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Abortion Doctor Gunned Down in Church

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LalaithUrwen
Post subject: Abortion Doctor Gunned Down in Church
Posted: Sun 31 May , 2009 6:57 pm
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Quote:
Abortion doc George Tiller gunned down at church
AP

WICHITA, Kan. – The attorney for George Tiller says the late-term abortion provider was shot and killed at his church in Wichita, Kan.

Attorney Dan Monnat says Tiller was shot as he served as an usher during Sunday morning services at Reformation Lutheran Church. Monnat said Tiller's wife, Jeanne, was in the choir at the time of the shooting.

The clinic run by the 67-year-old doctor has repeatedly been the site of protests for about two decades.

A protester shot Tiller in both arms in 1993, and his clinic was bombed in 1985.

Capt. Brent Allred said police were looking for a gunman who fled in a 1993 light blue Ford Taurus registered in Merriam.

No other details about the shooting were immediately released.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.

WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — Late-term abortion doctor George Tiller, a prominent advocate for abortion rights wounded by a protester more than a decade ago, was shot and killed Sunday at his church in Wichita, a city official said.

A City Hall official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to speak about the case told The Associated Press that the 67-year-old doctor was killed Sunday morning at Reformation Lutheran Church.

Police spokesman Gordon Bassham would not confirm the victim's identity pending notification of relatives. He said the shooting occurred at 10:03 a.m. and the gunman fled the scene in a 1993 powder blue Ford Taurus registered in another part of the state.

Bassham said no suspects were in custody. He said it is not clear whether one or more suspects were involved.

Capt. Brent Allred said police were looking for a gunman who fled in a 1993 light blue Ford Taurus registered in Merriam.

Anti-abortion group Operation Rescue issued a statement denouncing the shooting.

Tiller has been among the few U.S. physicians performing late-term abortions. His clinic has repeatedly been the site of protests for about two decades and he was shot and wounded in both arms by a protester in 1993.

He remained prominent in the news in recent years, in part because of an investigation begun by former Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline, an abortion opponent.

Prosecutors had alleged that Tiller had gotten second opinions from a doctor who was essentially an employee of his, not independent as state law requires, but a jury in March acquitted him of all 19 misdemeanor counts against him.

Abortion opponents also questioned then-Gov. Kathleen Sebelius' ties to Tiller before the Senate confirmed her this year as U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary. Tiller donated thousands of dollars to Sebelius over the years.
:( That is just plain terrible. You all know I'm anti-abortion (particularly late-term abortions), but this kind of crime is reprehensible. I hope they catch the shooter and put him in jail for the rest of his life. Can you imagine his poor wife watching the whole thing from the choir loft? :bawl:

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jewelsong
Post subject: Re: Abortion Doctor Gunned Down in Church
Posted: Sun 31 May , 2009 7:20 pm
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The thing is...sometimes late-term abortions are necessary. I myself find the thought of it horrific - but I have also known at least two women who had to make this agonizing choice. And make no mistake - it was an agonizing choice - even though their own lives were at stake.

There need to be doctors who know how to safely perform this procedure. And they need to be able to perform it (when needed) without fearing for their lives.

What a horrible thing.


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LalaithUrwen
Post subject: Re: Abortion Doctor Gunned Down in Church
Posted: Sun 31 May , 2009 7:26 pm
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jewel, out of curiosity, why couldn't they have had a C-section or induced labor? I can imagine it was not an easy choice they made.

But, yes, I agree it's a horrible thing--the shooting and the choice to have a late-term abortion.

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jewelsong
Post subject: Re: Abortion Doctor Gunned Down in Church
Posted: Sun 31 May , 2009 7:55 pm
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Lali, I don't know the details. Basically, a late-term abortion IS induced labor...but the fetus is destroyed before emerging. In one case, the baby had a horrible genetic syndrome that would have resulted in severe deformity and pain before dying in a matter of hours. In the other case, the mother would have died if she had continued the pregnancy - and the baby was not viable, due to abnormalities.

Neither woman wanted to go into much detail, understandably. I consider such a decision to be highly personal and definitely between a woman and her doctor. Late-term abortion is not something any woman chooses lightly...it is a major procedure, usually opted for if the fetus is deformed or abnormal in some way. Anencephaly is one reason - this is when the baby literally does not have the main part of the brain and the remaining part of the skull is often open.

A late-term abortion is NOT done simply because the woman has suddenly decided she doesn't want to go through with the pregnancy.


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Riverthalos
Post subject: Re: Abortion Doctor Gunned Down in Church
Posted: Sun 31 May , 2009 9:53 pm
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I read an editorial written by an OB/GYN who performed late-term abortions. She said, basically, that no one performs the procedure because the mother's having second thoughts. It's done because something went wrong, terribly wrong, with the pregnancy and there's a chance that the mother will die or be rendered sterile if the pregnancy continues, or the baby's dead or dying and there's no point in carrying forward. Modern medical science is an amazing thing, but our technology can't hold off the reaper and birth and death sometimes come together and the best the doctors can do is offer some hard and brutal choices. I realize that abortion itself is touchy and that late-term abortions are particularly touchy, but that's the black and white. That's why anyone who even tries to call this justifiable homicide is out of their head, that's why the procedure itself needs to remain legal.

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LalaithUrwen
Post subject: Re: Abortion Doctor Gunned Down in Church
Posted: Mon 01 Jun , 2009 2:49 am
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Well, I do disagree, because I don't think it needs to be an option. (That is based on the OB/GYNs and Labor and Delivery nurses that I know.) C-sections or induced labor are the other options, but I understand the viewpoint that they're more traumatic for the mother.

But I don't really want to turn this into a debate thread, and I do feel badly for the mothers who have had to make this decision. I'm sure it wasn't easy.

And I don't think this shooting was justifiable homicide either. It was a terrible crime.

In any case, Freddy said they've made an arrest. ?? I didn't see anything on my newspage, though.

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Post subject: Re: Abortion Doctor Gunned Down in Church
Posted: Mon 01 Jun , 2009 4:30 am
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LalaithUrwen wrote:
But I don't really want to turn this into a debate thread, and I do feel badly for the mothers who have had to make this decision.
Isn't this the debate forum, tho? :oops:

I also heard that an arrest was made, but didn't stay tuned to the station. I'm sure we'll meet the guy on Dateline or book shelves soon enough. :roll:

Murdering someone right in the middle of service, eh? *shakes head*




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yovargas
Post subject: Re: Abortion Doctor Gunned Down in Church
Posted: Mon 01 Jun , 2009 11:16 am
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LalaithUrwen wrote:
Well, I do disagree, because I don't think it needs to be an option.
Even in the awful Anencephaly situation?


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Feredir
Post subject: Re: Abortion Doctor Gunned Down in Church
Posted: Mon 01 Jun , 2009 12:31 pm
 
 
This shooting is exactly why I carry my handgun (concealed) in church. Evil happens everywhere and at any time.


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jewelsong
Post subject: Re: Abortion Doctor Gunned Down in Church
Posted: Mon 01 Jun , 2009 12:55 pm
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LalaithUrwen wrote:
Well, I do disagree, because I don't think it needs to be an option. (That is based on the OB/GYNs and Labor and Delivery nurses that I know.) C-sections or induced labor are the other options...
How is this different? In each case, the baby dies. At 20 - 22 weeks gestation, the likelihood of survival outside the womb is slim, even with an otherwise healthy fetus and mother. In late-term abortion, this is NOT the case. In some cases, the fetus is already dying or dead. In the case of anencephalic babies, the act of birth alone will kill it. In some cases, the mother may go into septic shock if the fetus is not removed ASAP. Most hospitals will not attempt any extraordinary measures to keep babies born this early alive - even if they are born through early labor.

A C-section is much more risky to the mother, more so if the baby is already seriously ill.


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Nin
Post subject: Re: Abortion Doctor Gunned Down in Church
Posted: Mon 01 Jun , 2009 1:06 pm
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And as you said, a late term abortion usually is induced labour which means for the poor mother that usually they have to go through the pain of gving birth without any baby at the end... At this stage the foetus is too huge to have an abortion as you can have it during the first twelve weeks. I don't see the difference...

I am almost sorry to post this, be it interpealed me greatly:
Quote:
This shooting is exactly why I carry my handgun (concealed) in church. Evil happens everywhere and at any time.
This shooting can only happen because people carry handguns - no guns, no shootings. How can you take a weapon to church? I don't understand it.

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LalaithUrwen
Post subject: Re: Abortion Doctor Gunned Down in Church
Posted: Mon 01 Jun , 2009 2:45 pm
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I guess my position on this is that I just don't think it's right to kill another human being, especially in a brutal manner. There are risks to the mother with any option she chooses. I just can't see myself agreeing to have my baby's skull crushed in and its brains (if there are any) evacuated.

Many anencephalic babies do survive birth. My mother has treated several of them. Many babies (anencephalic or otherwise) are born dead as well. There is a type of bonding that can happen then that is often quite critical to the parents' healing.
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"A select panel convened by ACOG could identify no circumstances under which this procedure ... would be the only option to save the life or preserve the health of the woman." American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists Statement of Policy, January 12, 1997.

"According to the scientific literature, there does not appear to be any identified situation in which intact D & X is the only appropriate procedure to induce abortion, and ethical concerns have been raised about D & X." Report by Board of Trustees of the American Medical Association, May 1997.

"The partial delivery of a living fetus for the purpose of killing it outside the womb is ethically offensive to most Americans and physicians. Our panel could not find any identified circumstance in which the procedure was the only safe and effective abortion method." AMA President Daniel Johnson Jr., M.D., in New York Times, May 26, 1997.

Nin, while it may be that simple to say "no guns, no shootings," I highly doubt it can be expanded to say "no guns, no killings." People have always found ways to kill one another, long before guns were ever invented. Freddy is allowed by the law to carry a gun. A criminal or a madman doesn't care about the law.

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Feredir
Post subject: Re: Abortion Doctor Gunned Down in Church
Posted: Mon 01 Jun , 2009 3:39 pm
 
 
Nin, it's illegal for people to have cocaine yet there is still a problem. It is illegal for people to have salicylic mushrooms, yet there is still a problem. It is illegal for people to drive drunk but I have arrested over 400 people for it. The point is this, people are killing each other and some choose to use firearms and until people learn that the gun is not the problem but people are the problem then we will have a problem.

If you make guns illegal then only criminals will have guns. As Lali said, I am permitted by law to carry a handgun in MY church. It is illegal for non-members to carry in a church. BTW, many people know I carry and have even been asked by a couple of people TO carry.

Not to take this on a different path than what it seems to be headed but I wanted to answer Nin's comment. I will not comment further because I don't want to hijack the thread and start yet ANOTHER gun thread.

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Dave_LF
Post subject: Re: Abortion Doctor Gunned Down in Church
Posted: Mon 01 Jun , 2009 3:58 pm
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LalaithUrwen wrote:
I guess my position on this is that I just don't think it's right to kill another human being, especially in a brutal manner.
It's interesting that you follow this statement up with an argument for carrying guns in church. Obviously you believe it is acceptable to brutally kill other human beings under special circumstances. Why do those include the need to protect a congregation from a shooter but not the need to save a mother from a pregnancy that is killing her (if, hypothetically, that is the situation)?


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LalaithUrwen
Post subject: Re: Abortion Doctor Gunned Down in Church
Posted: Mon 01 Jun , 2009 5:31 pm
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I knew someone would take that angle. :roll:

I am not talking about self-defense here. And I didn't bring up guns. And, no, I don't believe it's right to "brutally" kill anyone. Shooting someone might result in a lot of pain, or it might not--if you know how to aim correctly. Crushing someone's skull and sucking out their brains fits the definition of "brutal" a lot more clearly to me.

I am talking specifically about a mother and an unborn child. If you want to somehow twist an argument for late-term abortions as a means of self-defense, have at. But I have no problem distinguishing the difference between a person shooting a criminal or madman intent on harming others, and a mother and a fetus.

An emergency C-section takes much less time than the D&X procedure or even the D&E procedure. To me that means any arguments about having to do this procedure to save the mother's life (as in an emergency situation) are not valid. The only reasonable arguments for late term abortions might be the lower risk of complications to the mother. (That is not to say that I agree with those arguments, but I do see their viability.)

My point, supported by many in the medical community, is that the D&X procedure is unnecessary, as there are other options available.

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Dave_LF
Post subject: Re: Abortion Doctor Gunned Down in Church
Posted: Mon 01 Jun , 2009 6:20 pm
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So if I understand it, the argument is that killing another person is wrong unless that person is willfully endangering innocent lives. What about someone who's accidentally endangering innocent lives? And what if that person is not yet capable of willing one way or the other? Or to take it in the other direction, why was shooting Tiller wrong if shooting potential murderers in church isn't?

You're right that comparing abortion to self-defense would be straining the analogy even if the mother's life was clearly in danger. I'd say it's more like the decision to bomb a city during a war knowing that innocent people will die as a result. It's morally tricky and very, very difficult.



Edit: Since I know this soft of thing doesn't transmit well through the internets, I am not in attack mode. I just think abortion issues are complex and difficult and am trying to communicate that Socratically.


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Ara-anna
Post subject: Re: Abortion Doctor Gunned Down in Church
Posted: Mon 01 Jun , 2009 7:13 pm
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I think it's mighty hypocritical for a pro-lifer to murder someone else. period. And it's rather disgusting that the shooter actually had the gall to play judge jury and executioner to someone he thought guilty of murder. And I really don't see any difference between this nut job and Al Quida.

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jewelsong
Post subject: Re: Abortion Doctor Gunned Down in Church
Posted: Mon 01 Jun , 2009 10:34 pm
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Not all late-term abortions are the so-called "partial birth" abortion. (That very name is a misnomer, actually.)

Again...I think the decision to have a late-term abortion is almost always a horrible, agonizing choice for the mother. Yes, some mother MAY chose to carry the baby as long as possible, even knowing it will be born dead or horribly deformed. But sometimes this is NOT an option due to the possibility of septicemia or other complications to the mother. And sometimes the fetus has such abnormalities as to make a regular delivery impossible, even with induced labor (I am thinking here of babies with hydrocephalus whose heads sometimes swell up to enormously grotesque sizes in the womb.)

A C-section is extra trauma, both physical and emotional, to the mother and carries a bigger risk. Unless it was the only way, I would not chose to be cut open in order to remove a dead or dying fetus from my body.

Again - late-term abortion is not something most women would CHOSE to do, given another way. The choice MUST be between the woman and her doctor. And the procedure must remain legal for the times when it is medically necessary.

I am sure you are aware that the procedure for removing an already dead fetus is the same...and carrying a dead fetus inside you can result in severe complications and even death for the mother. A dead fetus SHOULD spontaneously abort, but that is not always the case and sometimes even if there is a spontaneous abortion, there are bits of the fetus left inside, especially if it has been dead for a while.

This happened to me with my second pregnancy. I miscarried at about 13 weeks, but the fetus had probably been dead for 3 or 4 weeks. I had been very ill and not known why. By the time I miscarried, the fetus had started to decompose and I had to have a D & C - which is the exact same procedure used in early abortions. Thank God the doctors were trained to do it safely, I recovered and was able to conceive again.


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LalaithUrwen
Post subject: Re: Abortion Doctor Gunned Down in Church
Posted: Mon 01 Jun , 2009 10:50 pm
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Yes, indeed it is morally tricky, and I'm not normally all that black-and-white of a person. If there were no other options but to perform a D&X, then I might think differently.

And to be very real here, there aren't a lot of these procedures being done, but, of those being done, not all of them are being done for sympathetic reasons such as anencephaly. Now should I trust wikipedia? Hmmm, :shrug: But if I can then here are the stats they quote:

In 1987, the Alan Guttmacher Institute collected questionnaires from 1,900 women in the United States who came to clinics to have abortions. Of the 1,900 questioned, 420 had been pregnant for 16 or more weeks. These 420 women were asked to choose among a list of reasons they had not obtained the abortions earlier in their pregnancies. The results were as follows:

* 71% Woman didn't recognize she was pregnant or misjudged gestation
* 48% Woman found it hard to make arrangements for abortion
* 33% Woman was afraid to tell her partner or parents
* 24% Woman took time to decide to have an abortion
* 8% Woman waited for her relationship to change
* 8% Someone pressured woman not to have abortion
* 6% Something changed after woman became pregnant
* 6% Woman didn't know timing is important
* 5% Woman didn't know she could get an abortion
* 2% A fetal problem was diagnosed late in pregnancy
* 11% Other

That's fwiw. My point being this scenario we're "arguing" over is a very rare one indeed (especially if the stats are to be trusted).
Dave_LF wrote:
Or to take it in the other direction, why was shooting Tiller wrong if shooting potential murderers in church isn't?
Well, I'm sure this was the twisted reasoning behind the criminal who shot this doctor. Why I find it wrong is that you cannot act outside of the law. This isn't war. I may find what Tiller promoted to be morally wrong and even repugnant, and I may cringe at the thought of babies being aborted. But I have a moral responsibility to act within the laws of my society to work to bring about the desired change I'd like to see happen. I don't get to play God.

IOW, I don't get to kill Tiller because I think what he does is wrong and takes innocent lives. I can work to elect representatives who will ban the D&X procedure. I can lobby, I can picket, I can give money to organizations who do all of those things. But the minute I bomb an abortion clinic or kill an abortion doctor, then my actions are no better than their actions.

Until our laws say that a person has rights beginning at conception or 3 months or 7 months (which I doubt will ever happen), then the standard is that a person has rights beginning at birth. Therefore, that's the point at which things can be done to protect that person's rights, e.g., the (odd) scenario of a crazy person threatening the life of a newborn in which someone would be lawfully justified in killing the crazy person to save the baby's life.

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LalaithUrwen
Post subject: Re: Abortion Doctor Gunned Down in Church
Posted: Mon 01 Jun , 2009 10:53 pm
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jewelsong wrote:

I am sure you are aware that the procedure for removing an already dead fetus is the same...and carrying a dead fetus inside you can result in severe complications and even death for the mother. A dead fetus SHOULD spontaneously abort, but that is not always the case and sometimes even if there is a spontaneous abortion, there are bits of the fetus left inside, especially if it has been dead for a while.

This happened to me with my second pregnancy. I miscarried at about 13 weeks, but the fetus had probably been dead for 3 or 4 weeks. I had been very ill and not known why. By the time I miscarried, the fetus had started to decompose and I had to have a D & C - which is the exact same procedure used in early abortions. Thank God the doctors were trained to do it safely, I recovered and was able to conceive again.
That is a very good thing. :hug:

And, yes, even normal deliveries can have placental complications requiring a D&C.

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