No Mercy
I felt just sick today when I saw the bulletin about the murder of Dr. George Tiller.
Sicker still when I saw the "sympathy" letter issued by officials at Operation Rescue, the virulent anti-abortion organization that dogged this poor man for the past two decades. The statement said, "We pray for Mr. Tiller's family."
They had better say a few prayers for their own souls. They had better pray for forgiveness for relentlessly working to make this man a target.
Operation Rescue's Web site said the organization was "shocked" by the murder.
Well, I'm not.
This has been a long time coming, and no one has played a greater part in the run-up to the doctor's death than Operation Rescue. Their leaders -- and all of the group's enablers -- should be cowering in shame today.
I was in Wichita, Kansas in 1991 covering Operation Rescue's cruelly misnamed "Summer of Mercy," a six-week ordeal when thousands of anti-abortion protesters descended on Dr. George Tiller.
These "rescuers" -- sweaty mobs of zombie-like true believers -- swarmed across the street in front of the clinic like angry ants. They crawled over the hot asphalt toward his office on their hands and knees. They collapsed onto the stairs, chained themselves to the fence, shrieked prayers and threats and bellowed the Biblical equivalent of evil spells at anyone who approached the place. They fell lifelessly to the ground, some of them swooning and crashing spectacularly to earth.
When I went to Wichita to cover this, I thought I would be assigned there for a day or two. But this became more than a single protest. It turned out to be the birthplace of heartland civil disobedience against abortion and it went on and on and on.
Like the protesters, news people at the siege had a regular daily schedule.
Every day we rose early and raced to the clinic, set up our cameras in the hot Midwestern sun and waited for the anti-abortion performance art to begin.
Like clockwork, Operation Rescue's fleet of air-conditioned buses would pull up an hour before the office opened. Out would pour hundreds and hundreds of protesters eager to lay their lives and their bodies on the line for the "babies."
Wichita police were overpowered and overworked. The protesters were over-excited and overweight.
Day after day, weary local cops had to pick up and drag away protesters by the ton, literally. By the end, all the officers were wearing wide leather lifting belts in an attempt to protect their backs as they struggled to hoist and carry off so much dead weight. Police complained to us bitterly about colleagues who had seriously damaged their backs.
I remember one cop telling me he was praying the protests would stop before he ruined his back and his career.
Every night in the hotel that Operation Rescue designated as its home base, the organization sponsored a "worship service" that featured singing, prayer, sermonizing and a whole lotta snake oil.
Operation Rescue leader Randall Terry, an egotistical, self-aggrandizing super-nerd, commanded the room like a rock star. Women fainted and lay trembling on the ground when he entered to thundering applause and the screams of people who love Jesus so much they act like they're crazy.
The chemistry in the room was unlike anything I've been around, before or since.
In just a few weeks in Wichita, Operation Rescue forged an unholy alliance of sexually repressed super Christians, men who hate women and women who hate themselves and turned them into a supercharged army of bullies for Jesus.
And they were bullies.
In 1991 and until his murder, Dr. Tiller was one of the few doctors in this country who performed late-term abortions. Despite what Operation Rescue claimed, none of his clients were ending pregnancies on a whim. None of them wanted to be there.
Each case was a tragedy -- a much anticipated child discovered to have only a partially formed head, a baby that was dying in the womb and had to be delivered, a child with medical problems so profound as to be unimaginable, a diagnosis that meant a child's life outside its mother's body would be both brief and brutal.
Tiller's clients often included couples who had been hoping to become parents but had their hearts broken late in pregnancy when they received horrifying medical news about their much-wanted babies.
These people got no mercy from Operation Rescue.
They were hounded and harassed, shoved and shouted at on the most heart-breaking day of their lives. In order for patients to make it to their appointments, clinic supporters had to coordinate each woman's arrival with walkie-talkies. They shielded the patient by forming a flying wedge of bodies that rushed through the crowd to escort her into the building.
I watched one woman sobbing as she and her husband were helped into the clinic. Her tears went unnoticed by the hundreds of protestors surrounding her who shrieked and wailed and tried to trip the people escorting her to the door.
It was horrible.
And now, finally, after all the heavy breathing about heaven and God, evil and innocence, Operation Rescue by all appearances has goaded someone into killing George Tiller.
He was shot to death as he worked as an usher at his longtime church. His wife was close by in her regular place in the choir. The circumstances of his murder highlight precisely how hypocritical and grotesque this brand of "morality" is.
The zealots are already feigning shock that something like this could happen. Their partners in crime will soon be doing the same.
I can already envision the backpedaling and rationalizing that we'll hear from longtime Tiller critic Bill O'Reilly. Dr. James Dobson, who hosted the triumphant closing "Summer of Mercy" event that summer in Wichita, will undoubtedly declare himself deeply saddened.
I keep going back to Operation Rescue's catchy slogan for the "Summer of Mercy." They yelled it at everyone within earshot.
"If you believe abortion is murder, act like it's murder."
Maybe they have a point.
After this country's seemingly endless assaults and murders of clinic doctors and staff, the explosions and fire bombings, the vandalism and harassment, it's clear that this violent behavior is not a natural outgrowth of religious belief or moral concerns.
This is not part of a disagreement over when life begins.
This is terrorism.
And if we believe this is terrorism, we need to act like it's terrorism.
No mercy.
Loading comments…
Want to reply to a comment? Hint: Click "Reply" at the bottom of the comment; after being approved your comment will appear directly underneath the comment you replied to
Uncontrolled growth is cancer. The right to lifers are defending cancer by calling it life.
The "Right to Life" or "Pro-Life" movement could only happen BECAUSE of religion. People hanging on to long disproved fairy-tales simply cannot accept the raw data of a planet with shrinking resources. We—HOMO SAPIENS—have more than maxed out the carrying capacity of this planet. We humans need all the birth control we can get if we're to make it through the next couple of decades. We critically need to get religion out of sex education. Either we grow up & live up to our responsibility to everything else that is alive on this planet or we—and just about everything else on the planet—dies.
The killing of Dr. Tiller is an act of terrorism. May it be prosecuted as such. As a people, we must reject the notion that killing a fellow citizen is an acceptable way of dissent. Operation Rescue and other anti abortion groups foment this kind of terrorism just like radical mullahs do--they invent religious dogma to justify acts of terrorism. Promising the 9-11 hijackers or suicide bombers that they will have 19 virgins in heaven is no different than promising that God will overlook Scott Roeder breaking the commandment to "you shall not kill."
My heart goes out to his family. Sadly, they have lived with the threat of violence for years. There is no Biblical justification for his murder and the bullying to which he, his family, workers at his clinic and those who sought his help were subjected. This bullying has crossed over into outright domestic terrorism. May Scott Roeder meet the same fate as his fellow domestic terrorist, Timothy McVeigh.
Great article.
There should be space/distance limitations on protests of FUNERALS (like the Phelps klan like to do) and any type of medical facility.
Ms. Mapes, thank you for an insightful article. Not much has changed since Roe v. Wade in these fanactic's eyes. Some of these protestors were not even born when Roe was enacted to protect women. I hope you got some good film footage and pictures to document their behavior at these clinics. They are terrorists and need to be tried as such in a court of law, because they are breaking the law and that's all there is to it. They will continue to do so, no matter what the idealogy, they are mentally unbalanced people who use any cause to harm others and gain a little power for themselves. They have continued to act like this for many, many years and it's past time to put a stop to them, their pipe bombs, and gun violence. Pipe bombs and gun violence = terrorist.
See K.J. Dwyer's Profile
This is the American Taliban. Their methods are the same; terrorize people into their narrow line of thought.
No mercy. Absolutely right. These fools have no idea what the concept of religious freedom means. They don't understand that the freedom they have to worship and express themselves is wholly and completely contingent on others to be able to do the same. No, they must evangelize and cull people into their line of thinking. Terrorists, pure and simple. Hateful, small minded criminals.
The degree to which narrow religious precepts have been allowed to dictate civic matters in the United States is postitively disgusting. If allowed to go on unchecked, it will be the end of democracy. We're already dangerously close to a Theocracy.
The way in which conservatives in this country have fomented and capitalized on the nutty fringe in the United States is despicable. They have aided and abetted thes crimes and others and are every bit as guilty as the idiot who pulled the trigger.
Shame on them all.
I don't think they are the "American Taliban."
Look, pro-life activists who commit murder are horrible people. But comparisons to the Taliban are insane. They don't run a good portion of the country. Nowhere in America is there anything approaching religious law.
I could go on, but seems pretty pointless.
See K.J. Dwyer's Profile
Nowhere in the country is there anything approaching religious law? You must be kidding.
One needs look no further than the upholding of Prop. 8 in California.
There is not one argument -- not one -- against extending the franchise of marriage to same-sex couples that is not reducible to religious bigotry.
If this isn't religious law, I don't know what is.
Regarding the comparison to the Taliban, it is more than apt when you look at the terror tactics involved. Simply because "they [don't] run a good portion of the country" does not make these Christian fundamentalists' behavior any less that of a terrorist.
If you don't see the similarity, then you will facilitate their continued expanse and influence in the U.S.
I would say wake up, but it seems that would be pointless.
I completely agree that this is domestic terrorism. My thoughts and well-wishes are with Dr. Tiller's family in their horrible time of loss.
Regarding your comment of "Nowhere in America is there anything approaching religious law.", this could be disputed due to the way that the GLBT community and minority religions are treated in a predominantly Christian society when law makers use their faith as a basis for creating legislation instead of what would be good for ALL Americans regardless of faith.
I also agree with what you said. I could go on, but it really would be pointless.
They kill people who don't agree with their religious beliefs. They are a fringe element of a traditional religion. They demonize science. They live as if in a previous century. They believe that women's bodies are not their own but ought to be ruled by men. They have taken over the south and enacted laws there are elsewhere that support only their beliefs and outlaw those of others.
Sounds the same to me.
Sit in a fundamentalist church for enough services to really get the message they preach about the nature of women and their place in society. They really are the American Taliban.
Operation Rescue may be closer to a group like Al Qaeda than the Taliban, given that they don't have absolute power in the way a religious regime does. But to say that there's nothing approaching religious law in this country isn't accurate.
Virtually all of the personal morality laws are based in Christian beliefs. Some have been overturned fairly recently, some have not. And even those laws that have been enacted (or Supreme Court decisions that have found laws unconstitutional) are not necessarily permanent.
Examples:
Until a Supreme Court decision deemed them unconstitutional in 2003, sodomy laws were on the books in most states. In 1986, prior to that the US Supreme Court upheld a Georgia law criminalizing same-gender sexual encounters. (One of a number of states with such laws.)
Or Rick Santorum's "Born-Alive Infant Protection Act" based on his religious beliefs about abortion, and was an effort to do an end-run around Roe v. Wade.
Don't Ask, Don't Tell. While not overtly a Christian move, it's in response largely to Christian religious beliefs about homosexuality.
And, as Mr. Dwyer said, Prop 8 is a darn good example.
Minor, but an indicator, that stupid "one nation, under g.od" line in the Pledge of Allegiance (which is a stupid thing even without the Christian reference!).
Take a look at http://www.theocracywatch.org/biblical_law2.htm#Enforcing
Operation Rescue types are really dreaming of this being a Christian Theocracy. It's not that far from the surface.
Absolutely agree with your comments. These fanatics have the same mind-set as the Taliban. Their final objective is to have a religious-based government and they would not tolerate diversity of any kind. They would monitor our bedrooms, they would tear down Buddhist statues, desecrate Jewish Synagogues, burn Islamic Mosques, close Catholic sanctuaries, hang Quaker and Bahai' practioners as they stand in silent witness, and imprison and torture atheists who don't accept Christian fundamentalism.
Frankly, this is murder.
Murdering to make a political point is terrorism. Do you think the killer did this because of a personal grudge against the doctor? Or to make a point (in his opinion) that abortion is murder?
Throughout the history of the Near East and Europe there is no greater "group" of violent murders and torturers and makers of hate and intolerance than religious fanatics.
Any horror is permissable in their minds. Just so long as it them doing it to someone else.
How about the atheistic rule of Stalin and Hitler?
the only easier target than the religious is the non-religious.
Or maybe we could stop painting with broad brushes?
Hitler regarded himself as a "Good Catholic" and the church returned the favor as long as Hitler was alive, or didn't you already know that?
http://liberalslikechrist.org/Catholic/Hitlersfaith.html
His anti-Jewish position may be the ugly shadow cast by religion, but it is totally characteristic of religions in general and the genocidal history of Catholicism in particular.
Hitler was a Catholic:
"So long as Adolf Hitler was in power,
his Roman Catholic Church
never questioned his Catholicism
- at least not in public - which is
where it mattered politically."
http://liberalslikechrist.org/Catholic/Hitlersfaith.html
Neither of those were atheists.
What are you talking about Stalin and Hitler for? The issue here is Americans who justify terrorism on the basis of ideology. Sometimes, it is religious-based ideology, sometimes it is political-based ideology. BTW, Hitler was a Christian who used anti-semtism latent in the Christian church to justify the execution of Jewish people.
The right to life movement will be branded as violent and terrorist in nature because of this act. It is a huge step backwards for their image because of one fanatic. Blaming a demonstration by Operation Rescue as a possible catalyst for these types of assassinations doesn't help. We've all heard stories about parents that harm or kill their children because they are possessed by demons. I'm sure this assassin felt he had the right to do this. But he is nothing but a murderer and and his act makes him the equivalent of what he thinks the doctor is.
It is NOT a "right to life" or "pro-life" ideology: we need to call it what it is. It is the American Taliban. As Ms. Mapes so rightly notes, it is dangerous domestic terrorism. It is all about not just intolerance, but about forcing women to be treated as breeders by forcing one's religion onto the bodies of all American women. It is about invading the privacy of women and their families. It is about treating women like chattel. It is about dominating women. It is about terrorizing women and the doctors who provide care to adult women. It is the Inquisition - and this sick minority, these mentally ill freaks, need to be stopped just like law enforcement would stop any other group of terrorists.
In Germany, the Nazi party is illegal. Why are the anti-choice anti-women anti-privacy groups, who have a history of inciting murder, allowed to even exist? It isn't a question of "freedom of speech" anymore, and hasn't been since the first murder of a physician.
This is an excellent piece Ms. Mapes. Thank you for sharing it with us.
This kind of "terrorism" has to stop or we will stop being a viable country. One really doesn't need to ask, but I wonder if they were even half as disturbed at the number of Iraqi children who have been killed since the war began. Not much press coverage in that I guess. Jesus must not have cared much for children either once they left the mother's womb. I'm sure it's all about Jesus.
Of course they don't care about Iraqi children. They support the war and all its civilian suffering. They don't even care about the children they want to force other people to have.
Once the baby is born they have no interest in the child's quality of life.
Only rarely does an anit-abortion fanatic adopt or become a foster parent. And that is the real test of their Christian love.
That Obama has involved himself in adoption and foster parenting care is is the truly decent caring approach.
"or we will stop being a viable country"
hogwash. beyond hyperbole.
Thank you for this account. It's important for people to understand what late-term abortion is, and the frightening irrationality of those who inflict violence on doctors and those who incite such behaviour with their rhetoric.
While I'm aghast at Dr. Tiller's murder, I hope that some good may come of it in terms of awareness. Thank you again for your contribution.
this mentality of justifying making everyone else comply with one groups radical and dysfunctional religuleous views is the same seedling that grew into the inquisitions and the religuleous cleansings of the past. if anything, this act of murder must be the pivot on which the war against safe and legal abortion must be won, once and for all.
Do you believe that killing a child in the womb is murder? How about outside the womb after the woman gives birth? Isn't someone's life lost when an abortion is performed?
You know, I have what I have been told is the most unusual attitude regarding abortion that most people have ever heard...
I firmly believe that life begins at conception and would never have an abortion. HOWEVER it is not up to ME to make that same decision for someone else. I do NOT have the "right" (and neither does anyone else) to make that particular decision for ANYONE other than themselves.
The reality is that whether one chooses to have an abortion, have the child and give it up for adoption or have the child and raise it themselves the decision is one that is based on a whole lot of things which someone OUTSIDE of the relationship between the parents is NOT party to and is NONE of our business.
Having adopted 6 children and given birth to 3 more, I become increasingly MORE horrified every day at the antics of groups like "Operation Rescue". Maybe if those groups offered something beyond rhetoric and abuse... like REAL help... you know things like adopting the children, being foster parents, paying for necessary medical care... SOMETHING. They don't though, which relegates their wailing, screaming and crying to a histrionic show for the public that serves to do nothing.
So what? Only unborn babies can be murder victims?
What if the fetus doesn't have a head? Or didn't develop a heart? Or has no lungs?
What if the fetus is dying or already dead and the mother needs to get it out immediately?
What if the fetus is a result of a rape? Or incest? What if the mother was in a coma when she was raped and impregnated? What if everything is fine until the 24th week and then the mother falls down the stairs or gets in a car crash that kills or damages the fetus?
See, your fundamentalist view doesn't cover all the situations or angles, right? That's why women should be able to make their own choices. Because just because you can have a healthy baby doesn't mean everyone can, or does, every time.
That depends, is it alive: My child spontaneously died in the womb and had to be removed - that's called a 'miscarriage'. A medical procedure to remove the remains of a fetal corpse is also called an 'abortion' and is necessary so that the decaying remains don't cause an infection that kills the mother. If the fetus is non-viable, there is absolutely no point whatsoever in forcing the mother to support it with her body for a couple more months while it gets bigger (and the delivery becomes more risky) only to have it die as soon as its delivered.
I think it would be useful to shine a light on why women have late term abortions. The author mentioned some reasons that I found illuminating.
I think abortion statistics should be shouted on the airwaves. You know, the ones that show decline in the Clinton years and increase in the Bush years. Let's hear the quotes from President Obama about how he wants to reduce the numbers of abortions.
And as the violence against doctors and clinics that perform abortions go up soon, as steps are taken to reduce the number of abortions while keeping it legal and private, it should be shouted out how obvious it is that these Fundamentalists are not interested in reducing the number of abortions. Their interest is in making abortions illegal, and medical personnel and patients criminals. Point out how they cry for the babies, but do nothing constructive about it. Keep comparing them to the Taliban.
Try to get these Fundamentalists to constructively state their arguments in non-religious terms. They can't do it. They push their religious views, with guns if need be, on others whether they share their religious views or not. And that is UnAmerican, that is how they are like the Taliban.
As a country, we are no better than Afghanistan. We have our own fundamentalist terrorists.
Wrong. Please move there for 6 months and return with a report. You probably are there already though, just posting here to increase internal issues in the US.
The only difference is one of degree. Afghanistan is, of course, more advanced in its decline into religious zealotry and terrorism but to think that incipient religious terrorism here isn't dangerous is seriously naive.
Hi Amalek,
We do have our fundamentalist terrorists here in America. However, acts of terrorism in the United States have been very rare up until recent times, and the situation seems to be escalating every day. I don't know much about the history of Afghanistan, but they have had a terrorist problem for a longer time. However, there are good & bad in every country, and in every type of group. In these days, terrorism is prevalent in practically every country it seems & we are all aware now that we are all connected and can influence each other easily because of technological developments. Before technologic developments, most people were not aware of what was happening in the rest of the world. The United States has been cut off from the rest of the world for a long time. Terrorism really became a reality for us recently; in my part of the country especially with 9/11.
Hello!!!!!!! THe KKK, Neo-Nazi's there has been terrorism here since the beginning - let's not forget the way American Indians were treated! Wake up!
It would be one thing if these people actually cared about reducing the number of abortions. Under their hero, George W. Bush, the number of abortions increased. Under Clinton, the number decreased. One would think they would be aware of these facts if they actually cared about results, but they don't. They care about the sanctimony.
How do you connect the increase in abortions with former President Bush, and the decline in abortions to former President Clinton? Is everything that happens during someone's presidential term the fault or to the credit of the standing President? The only reason that I can relate the increase in abortions under President Bush (when he defended the unborn) is because no one could afford to have any more children in the bad economy. When President Clinton was in office, the economy was thriving (or at least that's what the books said); therefore, people could afford to have more children during President Clinton's term in office.
Wrong. It was the abstinence only programs that increased rates of abortion. Reality trumps ideology.
The data is out there...your unwillingness to read it is not my concern.
How is it "logical" that President Obama wants to "reduce the number of abortions" by wanting to make it a law that "abortion will be allowed at any time for any reason," and by forcing the country's taxpayer money to give more money to Planned Parenthood when they already give them millions of our dollars, by forcing countries that "do not allow or want abortionto be forced against their will to make abortions legal in their land," and to require every medical professional to either "perform abortions" or "to take part in them." Every one of President Obama's appointments so far are serious activists for the right to abortion at any stage and for any reason. What is your logical conclusion when you consider all of President Obama's policies? The only logical answer is that President Obama's policies will substantially "Increase" abortions in both this country and all over the world. Watch President Obama's Actions, not his Words. He says one thing, then he does the opposite. He's making his opinions up as he goes along. If something's favorable to him, he will say he believes in it. When it's not in his interest, he takes the opposite position. People were happy to have a Black President for the first time. It's his actual policies that they are now against, and they're against him changing his convictions and opinions every day. Look at his actual policies, then you will be able to see what he really believes in.
First, you make the case that the number of abortions can be correlated with the state of the economy moreso than presidential leadership. I can agree with that to the extent that I also believe presidential leadership has an effect on the economy.
Then you make a case against president Obama's leadership when it comes to abortion, replete with your predictions of an increase in abortions because of his policies re same.
You seem more than a little confused.
Just watch. It will happen because President Obama is PRO- SEX EDUCATION. Making birth control affordable and easily obtainable will also lower the need for abortion.
And, in case you haven't looked lately, a MAJORITY of Americans are just fine with President Obama's polices. It's the SORE LOSERS who aren't. Elections have consequences. Deal with it.
You need to look beyond your ideaologies! What most of these responders have said was correct - during the Clinton years there was money poured into a system that supported Sex Education so the effect was a marked decrease in AIDS, abortion, unwanted pregnancies! This is important to note if you are going to stand up for something! You must see every side! Knowledge is power, the less people know the more ill-equipped they are to deal with any aspect of life.
Your moral views are your views, but in order to have a truly civil society we need to put them into context of how they work for the greater good! Everyone will not beleive what you believe, so in the end we want to make laws and decisions that will advance the end desire which ultimately is to reduce unwanted pregnancy, unneccesary abortion, and spread of sexually transmitted diseases. SMall minds very rarely are able to come up with reasonable real world solutions!
Obama wants to increase access to sex education and contraceptives. You do not. That's the real answer. Of course, for many "Right to Lifers" contraception is abortion. I'll bet you're one of them so why are we even talking? Those who wish to prevent access to contraception simply do not want women to have control over their own bodies. It's all a throwback to times when a man's home was HIS castle and his woman was his chattel.
Denying access to sex education and contraceptives in an overpopulated planet with shrinking resources is immoral. Human population growth is the single biggest problem on this planet. I may or may not be gone by the time all of the human-created crises come to a head, but when they do we will find that unchecked human growth was the primary cause of our collective undoing.
Personally I would rather EDUCATE children (as opposed to treating them like mushrooms... fed bovine excrement and kept in the dark) and spend several hundred dollars a year on CONDOMS than I would have to purchase a COFFIN.
That simple. And that hard.
You must be logged in to comment. Log in or connect with
