A Civil Rights Leader is Murdered: In Loving Memory of Dr. George Tiller

By Sarah Haeder
Contributing Writer

WICHITA, Kan. - Sunday morning, May 31st, an extraordinary physician and colleague, Dr. George Tiller was murdered in his church. He was shot to death while wearing his bullet proof vest.  Dr. Tiller was one of the few doctors in the country to provide abortions after 24 weeks for women carrying fetuses with conditions that were incompatible with life or were a severe health threat for the mother. 

His patients were women whose stories would break your heart.  He and his staff provided kindness, caring and medical excellence even under the most extreme harassment, having already been shot, firebombed and vilified for years.  This is truly the murder of a civil rights leader.

Dr. Tiller is the eighth person murdered by the movement that insists on the ironic title, “Right to Life.”  Dr. Tiller was a man of profound spiritual depth and grace.  You will hear from many people in the coming days about his medical practice, the long term harassment he endured and previous assassination attempts he survived.  George understood that abortion is not about science and not about religion; it is about the heart of a woman.  George himself said it best:
“Abortion is not a cerebral or a reproductive issue.  Abortion is a matter of the heart.  For until one understands the heart of a woman, nothing else about abortion makes any sense at all.”
Since 1973 there have been over 45 million women in the U.S. who have chosen to have safe, legal abortions.  They have received care from extraordinary physicians like George Tiller, and have done their best for themselves and their families.  They are grateful, yet they are silent.
What does it take to keep 45 million women silent?  The anti-abortion movement has to spend millions of dollars to shame us, to tell us that we are murderers over and over until we almost believe it ourselves.  We cannot continue to allow these hypocrites to steal the term “Pro-Life.”  We must expose them for what they truly are - domestic terrorists. 

For 30 years abortion providers have been the buffer between the anti-abortion movement and women. We have positioned ourselves as the guard of women’s freedom, dignity and integrity, but in our wish to protect our patients we have forgotten that it is their freedom we fight for. We can no longer collude in the shame and silence that the anti-abortion forces have laid a pall upon women. 

As every other group who treasures freedom we must break open that silence.  There are not enough of us to protect your freedoms.  If you care, you must reclaim your stolen voices, if not in honor of the values we stand for, then in honor of our fallen heroes.