In Memory of Dr. George Tiller - He Supported Women's Dignity

On May 31, 2009, Dr. George Tiller was murdered. When I think of Dr. Tiller and his clinic I think of compassion. What Dr. Tiller and his staff did each and every day was to give women their dignity.

Barely two weeks ago, when President Obama gave the commencement address at Notre Dame he said, "As citizens of a vibrant and varied democracy, how do we engage in vigorous debate? How does each of us remain firm in our principles, and fight for what we consider right, without demonizing those with just as strongly held convictions on the other side?"

Upon Dr. Tiller's death, Randall Terry, the founder of the anti-abortion group Operation Rescue who led protests against Tiller's clinic in 1991, issued a statement saying in part, "I am more concerned that the Obama Administration will use Tiller's killing to intimidate pro-lifers into surrendering our most effective rhetoric and actions." This rhetoric includes describing Dr. Tiller as "a mass-murderer" and abortion as a kind of "slaughter." It also includes describing Dr. Tiller, as Bill O'Reilly has, as "guilty of Nazi stuff."

This rhetoric of "mass murder" and "slaughter," killing and genocide, all commonly used by a variety of religious and political organizations that oppose abortion, is language that is demonizing and dangerous. Is this really how we think of women who have abortions, some lucky enough to do so with the support of caring doctors? Do we really believe that pregnant women who end their pregnancies and the health care providers who help them are no different from Hitler or Pol Pot? Do we really think that the individual decisions of pregnant women are the same as, or as claimed by some groups, worse than, government-sponsored genocide?

This rhetoric, largely unchecked over the last 30 years, distracts attention from key facts about the women who have abortions. Sixty-one percent of women who have abortions are already mothers. By the age of 44, 84 percent of all women have become pregnant and given birth. American women, many of whom have had or will have abortions, do 80 percent of the child care and two-thirds of the housework. They do this work without any form of formal compensation, without any guaranteed pensions, and without any form of insurance or healthcare should they need it.

One of the amazing things about Dr. Tiller, in addition to his determination and his extraordinary courage, was the fact that he knew and appreciated who his patients were. He knew them as loving women, daughters, and mothers who are the backbone of their families and, to a large extent, our country.

Many of the women who traveled to Dr. Tiller's clinic were not women who wanted to have abortions, or who even support the right to choose to have an abortion. Many were women with wanted pregnancies who learned that their baby had no brain, or kidneys growing on the outside of their bodies or things their doctors described to them as "severe fetal cardiac malformations." They were women who could not face two or three more months of pregnancy with people patting their bellies and saying, "Oh honey you must be excited. When are you due?" Some women deal with such crises by continuing to term even knowing the baby cannot survive. Others find that their dignity depends on being able to end the pregnancy.

Some women who went to his clinic were extremely young. Some who went struggled with health problems and disabilities that they felt would be exacerbated by a pregnancy they did not recognize until late. All together they represented women with the least desired and rarest abortions -- ones late in pregnancy.

Dr. Tiller was extraordinary. When I met him he talked about why women have abortions and how they understand them in terms of their religious faith and spirituality. He described his efforts to serve them with respect, making possible rituals that would allow them to say goodbye to fetal life that they in fact valued.

Some women who returned from his clinic actually felt that they had been treated better through an abortion they wished they had not needed, than through a birth that they had anticipated with joy.

Today and the days that follow there will be some who will explicitly or subtly endorse Dr. Tiller's murder as a matter of necessity, justified to stop what they will claim is worse killing.

I am tired of a public debate that treats seriously the claim that pregnant women, mothers, and the people who support them are killers. I am tired of a debate that trivializes genocide by saying that what women do to deal with their reproductive lives is worse.

What I want instead is to honor George Tiller, a man who honored women. And I want instead to honor those who value fetal life, but who do not lose sight of the women who give that life, and who would never dream of murdering a doctor who was among the few to give those women the services, respect, and dignity they deserved.

Comments

[Elena31]

15 years ago, my mother had to make a hard decision, to let her unborn child with severe complications be born into a world where it would have very little hopes of survival, and an even lesser chance for a semblage of a real life, or to put her unfeeling child to rest before it could suffer. My mother is the furthest person from a "cold, heartless murder" nor is Dr. George Tiller.
When she heard of his death, my mother was in tears, her heart crying in agony for the unjust murder of the kind doctor who helped her in her troubled times. The most heart-wrenching this she said to me in her unsettled state was, "He truly cared for me and my situation."
How can anyone, pro-life or pro-choice, turn their attention from a man who truly cared about the situations these women went through? It saddens me to hear of people who act as such, for it reflects poorly upon themselves.
Whether or not you are pro-life or pro-choice, what should it matter? If you take care of your own life, shouldn't that be enough? Who are we to impose our own personal belief upon the scores of people who live among us? Is this not the fundamental truth of the American Democracy?
We are free to live how we want to live - there is no need to impose our personal belief on others - we would resent others imposing upon us.

[JustThinkinginKS]

Ms. Paltrow, thank you for your insightful column. I'm from Wichita, KS and Dr. Tiller was indeed a wonderful, caring physician.

I worry that we pro-choice people have become complacent in the fight for women's rights. Younger generations don't remember what it was like before, or the fight to get here. Too many older generations are tired of the fight.

So many people love to say that they're both pro-life and pro-choice since they would never have an abortion themselves but don't think they should tell other women what to do with their bodies.

Last question is one frequently asked, but why is it so many of the anti-abortion (they are NOT pro-life) leaders and anti-abortion news show hosts are male? Until they can get pregnant and understand what a pregnancy is about, they need to be still. There is nothing as invasive as a pregnancy wanted or not.

[BlueMominaRedState]

Make sure you all head over here:

http://markshea.blogspot.com/

where the blog author has linked to this Huffpo article for the express purpose of calling Tiller a "monster" and the combox participants are suggesting something "needs to be done about those people" referring, of course, to people who hold a pro-choice position. They will then, ironically, claim that nothing they have said in anyway dehumanizes those who believe in a right to choose or incites hate or violence toward them.

The only lives worth loving and protecting are the unborn and pro-lifers. The rest of us, well, something needs to be done about us.

[Cassandra2]

I noticed the bum is panhandling on his blog for "assistance". Tell him to get a job.

[Blinky75]

So, I read the combox comments in which you claim pro-life persons suggest something "needs to be done about those people", and that this comment refers "of course, to people who hold a pro-choice position." The people being referred to are actually, "of course", in fact pro-lifers--the comment was a bit of satire. You either have very poor reading comprehension or are simply pernicious. From what I've seen on the HuffPost, it's quite hard to tell but I would guess both.

[Disuberence]

Wow. The comments on that site are so... crazy. This is what happens when people become addicted to religion. They turn into the Mark Sheas of the world.

[mcgreen]

Late term abortions are so rare, I hate that the right to lifers invade this very painful, anguished and private moment.

My family experience was my twelve year old sister who was a victim of incest - a compassionate doctor prescribed a d&c for her when abortion was still illegal in our state - my mother couldn't have afforded to fly her to Puerto Rico like the wealthy have always done.

[roshni]

Great article honoring Dr. Tiller. He provided a legal service to women who needed it with compassion and dignity.

[agentsee]

I thought your article was incredibly moving and of great interest. Although I think his compassion is essential in dealing with sensitive moments, I do feel that too much importance is given to the reason a woman chooses to have an abortion. One reason should not have more value or heighten her ability to obtain an abortion. Permitting (morally or legally) an abortion for a medical condition should be no better or worth more than a woman wanting to abort for a better life.

I am also really disturbed by the conservatives comparing physicians who perform abortions to the Nazis. The Nazis walked living, breathing, fully formed humans beings into gas chambers and firing squads. Nazis performed horrific medical experiments on real people, not masses of tissue. They targeted and made mandatory attacks on individuals. Abortions are not government required actions. The Obama Administration is not requiring Americans to round up pregnant women and put their fetuses in camps and abort them.

Have a little perspective people.

[MrsClauz]

I object to the label of "pro-abortion." NO ONE is pro-abortion. Abortion represents failure, societal, educational, medical, parental, genetic. Something went wrong, and abortion is the choice, not wanted, needed.

I've been a health care provider for 25 years, and listened to devastated women, and some men facing this awful decision.

By resorting to extremism and terrorism these rabid, psychotic people will functionally eliminate choice by making my colleagues in health care terrified to be involved in pregnancy termination.

Their blatantly over the top rhetoric is so pervasive I have found myself the only nurse in the emergency room willing to talk to a rape patient about plan B. I find it disgusting that even my co-workers can be blinded by politics and swayed by so called "pro-life" extremists they can't see to do the right thing.

How can you be pro-life and committ murder, the ultimate anti-life act?

[smoovejef]

The article says it all.

[danika]

Bravo and thank you for writing such true words about Dr. Tiller and about the issue of abortion.