Searching for Answers in the Shadow of George Tiller's Murder
There is something that has been gnawing away at me for months.
In the minutes after I learned that an anti-abortion activist had blown Dr. George Tiller's brains out in the middle of his Wichita church on Sunday, that thick, sick feeling returned.
It starts with a simple question: How are you so sure?
How is it that you are absolutely convinced that you have all the answers? How is it that you know what God wants for every person, in every instance, at all hours of the day? How is it that you know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that your faith, your ideology, your politics, your choice of underwear is undeniably correct? How is it that you can justify any behavior in the name of your God, your beliefs, your stuffed teddy bear Stewie?
How is it that everything is so clear to you? How is it that you are utterly certain that you are right?
Because I have been on this earth a little more than 30 years. And the longer I ramble around here, there's less and less that seems absolute.
That's not to say that I lack strong beliefs. Regular readers of this column aren't apt to call me shy or retiring. But my undying inquisitiveness and liberal education -- in the classic sense, dear readers quick on the trigger -- mean that I question everything. I love reading contrarian arguments and a engaging in a good intellectual joust. And I think it's not only possible, but healthy for one's ideas to evolve over time.
Right now, many readers will start praying for my errant soul. Others will e-mail me that I'm not worth it and should join Dr. Tiller in hell. Some will generously offer to help send me there. It's all pretty predictable by now.
Periodically, readers have asked me why I give certain folks a hard time -- Scott Hagerstrom, the local head of the anti-tax Americans for Prosperity, on Michigan Public Television's "Off the Record" or my column references to the thin-skinned sprites at MichiganLiberal.com. Well, for one thing, I enjoy tweaking those who take themselves too seriously.
Moreover, ideologues bore me. I suppose it must be comforting to view everything through the correct lens, but it strikes me as undergoing an philosophical lobotomy.
How stultifying must it be to crack open the morning paper and spy a conspiracy on every page. (This story acknowledges global warming -- socialist rag! This column makes the case for tax cuts -- fascist, corporate tool!) How dare other people not parrot my exact views on every issue. Everyone is wrong on everything except for me and the folks on my listserv. Only I know the truth, so I must indignantly share it with the masses on my blog.
How long until you make the leap that they're all out to get you? (Psst. They probably are).
So naturally, my nagging questions don't just apply to right-wingers or pro-lifers. But there is a messianic quality to their demagoguery that's less common on the other side. And in cases like that of Scott Roeder, the Operation Rescue follower who allegedly killed Tiller, it takes the form of violence.
Some people know he did the right thing. Because abortion is murder and that's that. What I'm not sure of is where that line is, between utter certitude in your beliefs and the willingness to kill for them. On Sunday, it got a lot blurrier.
About one-third of American women have abortions. If you think all of them are pro-choice, think again.
Abortion is supposed to be a black-and-white issue, but it isn't, of course. Which is how we've arrived in this country at the messy solution of keeping it legal with a slew of restrictions. What we can certainly do is join together to stop the root cause - unwanted pregnancy, which will decrease the number of both abortions and kids susceptible to higher rates of abuse and neglect.
Over the last few days, I've read a series of letters from people who have had to grapple with late-term abortions, the kind Tiller was demonized for performing. Andrew Sullivan, a pro-life Atlantic columnist, has run them, complete with a now-haunting da Vinci sketch of a fetus in utero.
There's the couple who kept their baby, despite life-ending birth defects, only to watch her gruesomely die hours after birth. There's the woman whose fundamentalist family shunned her after she aborted an ectopic pregnancy that could have killed her. There's the parents who held their collective breath through extensive genetic testing and got the good news that they were having a healthy baby girl.
This is wrenching stuff. There is perhaps nothing more personal. That is why I believe it is a decision not for politicians, but for a woman, her physician and her God.
You may think you know what you believe. And for the select few out there, those who cheer Roeder on, I suppose they do. (Perhaps it's as Yeats once wrote, "The best lack all conviction, while the worst are filled with passionate intensity.")
But for the vast majority of us, pro-choice and pro-life alike, we don't know what we really would do if we were in that position.
None of this is simple. That's what I know for sure.
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Excellent article. I can only hope that those who think they know it all will read it and think about what was said. claudiatucsonaz
Excellent article. Good points. And I completely agree. There's a reason why I respond to the question "What do you believe in" with "I question everything."
As there are multiple versions of "truth," how can any one be the most correct? It simply isn't possible.
Yates, like Blake, imagined he was a "seer". But seers, like prophets, differ. Total war between thy absolutism and my absolutism? That's what we're left with?
There's a spectrum of viewpoints between relativism and absolutism. The relevant concept is not that of human being -- but
• the concept of a person
‘Person’ won’t be found in a medical dictionary. A human being becomes a person when a culture bestows “membership” on one formerly outside the group.
Considering newborns in traditional cultures, not all who are born get chosen to be persons. Familiarity with fable and myth based on exposure of newborns should dispel a facile equation of 'human being' with 'person.'
In contemporary state level cultures, established law, custom, the courts, political hypocrisy work together uncomfortably to determine what a “reasonable person’s” concept of a person is.
• The real issue is social control --
By trying to extend the concept of a person backward to cover fertilized human eggs and zygotes, male legislators placate right-wing moral absolutists who cannot ever win popular support in a secular and open society.
Their goal? To restore total male domination of women. Religious zealots who call abortion murder do not rise to the level of reasonable person. (A reasonable person does not presuppose any points at issue -- no circular arguments.)
Xian extremists hope to return control of reproduction to the paternalistic “norm” promoted by so-called great monotheisms. The xian terrorist differs not at all from his brother Taliban.
For a greater understanding of this mindset, consult Eric Hoffer's book "The True Believer." He wasn't just a philosopher; he was a prophet.
Over many years of pondering this very question, I have come to one conclusion. The less you know, the easier it is to be certain. The massively ignorant are certain of everything.
What a great Yeats quote! You are so right about the certainty/black & white aspects of the sociology surrounding the issue. I think it's "human nature" that there is always a substantial portion of the population that cannot tolerate uncertainty, finds independent decisionmaking too arduous, and/or has self-control challenges, and finds comfort in affiliating with some authority figure who will (gladly!) do all the heavy lifting for them. Including telling them what God thinks. I don't think there is any escape from these people, or possibility of reform. Evolutionarily, this dependency may have been very functional in a tribal context, eh?
First off, there is a question...
Why was Dr. Tiller killed?
The answer may surprise you.
Because a seriously mentally ill person who was violent, was able to go
scott free without treatment outside of a mental institution period.
To me, this trumps everything here.
And it will, sadly happen again.
Until we treat mental illness a something serious and not just brushed away like
a few leaves....
Other than that....why am I so sure...
Because many of us Christians have seen, in our own lives, the power of God to be able to
do something for us that we could not do ourselves.
Everyone or almost every person here, who is not religious laughs at us.
But of course, those who laugh no nothing about our faith because you don't believe and you don't
even want to look for God. Not only that but you aren't even interested in why we do what we do or the reasons behind it.
Jesus gave us Sacraments to give us help in our daily lives, to become closer to God.
He gave us his mother and The Saints to take our concerns directly to him. And he gave us revelations through those same Saints and through the blessed mother to additonally help us...and prayers such as The Holy Rosary and The Chaplet of Divine Mercy to enable us, against all odds to go to heaven.
Say The Chaplet of Divine Mercy.
God bless you for seeking your own understanding of God.
There were people, though, who nurtured and focused the particular obsessions of this particular mentally ill person, and did not scorn to embrace his association, and even now embrace his crime.
Some people may mock and ridicule faith, but didn't the Christ warn of exactly that in the Beautitudes? Didn't he say it would all be repaid? Attempting to become closer to God is a blessing, so long as its leavened with humility. The problem arises when people are so arrogant that they fool themselves that they understand God's plan/will/instructions, so prideful they ignore the warning about Judgment is Mine, and attempt to ENFORCE their limited understanding on their fellow man.
i agree, look at the crusades it was same reason to justifly such acts. God wouldnt approve of either. God says to love our neighbors. i dont think people like tillman need to die. he needed our love. love will change hearts. when people kill because they believe god would want them too, they are not christians. we dont kill period. we believe in love and justice, we are to give love and let God handle the rest. God doesnt need our help to meet out justice. he will do it in his own time.
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