Dr. George Tiller, one of the faces of the late-term abortion debate, was murdered in the foyer of his church on Sunday. This crime has reinvigorated the abortion debate once again, as if the nomination of another Supreme Court Justice didn’t do enough already. Here’s a piece of what people are saying about the events.
Brian Palmer wrote an article for Slate explaining what differentiated Tiller from other doctors. Michelle Goldberg wonders if this marks the beginning of a trend.
Feminist blog Double X posted the stories of a couple of women who had been Tiller’s patients. Here’s one of them here. Here the husband of one of Tiller’s patients discusses his experience on Andrew Sullivan‘s blog, The Dish. Also on The Dish, a pro-lifer wrote about their experiences protesting at Tiller’s clinic.
Operation Rescue, a prominant pro-life group, denounced Tiller’s murder. However, Randall Terry, who founded Operation Rescue, said that Tiller got what he deserved. Terry has not been a part of Operation Rescue since 1991, according to the group. Here’s a video of him talking about Tiller’s murder at the National Press Club.
Some bloggers have labeled the murder terrorism, including Cara at Feministe, Melissa Harris-Lacewell at The Notion and Ann Friedman at The American Prospect’s group blog, Tapped. Ezra Klein took it a step further and wondered if Congress should act. Conor Friedersdorf wonders if those who support the idea of broad executive powers for the War on Terror would be OK with Barack Obama declaring pro-life extremists enemy combatants etc…
Mark Thompson explored several arguments for and against late-term abortion at The League of Ordinary Gentlemen.
Bill O’Reilly found himself in the middle of quite a bit of controvery due to his repeated, vitriolic attacks on Tiller on his show, The O’Reilly Factor. Gabriel Winant wrote a good summary of the arguments for Salon. Here’s a video of O’Reilly’s response to the killing.
