Remembering Dr. Tiller Three Years After His Murder

Today marks the third anniversary of the murder of Wichita, KS abortion provider Dr. George Tiller while serving as an usher at his church. I was openly going to mention this in passing, especially since this article from Jessica Valenti and a post from Chloe on Feministing, expressed things better than I could on the topic. However, upon reflection there is something on my mind as I contemplate those events.

Many of the people who are anti choice/pro forced pregnancy in the U.S. claim to be so for religious reasons (mostly Christian, but there are those of other faiths as well). The most extreme amongst them even like to cite scripture as the justification for their actions. However, does anyone else see the cognitive dissonance in this when one takes into account that Dr. Tiller was murdered in a church. He was gunned down by Scott Roeder in the house of the Lord a lot of these people claim to worship. While I know there are those out there who have found ways to excuse that, do they really think that their god would be copacetic to killing someone in his house? I'm not religious but I think there might be some repercussions for pulling this kind of shit when Roeder reached by sweet bye and bye.

On the here and now women's rights are more under attack on both the government and from domestic terrorists. Between plans to try either to outlaw contraception outright or make abortion unavailable via paperwork, certain (mostly male) politicians think women are too ignorant and unaware to know what to do with their own bodies, much less have autonomy over them. On the other front, attacks on clinics continue either via so called investigations by pro forced pregnancy groups or Congress or literal attacks by extremists organizations (most recently the fire at a women's clinic in Georgia). Regardless of approach, their goal is the same - to coerce women and their supporters into being in a situation where they are unable to make the best decisions for themselves in a safe and legal way.

This brings us to today. AS politicians and fanatics go to extremes to remake this country in their own moral image, the outrage remains from women and their allies who are pissed off that they want to take something that's personal and make it something needing state approval. Such actions are supposedly done to protect "life," but given that they rarely want to help underprivileged kids and have government aid go to help people with special needs, it appears they care more about DNA then about the real circumstances that actual people have to go through.

Dr. Tiller was known to wear a button saying the phrase "Trust Women." It's a sad shame that it seems so many people don't.