain and simple. I am thankful for his life and the gift of high quality health care he provided his patients. My thoughts are with his family, friends and community and my thanks to you for your support of Dr. Tiller despite the tough circumstances.
Dr. Tiller was one of the few doctors providing late-term abortions to people in need in part because he was a committed, ethical, moral medical professional who took seriously his oath to serve the best interests of his patients, and because he was dedicated to supporting women's rights even at the risk of his own life and even under unimaginable daily pressure and threat.
"As the Guttmacher Institute points out in a brief on this issue, the Supreme Court has held that:
* even after fetal viability, states may not prohibit abortions "necessary to preserve the life or health of the mother;"
* "health" in this context includes both physical and mental health;
* only the physician, in the course of evaluating the specific circumstances of an individual case, can define what constitutes "health" and when a fetus is viable; and
* states cannot require additional physicians to confirm the physician's judgment that the woman's life or health is at risk."
********Update (more)**********
Who was Dr. Tiller? Read the story here.
"But these weren’t the only particularly vulnerable women who Dr. Tiller treated. The second major type of procedure he performed was therapeutic abortion, generally for fetal anomaly. These abortions are performed late in pregnancy not by the woman’s choice, but because severe anomalies incompatible with life outside of the womb are not generally discovered until late in the pregnancy. The women who seek out these abortions often have to make a gut-wrenching decision between ending the pregnancy or giving birth to a baby that will not live.
These abortions are not carried out lightly or for frivolous reasons, and they are had by women who very much wanted their pregnancies. Ironically, these women have also been subjected to the most vitriolic anti-choice scorn."
"Despite the slanderous references to him as a murderer, Dr. Tiller saved countless lives. In addition to caring for women whose fetuses had unsurvivable anomalies, he also treated women whose pregnancies could result in their own deaths due to conditions ranging from cancer to pre-eclampsia. In fact, since it’s illegal in Kansas to perform an abortion when a fetus is viable unless a woman’s life is at risk or her health is facing irreparable harm, all the abortions Tiller performed were necessary to protect a woman’s health, or involved a nonviable fetus. This fact invalidates anti-choice claims of indiscriminate abortions, as does the fact that Tiller was repeatedly acquitted of a wide variety of baseless charges brought by ideologically driven attorney generals who wanted to put him out of practice."
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