Mission Accomplished

Domestic terrorist kills Dr. George Tiller, his clinic shuts down.

The Wichita abortion clinic run by a doctor who was shot and killed will remain closed permanently, his family said on Tuesday.

Dr. George R. Tiller’s clinic was one of the few in the country to provide abortions to women late in their pregnancies, and for decades, women had traveled there from all over the nation and from overseas. It was also the only remaining abortion clinic, even for first trimester abortions, in the Wichita region.

“The family of Dr. George Tiller announces that effective immediately, Women’s Health Care Services, Inc., will be permanently closed,” according to a statement issued on Tuesday morning by the family’s lawyers. “Notice is being given today to all concerned that the Tiller family is ceasing operation of the clinic and any involvement by family members in any other similar clinic.”

Women with catastrophic health issues late in their pregnancies have one less outlet for treatment. And Troy Newman of Operation Rescue is absolutely right: Now, "every kook in the world will get some notion” that they can shut down abortion clinics through murder. It's the "outside" of the inside outside strategy to restrict women's reproductive rights. Women don't actually have a fundamental right to choose their own type of medical care in this country. In far too many states there are only a few abortion providers, and patients have to travel hundreds of miles to find them. In the case of procedures like those practiced by Dr. Tiller, only a handful of states provide them. And not enough doctors are willing to follow Rozalyn Farmer Love and go into the practice. Given the outcome of Dr. Tiller, you can hardly blame them.

We have choice in name only in this country. It harms women, threatens doctors and decreases overall public health. Terrorism has worked.

FBI Comes In To Investigate The Tiller Murder

The FBI has taken on an investigation into the murder of Dr. George Tiller.

A federal investigation has been launched in connection with the fatal shooting of George Tiller, the U.S. Department of Justice announced today.

The department's Civil Rights Division and the U.S. Attorney's Office for Kansas are investigating the case [...]

"The federal probe will consist of a thorough review of the evidence and an assessment of any potential violations of the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act (FACE Act) or other federal statutes," according to a news release issued today by the Justice Department.

The FACE Act was enacted by Congress in 1994 to establish federal criminal penalties and civil remedies for violent, obstructionist or damaging conduct affecting reproductive health care providers and recipients.

Making this a federal crime just ups the ante, and increases the penalties, I believe. Plus it's a good symbolic show of support for the FACE Act. Maybe they can investigate incitement as part of that damaging conduct affecting reproductive health. Those who would put forward false equivalences need to understand the words of Mary Alice Carr:

O'Reilly is being incredibly disingenuous when he claims that he bears no responsibility for others' actions in the killing of Dr. George Tiller on Sunday. When you tell an audience of millions over and over again that someone is an executioner, you cannot feign surprise when someone executes that person.

You cannot claim to hold no responsibility for what other people do when you call for people to besiege Tiller's clinic, as O'Reilly did in January 2008. And this was after Tiller had been shot in both arms and after his clinic had been bombed.

O'Reilly knew that people wanted Tiller dead, and he knew full well that many of those people were avid viewers of his show. Still, he fanned the flames. Every time I appeared on his show, I received vitriolic and hate-filled e-mails. And if I received those messages directly, I can only imagine what type of feedback O'Reilly receives. He knows that his words incite violence.

That is why I made a personal pledge to no longer sit across from him after he called for people to converge on Tiller's clinic. I realized that appearing on the show with him would only legitimize his speech and that no good would come of my efforts.

And I'm glad that, in the wake of this tragedy, people are coming out with stories of how Dr. Tiller helped them. A sample.

To the Tiller family;
When I was 6, my mom was pregnant with a child she really wanted. The doctors told her, abut 4 or 5 months in, that if she carried the child to term, she had a 90 percent chance of not surviving. She of course, got an abortion, and I got my mom for an extra 14 years. Mom died when I was 20, and I have such gratitude for doctors like your husband who gave me my mom for those 14 extra, precious years. My heart goes out to you. May you find healing and may his memory live on in those that he loved and those that he saved.

And:

In 2002 I found out I was carrying triplets. My husband did not want me to have them. The day of my appointment I was scared and not sure this was the right decision. They took me back and did an ultrasound. I asked if they all had heartbeats and the nurse said yes. I asked if I would have the chance to talk to the doctor and right away she went and got Dr Tiller. He came in and looked at my babies on the screen. Then he looked at me and said “God gave you these babies, it’s not my job to take them away.” He asked if I agreed and I immediately said yes. He told the nurse to take me to the counter and have them give me my money. You know that day was a turning point for me. I ended up having a great pregnancy and three healthy baby girls. I can never thank Dr. Tiller enough for sending me away that day.

Late-term abortions are 1% of all abortions total. But the examples here, the personal stories, build a picture of what those medical actions are all about. They're about medical necessity.

Equal Justice

I'm getting to this late, but Jack Balkin (h/t Hilzoy) has some excellent questions about George Tiller's alleged murderer Scott Roeder:

"(1) Should the United States be able to hold Roeder without trial in order to prevent him from returning to society to kill more abortion providers? If we believe that Roeder and other domestic terrorists will plan further attacks on abortion providers and abortion clinics if we let them free, can we subject them to indefinite detention?

(2) The Obama Administration is currently considering a national security court to make decisions about the detention of suspected terrorists, with the power to order continued preventive detention. Should this court be able to hear cases involving U.S. citizens, whether they are Muslim or Christian? (...)

(4) One of the most important reasons for detaining terrorists (suspected or otherwise) is to obtain information about future terrorist attacks that may save lives and prevent future bombings. To procure this information, can the government dispense with the usual constitutional and legal safeguards against coercive interrogation? Should it be able to subject Roeder to enhanced interrogation techniques, including waterboarding and other methods, to determine whether Roeder knows of any other persons who are likely to commit violence against abortion clinics or against abortion providers in the future? Would your answer change if you believed that an attack on an abortion provider or a bombing of an abortion clinic was imminent?

(5) Terrorists and terrorist organizations need money and resources to operate effectively. Often the only way to stop them is to dry up their sources of financial and logistical support. Can the U.S. government freeze the assets of pro-life organizations and make it illegal to contribute money to a pro-life charity that it believes might funnel money or provide material support to persons like Roeder or to organizations that practice violence against abortion providers? Can the government arrest, detain, and seize the property of anti-abortion activists who helped Roeder in any way in the months leading up to his crime, for example by giving him rides or allowing him to stay in their homes?"

In fact, if you want to talk about ticking time bomb scenarios, Roeder would certainly be a subject for interrogation. He has been involved in pro-life movements for many years; he was arrested and convicted in 1996 for attempting to bomb an abortion clinic; he attempted to break and enter into Tiller's clinic in the weeks leading up to the murder (a federal crime under the FACE Act), and his name and license plate number were sent to the FBI; he had the phone number for Operation Rescue in his car, and Operation Rescue provided information about Tiller to Roeder before the shooting. In the wake of Tiller's murder, a pro-life activist published photos and personal information of other doctors who perform late-term abortions.

So on those grounds, considering there may be other individuals seeking to kill American doctors, considering that Roeder has multiple ties to the movement that would carry out those killings, it would only make sense to use the interrorgation techniques on Roeder that would help protect Americans. Right? Furthermore, everyone associated with these movements, all of the dangerous suspected domestic terrorists or those with ties to them, including the commentators who fanned the flames of hate, ought to be locked up without charges so that they don't hurt Americans. Right? Right?

Well, I don't believe the answer is yes. But apparently, on a bipartisan basis, our political leadership does believe that some individuals should be subject to indefinite detention in case they commit a crime in the future, and that the legal system is not equipped to handle them. And the overwhelming majority of at least one major political party believes that torture is justified if it saves American lives. As Hilzoy says:

Obviously, though, these tactics were never meant to be used against people like us. It's only other people -- scary, presumptively guilty other people -- whom we get to detain without trial, based on evidence that would not win a conviction in a normal court of law. Not people like us.

Personally, I think this would be a bad idea. But a lot of people seem to disagree. They seem to think it's fine to toss aside centuries of legal tradition, not to mention our civil liberties. What's really strange is that they claim that they are doing this because they love freedom.

Well said.

Maybe someone in the media could ask any member of either party about this.

Leaving A Trail

It is difficult in a free society to stop a pre-meditated crime. But I think the FBI missed Scott Roeder, when a lot of warning signs were there:

It looks like Scott Roeder, the suspect on the murder of George Tiller, was targeting other abortion providers in the days before Tiller's slaying Sunday.

A worker at a clinic in Kansas City, Kansas at which Roeder regularly demonstrated told CNN that early Saturday morning, he "actually chased after" Roeder after catching him trying to pour epoxy into the facility's locks two weekends in a row.

In other words, it sounds like Roeder was planning to break in to the clinic at a later time.

But could the Feds have used Saturday's incident to try to stop Sunday's? Another worker told CNN he managed to catch the would-be vandal's license plate, and reported it to federal authorities, who told him nothing could be done with the information until a federal grand jury convened. When Roeder was arrested Sunday after allegedly killing Tiller, he was driving a car with that same license number.

And today we learn that an Operation Rescue advisor helped track Tiller for Roeder.

We have criminal justice laws that have served us well for many years. But this guy was practically screaming that he was about to do something violent. And law enforcement failed to pick up on the signs, even when it had the clues. Obviously hindsight is 20/20. And the FBI has a lot on its plate, but abortion provider violence is growing, especially with a pro-choice President in office, and they need to prioritize.

A Small Point

When violence from terrorism killed worshippers at a mosque inside Iran, Robert Gibbs released a statement. When violence from terrorism killed George Tiller in Kansas, the President himself made the statement. It's symbolic, but also important in terms of him using his bully pulpit.

I am shocked and outraged by the murder of Dr. George Tiller as he attended church services this morning. However profound our differences as Americans over difficult issues such as abortion, they cannot be resolved by heinous acts of violence.

Meanwhile, a Muslim convert acting alone killed a soldier in a recruiting center in Arkansas. The President should release a statement on that as well.

At some point in the future, a President will release a statement on these killings tying them to easy access to firearms, one hopes.

The Work Goes On

Bill O'Reilly spent an entire hour last night assuming that the murder of George Tiller was actually an attack on him. He brushed past his rote one-line expression of sorrow, claimed that everything he ever said about Tiller was true and based on facts, and then played the "who's attacking me now" game for the rest of the program. It looked to me like his only regret at Tiller's murder was that he wasn't on vacation at the time.

O'Reilly hosted a couple far-right lawyers who have been active in trying to get Tiller's perfectly legal clinic shut down, using some of those "facts" that are actually vicious lies that show their bias. But Scott Roeder and the fascist movement also dedicated to this goal did not succeed. The clinic will stay open.

The slaying Sunday of one of the nation's most prominent abortion providers has left a local colleague outraged but with a renewed resolve. Dr. LeRoy Carhart of Bellevue is preparing to temporarily take the helm at his slain friend's clinic in Wichita, Kan.

"Harm one of us, it won't do anything to harm the movement," said Carhart, head of the Abortion and Contraception Clinic of Nebraska.

Carhart described himself as a close friend of Dr. George Tiller's. Tiller was shot and killed Sunday morning in the lobby of the Lutheran church he attends in Wichita, Kan. He was serving as an usher [...]

After Sunday's fatal shooting, Tiller's chief nurse called Carhart. Carhart made arrangements to keep his Bellevue clinic open while he is gone. When contacted Sunday, he said he was en route to Wichita to run Tiller's clinic for at least the next week.

That's key. Intimidation and extremism have helped deny access to women's health services across the country. But brave men and women are stepping up, and refusing to be cowed.

By the way, it's important to understand what Tiller provided, legal services that have been demonized by the right.

I know most of my readers are pro-choice but I still think it worth considering what it means to ask a woman to carry a pregnancy to term when she knows that the baby will have one of the following conditions:
Anencephaly
Trisomy 13
Trisomy 18
Trisomy 21
Polycystic kidney disease
Spina bifida
Hydrocephalus
Potter's syndrome
Lethal dwarfism
Holoprosencephaly
Anterior and posterior encephalocele
Non-immune hydrops

The cached version of Dr. Tiller's admission criteria shows the following:

Admission Criteria
In order to offer you an appointment, we require that a physician refer you to our center. In addition, we need your genetic counselor or doctor to provide us with gestational and diagnostic information regarding your pregnancy. Over the past twenty-five years, we have had experience with pregnancy terminations in such situations as anencephaly, Trisomy 13, 18, and 21, polycystic kidney disease, spina bifida, hydrocephalus, Potter's syndrome, lethal dwarfism, holoprosencephaly, anterior and posterior encephalocele, non-immune hydrops, and a variety of other very significant abnormalities.

Amanda Marcotte has a great video about this as well.

RH Reality Check: Late Term Abortions from RH Reality Check on Vimeo.

Where Was The FBI?

Scott Roeder, the suspect in the murder of George Tiller, overtly supported killing abortion providers.

"I know that he believed in justifiable homicide," said Regina Dinwiddie, a Kansas City anti-abortion activist who made headlines in 1995 when she was ordered by a federal judge to stop using a bullhorn within 500 feet of any abortion clinic. "I know he very strongly believed that abortion was murder and that you ought to defend the little ones, both born and unborn."

Why did Regina Dinwiddie keep silent as this man espoused a belief in killing doctors providing legal practices? If someone had prior knowledge of a serial killer's intent and said nothing, I mean, isn't there something close to an accessory statute here? We already had knowledge of Roeder's involvement in the "Freemen" movement, which "claimed sovereignty from government jurisdiction and operated under their own legal system." We didn't have perfect knowledge on this guy, but seemingly enough to put together a conspiracy charge. Roeder openly affiliated with two organizations cited in the DHS rightwing extremism report, for example. Presumably DHS didn't write that report simply as an after-the-violence reference guide.

Now, scumbags like Tucker Carlson prefer to continue to demonize the late Tiller and compare him to a Nazi or a member of Al Qaeda. But I'm looking at the demonstrable reality of anti-abortion movement violence over close to 20 years, and seeing these players in that movement, and wondering why law enforcement personnel cannot protect citizens providing legal services.

I guess they were too busy spying on vegans.

...I'm going to back off of this slightly. I recognize that in a free society, we have to walk a fine line and cannot use the instruments of the law in a punitive way to take anyone's civil liberties. I reject preventive detention or prosecuting thought crimes. We don't want a totalitarian police state. I think that these right-wing movements with a history of violence bear monitoring, but there is a limit to what we can do.

Radio Télévision Libre des Mille Collines

Not hard to picture the reaction of an unbalanced person to this daily drumbeat.



Apparently, Billo will "address" the subject on his program tonight. But only tonight, I suspect. Then he'll find another enemy to demonize. And then feign shock when that person gets gunned down, too.

Domestic Terrorism That Works

I dashed off a short post about George Tiller's murder yesterday, but it's too important to just shake your head about and move on. As one of the only other doctors who performs the kind of abortions that Tiller provided said yesterday, Tiller's murder was an act of intimidation, meant not only for him but the entire medical community.

“I’m profoundly sad and I’m furious and I think the American people need to understand that we have a fascist movement in this country,” Dr. Warren Hern told The Colorado Independent on Sunday. “We don’t have to invade Iraq to find terrorists. They’re right here killing abortion doctors.”

“Every doctor that does abortions has been under an assassination threat for decades,” Hern said. “The anti-abortion movement message is, ‘Do what we tell you to do or we will kill you,’ and they do. This is a fascist movement.”

Hern laid blame for Tiller’s death at the feet of the anti-abortion movement’s encouragement of violence against abortion providers and the Republican Party’s “exploitation” of the extremist rhetoric.

“Dr. Tiller is dead by an anti-abortion assassin, and this is the absolutely inevitable consequence of 35 years of anti-abortion fanatic rhetoric and intimidation and assassination violence and exploitation by the Republican Party of this movement,” Hern told the Independent.

You can see simply from the sewage from the right wing in reaction to the murder that this killing will not be some sort of wake-up call for an extremist movement. In fact, what is more likely to happen is that the reactionaries recognize the success of their efforts. A substantial portion of the doctors willing to perform legal medical services for women died yesterday, and who, given the circumstance, will rise to take his place? Deciding to work at a women's health clinic means deciding to work at the most targeted sites for terrorism in America, and I cannot blame anyone for preferring a different line of work. Over the past ten years or so, access to abortion has plummeted, both through this kind of intimidation and chipping away by right-wing state and local governments. A legal right is not necessarily legal if you cannot find it.

Tiller's death is a wake-up call to the fact that our existing laws and regulatory bodies to protect against clinic violence aren't working as well as they should. As written, FACE (Freedom to Access at Clinic Entrances) provides a lot of protection for reproductive health providers. But we need an active task force -- or some other means of accountability -- to make sure the law is fully enforced. This is something Obama's Justice Department could commit to doing tomorrow, sending a strong signal that this type of domestic terrorism is not acceptable.

It's apparent that we need someone at the federal level who is paying attention. After all, Tiller's assassin was not acting in vacuum. Even if no national anti-choice group directly ordered him to fire that gun, he is a product of a culture that thrives on systematically threatening reproductive health care providers and women who seek abortions. Militant anti-choice groups like Operation Rescue -- which has endorsed intimidation tactics in the past -- released statements yesterday condemning Tiller's assassination.

But after years of sending the message to its avid base that Tiller was a sub-human monster, a press release expressing dismay at the killing does little good. On the sidebar of the Operation Rescue blog, near where the press release appeared, was a small image featuring Dr. Tiller's face, some very sinister-looking flames, and the words "America's Doctor of Death," linking to a detailed dossier about all of Tiller's offenses. Other groups keep databases of reproductive health providers' addresses and phone numbers, all but daring their members to conduct harassment campaigns.

Letting FACE go unenforced is not just bad for clinic staff. This pattern of intimidation can affect the quality of care women receive.

For his part, Attorney General Eric Holder has dispatched US Marshals to protect certain individuals and clinics. But the violence that has raged for over thirty years, and the movement of hate that fanned the flames in so-called "respectable" outlets, is sure to continue. Women don't have the same access to treatment that men do, simply put. And that's a problem for all of us.

...check out the profile of the suspect in custody in this case. There are hundreds, if not thousands of people willing to do this work.

...Greg Sargent makes the excellent point that the Department of Homeland Security's report on "right-wing extremism" looks pretty prescient right now.

Culture Of Life

George Tiller, abortion provider, murdered at his Wichita church this morning at the age of 67.