Thursday, June 04, 2009

No Room For Compromise With The Pro-Life Movement & Did Local Authorities & FBI Fail To Protect Dr. Tiller?

UPDATE: 11:27 AM & 12:01 PM & 12:35 PM , June 4, 2009

Taliban Christians Imposing their Religious Beliefs on All Americans
"God knew you & wrote a book about you before you were born"
"A person is a person no matter how small"
America has sinned by allowing abortion
Raising a generation of would be assassins- Taliban Christians
Jesus Camp Anti-Abortion Clip-Creating a generation of Fanatics




In the case of the murder of Dr George Tiller were local authorities & the FBI negligent in not responding to recent vandalism of Tiller's abortion clinic?
According to an eyewitness & video of surveillance cameras show that Roeder Tiller's assailant was responsible for the vandalism.

It also can be argued that there is little or no room for compromise with the Pro-Life Movement who define life as beginning with & therefore protected at the point when an egg is fertilized -the Zygote.
The Pro-Life movement is not just against late term abortion but against all abortions & are against the use of the Morning After Pill or even the Birth Control Pill or any Birth Control method which interferes with the natural God ordained process of pregnancy & birth. The Bible they argue that God said for his human creatures to go forth & multiply. So any attempt to interfere with this process is immoral & anti-Biblical. The only birth control method they approve of is abstinence before marriage. This is also part of the reason that the Pro-Life Movement & the Religious Right are anti-homosexual since Gays & Lesbian couples have sexual relations without any chance of impregnation. The Bible also says they claim that Homosexuality is an abomination to God & therefore to all "True Believers ".

" When you convince your followers that abortion providers are the equivalent of SS officers slaughtering innocents by the millions, tell them that "it's all-out WAR" against pro-choicers and then provide the home addresses and personal information of the "monster" "late-term baby-killer" abortion providers you're supposedly at war against, you can't act surprised when those followers conclude that it's morally justified to use the information to kill doctors."
Jill Filipovic June 1, 2009

"We in the pro-life movement must not flinch"
"We must not waver we must not fear"
" We must not surrender a single inch"
"He (Tiller) was one of the most evil people on earth. He reaped what he sowed
"We will continue to call people like George Tiller Mass Murderers"
" The people to blame are the pro-abortionists & their defenders in the government
We must protect children from the moment of conception to their birth "

Randall Terry , May 31,2009




In considering the issue of abortion we must come to terms with the fact that the anti-abortionists who refer to themselves as Pro-Life are not prepared for any real dialogue or compromise with those who disagree with them on the issue of abortion.

The notion that life begins as soon as an egg is fertilized fits in with how the Christian Fundamentalist views the world in stark contrast of good & evil it is either/ or; God exists or does not; the bible is the inerrant word of God or it is not.Part of the issue for the Fundamentalist is that of certainty. There can be no doubts or equivocation everything is black & white. To say that abortion is ok under certain conditions doesn't fit this notion of certitude & 100% . The anti-Abortionist is looking at the issue from a religious point of view. When an egg is fertilized by a sperm this is God's will . The resulting Zygote is alive because God has infused it with an immortal soul. To the pro-life movement there is no difference between late term abortions or abortions performed in the first couple of weeks of a pregnancy . But they go further as Randall Terry points out that there is no difference between an abortion to the use of the morning after pill. As far as the pro-life movement is concerned the destruction of a zygote or a fetus is still in their view murder. To argue in favor of a morning after pill or an abortion is to make the bold assertion that God sometimes makes mistakes and so it is okay sometimes to terminate a pregnancy.

What one also discovers is that the pro-life movement is also against the use of birth control including the birth control pill or even the use of condoms. They are also against any form of sex education. The only method of birth control they appear to believe in is that of abstinence. So there is no real room for compromise with the pro-life movement.

Some would argue that for the Religious Right & Conservative Christians being anti-abortion is a litmus test of whether someone is or is not a true Christian. Of course according to the Religious Right & Conservative Evangelicals there are a number of issues which are also Litmus tests for the True Believing Christian such as being anti-Gay, anti-Feminism , anti-Muslim, anti-sex education anti-Darwinism & the baning of any book or movie or TV or radio program or internet sites which are considered blasphemous or anti-American or unAmerican - along with a belief in America as God's Chosen Nation & that it is America's Divine Duty to spread Evangelical Fundamentalist Christianity to the rest of the world.

But now in recent years the Religious Right have added other beliefs as part of their canon of orthodoxy such as a belief in the use of any & all means to protect America from its enemies so Pre-Emptive War, the obliteration of any country which is deemed an enemy of the United States , the use of torture on enemy combatants-

They also are against the United Nations or any other international body & reject any treaty which is seen as interfering in America's sovereignty & its duty to Christianize or Americanize the world. So the Religious Right were quite pleased when President Bush abandoned the Geneva Conventions & the International Ban on torture & this explains their opposition to other international agreements such the Banning of land-mines or other weapons & they are adamant that America not sign onto international agreements to do with Global Warming or any other environmental cause. The United Nations & International Agreements they see as a world wide conspiracy to attack America's sovereignty. And we can add to this the belief that for Biblical reasons America must support the State of Israel unconditionally.


Randall Terry of the Pro-life anti-abortion organization Operation Rescue speaks out about the murder of Dr George tiller . He says this is a teachable moment for the pro-life movement.. He is unapologetic about the murder & is more concerned that the liberals & pro-choice advocates will use this incident to chastise and to silence the Pro-Life movement. He believes the media will put pressure on the pro-life movement to calm down its rhetoric & rob it of its most powerful tools.

Randall Terry on the George Tiller assassination

5-31-09 //Washington, D.C.// Randall Terry, founder Operation Rescue, addresses the assassination of George Tiller. Mr. Terry urges the pro-life movement to not surrender words and actions under the heavy opposition from child killers and the Obama administration.



O'Reilly's 2006 Anti-Tiller Rant from Media Matters
O'Reilly: "[I]f I could get my hands on Tiller -- well, you know. Can't be vigilantes. Can't do that. It's just a figure of speech."




Slate's Horrifying Headline Dishonors Dr. Tiller Posted by Jill Filipovic, Feministe June 2, 2009.

"Is it Wrong to Murder an Abortionist?" What the hell, Slate?

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Amy Goodman of Democracy Now points out that it is possible that Dr. george Tiller might not have been murdered if local authorities and the FBI had responded to the recent vandalism known to have been committed by Roeder at Tiller's abortion clinic. The authorities had been given information that the vandalism had been committed by Roeder by an eyewitness & that the acts were also caught on video by security cameras at the facilities. It seems local authorities were in fact were afraid to take on Roeder & the Pro-life Movement. So the question why were local authorities or the FBI slow to act ?

" Dr. George Tiller Didn’t Have to Die " By Amy Goodman of Democracy Now at truthdig.com, june 2, 2009

George Tiller did not have to die. He was assassinated while in church in Wichita, Kan., on Sunday, targeted for legally performing abortions. His death might have been prevented simply through enforcement of existing laws. His alleged killer was seen vandalizing a Kansas City clinic, Aid for Women, both the week before and the day before the murder, putting glue into its door locks. The manager of that clinic, who calls himself “Jeff Pederson” to protect his identity, told me he called the FBI and local police both times, but the vandal, the alleged killer Scott Roeder, was not arrested. Pederson had Roeder’s first name and his license-plate number. He had images of him on the security video. He recognized him from previous protests.

...Dr. Susan Robinson (who) flies to Wichita every month to perform abortions in Tiller’s clinic. She said, “It is generally regarded amongst those who do clinic security, if local authorities are not responsive, if they don’t show up or they don’t vigilantly enforce the law, that it encourages the anti-abortion people to push it further and further.”

She said: “In Wichita, Dr. Tiller was constantly dealing with the same lack of enforcement. Wichita prohibits placing signs on city property. But they allow the anti-abortion protesters to set up dozens of crosses and leave them all day. Dr. Tiller went to the city attorney over the crosses, and complained that people block the clinic driveway. He told me that the city attorney said, ‘I would rather be sued by George Tiller than the anti-abortion folks.’ ”

The 1994 federal Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act (FACE) makes it a crime to block or damage a reproductive health service facility.

Enforcing FACE saves lives.


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"Who killed George Tiller?" by Jill Filipovic, at The Guardian , June 1, 2009

George Tiller's murder is a horrific consequence of the harassment and intimidation of abortion providers

But this latest act of terrorism is, sadly, not an anomaly. It is part of a clearly-established pattern of harassment, intimidation and violence against abortion providers and pro-choice individuals. And mainstream pro-life groups shoulder much of the blame.

Pro-life organisations routinely refer to abortion as "murder", a "genocide" and a "holocaust". They post the full names abortion providers on their websites, along with their addresses, their license plate numbers, their photos, the names of children and the schools those children attend (sometimes with helpful Wild-West-style "Wanted" posters offering $5,000 rewards).

When you convince your followers that abortion providers are the equivalent of SS officers slaughtering innocents by the millions, tell them that "it's all-out WAR" against pro-choicers and then provide the home addresses and personal information of the "monster" "late-term baby-killer" abortion providers you're supposedly at war against, you can't act surprised when those followers conclude that it's morally justified to use the information to kill doctors.

These are not fringe groups. Conservative television personality Bill O'Reilly called Tiller's clinic a "death mill", referred to Tiller as a "baby killer" who was "executing babies about to be born" and said Tiller was doing "Nazi stuff" for which he "had blood on his hands."

... This was not the act of a lone extremist. It is one more act of violence to add to a long, long list of crimes committed by anti-choice terrorists, and it is the logical outcome of years of increasingly violent, dehumanising and threatening rhetoric and action on the part of supposedly mainstream pro-life groups. The responsibility for George Tiller's death surely falls on the shoulders of the person who actually pulled the trigger. But when pro-life groups did everything but give him a gun, their hands are hardly clean.


and as Deborah King points out the Pro-Life movement is an extremist organization comparable to the the Taliban or other religious extremist:

George Tiller's Murder and Sotomayor by Deborah King, at Huff Post , june 1, 2009


This murder--is exactly what religious opponents of abortion have preached and practiced. They have attacked abortion doctors and clinics for decades--and they do so at the behest of religious leaders and politicians who, like their philosophical cousins, the Islamists, denounce Western civilization from pulpits and podiums at sermons and conventions alike.

Most readers are familiar with the anti-abortion rantings of Republicans and Catholic and Christian fundamentalists, who routinely (most recently at the University of Notre Dame) define abortion as murder, a theological view based on the belief that life begins at conception.

Religionists proclaim that abortion is therefore an evil sin which violates God's highest commandments. Among those who denounce abortion as the worst moral transgression in society is Fox News host Bill O'Reilly, who has railed against Dr. Tiller for years, falsely accusing him of executing babies--even a late-term fetus is not a baby--and practically pre-approving any action to stop what O'Reilly wrongly calls "murder".

...Today, President Obama said he was shocked by the murder of Dr. George Tiller and he described abortion as a "difficult" issue. Wrong, Mr. President. You--and all Americans for a woman's right to abortion--must stop equivocating, stop being shocked that those who distort what constitutes murder are willing to commit murder and start defending our rights. Dr. Tiller's murder is an alarm telling us to unite against religious fundamentalism--and against those who tolerate it.


" Abortion Foes and the False Piety of Life's Sanctity " by Jeff Schweitzer, June 2, 2009


...What abortion opponents mean is that some forms of life, that only they have the right to define, are sacred, while others can be disregarded as long as they give the okay.

Perhaps, then, the "sanctity of life" really applies only to human beings. No, that does not work either because abortion foes do not view all human life as sacred; only some life. For example, killing in war is justified, as is lethal injection for convicted criminals. Opponents of abortion are almost universally in favor of the death penalty. Killing an intruder in your home is acceptable. How can one possibly hold these beliefs and claim to believe at the same time that "all life" is sacred? The contradiction is stark, and the assault on logic and reason beyond comprehension.

Pushing the "sanctity of life" becomes particularly problematic when murders are committed for the cause. Those proudly proclaiming support for the sanctity of life support nothing of the kind. The truth is that these folks believe life is sacred on a case-by-case basis, hardly a founding principle.

...Abortion foes claim, as a secondary argument, that the procedure is murder based on the notion that a fertilized egg has the same suite of rights enjoyed by all humans. The belief that a few cells derived from a fertilized egg is a human being is a sad example of good intentions based on misguided notions of biology. The small ball of cells is potentially a human being, but so are eggs and sperm, even if to an unequal degree. All require certain conditions to realize the potential to become human. Ovulation and male masturbation would be acts of murder by the same logic that confers the status of humanness on a fertilized egg or early-stage embryo.

...The real accessory to murder in this story is Randall Terry.


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The Politics of "Murder" by Jeffrey Feldman at Huff Post , June 1, 2009


The murderer of Dr. George Tiller is the product of a political movement that has so thoroughly expanded the definition of "murder" that it now includes everything and everyone who rejects or even questions the idea that a zygote is a citizen. Until that movement changes its focus, it will continue to give rise to activists who kill doctors.

So called "late term abortion" is a hotly contested and controversial practice debated in living rooms and judicial opinions alike. But it is not the reason a right-wing activist shot another doctor. Dr. George Tiller was killed in his church because the right-wing has built a political movement around a violent idea: that America has been transformed by liberals into a culture that "murders" babies.

Like a giant river supported by millions of tiny underground streams, this movement is supported by everyone who defines those with whom they disagree on abortion policy as supporters of "murder."

For those Americans whose worldview has been saturated and distorted by this political movement, "murder" is not just a throwaway term from TV, radio or church. For these few, "murder" has become a dark lens through which they view all of contemporary American society--a poisonous paradigm that leads them to believe the only way to end this new holocaust is to refresh the tree of liberty with the blood of patriots.

... It has become commonplace on the right, for example, to talk about defrosting frozen embryos as an act of "murder." Many on the right talk about the so-called "morning after pill" and the RU486 "abortion pill" as "murder." Many on the right even talk about birth control as "murder."

Murder, murder, murder--the drumbeat is hypnotic. When the right is talking about abortion, they are accusing the left of "murder."


and so it goes,
GORD.

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