Murdered Abortion Provider Tiller Held Strong In Face Of Constant Threats, Ms. Editor Says

Main Category: Abortion
Article Date: 05 Aug 2009 - 3:00 PDT

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While most people who commit violent acts against abortion providers are "characterized as lone nuts," they actually are often associated with "extremist" antiabortion-rights groups, Ms. editor Michele Kort writes in the magazine's Summer 2009 issue. These groups "track the whereabouts" of providers and "deliver white-hot rhetoric that paints someone like" murdered abortion provider George Tiller "as a murderer rather than a healer," Kort says. Extremists within the antiabortion-rights movement have "even promoted the assassinations of abortion providers as 'justifiable homicides,'" leaving the "'lone nuts' ... as good as licensed to kill," she adds. According to Kort, one in five abortion clinics is the target of repeat violence annually. Since the early 1990s, nine doctors and clinic workers have died as a result of violent attacks, Kort states.

Tiller, who was shot to death on May 31 in the foyer of his Wichita, Kan., church, "also faced a concerted attack" in Kansas courts, Kort continues. The legal efforts against Tiller included two grand jury investigations resulting from citizen petition drives led by Operation Rescue and other antiabortion-rights groups. Kort notes that neither jury found any basis for indictment against Tiller. In addition, former Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline in 2004 subpoenaed Tiller's patient records, which Kort writes was "supposedly to determine if he hadn't reported statutory rapes of pregnant girls under 16." The court dismissed the criminal charges Kline filed in the case. Paul Morrison, the current Kansas attorney general, in 2006 "surprisingly" charged Tiller with 19 misdemeanors for failing to get a second opinion on some abortion procedures, Kort states. She also comments, "After nearly two years of legal proceedings, the jurors in the case delivered a resounding 'not guilty' in just 25 minutes."

The legal issues were "exhaustive and expensive" for Tiller, according to Kort. She adds that Dan Monnat, Tiller's attorney in Wichita, said that Tiller "'held up like a soldier'" during the legal battles. Kort reports that Tiller's friends "worried about him" nonetheless. Susan Hill -- who operates several abortion clinics and referred patients needing the procedure later in pregnancy to Tiller -- said he once told her that he would not retire because "I can't leave these women. There's no one else for them."

Kort also profiled Miriam Kleiman, a woman who had an abortion at Tiller's clinic after her fetus was diagnosed with a severe brain malformation at 28 weeks' gestation (Kort, Ms., Summer 2009).

Reprinted with kind permission from http://www.nationalpartnership.org. You can view the entire Daily Women's Health Policy Report, search the archives, or sign up for email delivery here. The Daily Women's Health Policy Report is a free service of the National Partnership for Women & Families, published by The Advisory Board Company.

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