Online Personal Narratives from Patients of Murdered Late-Term Abortion Provider
Where will women go now? (Salon, via @zephoria)Susan Hill, President of the National Women's Health Foundation, who knew Dr. Tiller for over two decades and referred girls and women to his clinic, said in a phone interview, "We always sent the really tragic cases to Tiller." Those included women diagnosed with cancer who needed abortions to qualify for chemotherapy, women who learned late in their pregnancies that their wanted babies had fatal illnesses, and rape victims so young they didn't realize they were pregnant for months. "We sent him 11-year-olds, 12-year-olds who were way too far along for anybody [else] to see," said Hill. "Eleven-year-olds don't tell anybody. Sometimes they don't even know they've had a period."
Since the news of Dr. Tiller's murder broke, personal narratives from people who used his services have been appearing around the Web. A commenter at the blog Balloon Juice told the story of finding out in the eighth month of his wife's pregnancy that she was carrying conjoined twins. "Conjoined twins alone is not what was so difficult but the way they were joined meant that at best only one child would survive the surgery to separate them and the survivor would more than likely live a brief and painful life filled with surgery and organ transplants." They chose to terminate the much-wanted pregnancy, rather than bring a child into the world only to suffer and die. "The nightmare of our decision and the aftermath was only made bearable by the warmth and compassion of Dr. Tiller and his remarkable staff."
A commenter on Metafilter tells a similar story: "My wife and I spent a week in Dr. Tiller's care after we learned our 21 week fetus had a severe defect incompatible with life. The laws in our state prevented us from ending the pregnancy there, and Dr. Tiller was one of maybe three choices in the whole nation at that gestational age." He went on to share his memories of Dr. Tiller. "I remember him firmly stating that he regarded the abortion debate in the US to be about the control of women's sexuality and reproduction. I remember he spent over six hours in one-on-one care with my wife when there was concern she had an infection. We're talking about a physician here. Six hours.... The walls of the clinic reception and waiting room are literally covered with letters from patients thanking him. Some were heartbreaking -- obviously young and/or poorly educated people thanking Dr. Tiller for being there when they had no other options, explaining their family, church, etc. had abandoned them."
Also by Harding, in today's Salon: "Protecting abortion providers: A friend of George Tiller's says the doctor knew something bad was coming. Why couldn't anyone stop it?"
Image of Dr. Tiller taken from a Wayback Machine cache of drtiller.com. Site is now offline.
Fox spokesdouche Bill O'Reilly produced a number of hateful, incendiary stories about Tiller. Here's an AP item about that. And here is another piece in the NYT.
the latest
latest episodes
Everyone knows abortion is just birth control for lazy, godless, infanticidal liberals.
thank you for posting this, Xeni
Please keep the comments civil and sober, folks.
Such hypocrites: to kill him for supposedly "killing" unborn babies.
What's shocking to me, is that I had NO idea that only three doctors (but now none?) performed late-term abortions in the U.S. for these horrible cases, where ALL logic points to no other avenue of mercy BUT abortion. If this was Bush Co. policy, when is Obama going to step up and change it?
These supposed "Christians" don't give a f*ck about true mercy... the mercy to not bring deformed babies into this world... or babies of 11-year-old rape victims. This man was a saint for women's rights... and couple's rights. And the rights of little girls who never asked to get raped and were ignorant of their pregnancies until late in their terms, because they'd hadn't been aware of having had their menarche yet.
(BTW, ovulation can happen prior to menarche... in the sense that just a little bit of clear fluid, rather than a week's worth of "red" blood is produced, thus confusing some young girls about the fact that they are now fertile... and will soon be having regular periods.)
@manooshi, as I thought aloud on Twitter earlier today -- pro-life murder? Ultimate oxymoron.
@#4 The other two clinics are still open and Tiller's will open with new doctors after a week of morning.
Late term abortion - horrifying. That's all I have to say about that.
@Tom Hale, I think the point here is that the alternatives for these women (and couples) were also horrifying.
And, in many cases, involved the likely death of the mother or child, or both.
In none of these narratives do I hear a woman making this choice lightly, or without full cognizance of the trauma, tragedy and suffering involved.
Merriborn, how cruel can you be? After reading that this article is NOT about "abortion as birth control" but instead, heartbreaking health care NECESSITY in these cases, you STILL don't get it. Shame on you for your ignorance, intolerance and lack of compassion. -Jeanne
@9
I pray that Merriborn was being ironic.
Extremists never understand that the world isn't perfect.
Often you have to choose between horrible and even more horrible.
It's sad that some people have no empathy, and are unwilling to understand that the world isn't black and white.
Thank you for posting xeni.
Conservatives should understand, abortion isn't murder. It's an eviction. These unwanted fetuses are nothing but freeloaders, parasites on the hard working, living, breathing mothers.
Nobody's killing them, they're just evicting them so that they can make their own way in the world. The fact that they cannot survive outside of the human body is not a fault of the mother or the abortionist- but the lazy, irresponsible fetus demanding some sort of a welfare from a world that owes them nothing.
That's the conservative thing to do.
Thank you, Xeni, for posting this. It is important to remember the people affected and the heart-wrenching decisions they must make. While I personally don't believe in abortion except in extreme cases, I certainly think everyone should have the right to make their own decision. Having some real stories helps put the debate in perspective.
The irony of murdering an abortion provider in the name "Pro-Life" is astonishing. The only thing left to do now is to seek the death penalty for his killer. If we kill everyone, then will justice be served?
This debate is unresolvable-- if you, for whatever reason, happen to think that a fetus is a human being, then most of the arguments against it don't fly. Would you kill someone to save an eleven-year-old trauma? Bad trauma, yes, but worth killing someone over? Kill someone to reduce the risk of harm to someone else-- not prevent absolutely, but merely reduce the risk?
As a general principle, preventing human suffering comes second to preserving human life.
Until or unless the debate over what a human being is gets resolved between the pro- and anti-abortion camps, there's literally no common ground for discussion. And, unfortunately, there's no absolutely true definition of what a human being is or isn't-- it's just a question of what seems like one to the person being asked.
#9-The first post was clearly facetious.
Brings to mind Ani Difranco's "Hello Birmingham":
it was just one shot
through the kitchen window
it was just two miles from here
if you fly like a crow
a bullet came to visit a doctor
in his one safe place
a bullet ensuring the right to life
whizzed past his kid and his wife
and knocked his glasses
right off of his face
and the blood poured off the pulpit
yeah the blood poured down the picket lines
yeah, the hatred was immediate
and the vengence was divine
so they went and stuffed god
down the barrel of a gun
and after him
they stuffed his only son
I can not believe this is still happening in 2009.
I know I've made alot of Backwardstown USA comments, around here, to an extent there was some tongue in my cheek.
But this is beyond the pale - it's issues (and responses to thm) like this that really paint America as a country being held hostage by moralists living in last century.
Even worse - this "controversy" over the right of a individual to chose is spilling over international waters and giving some sort of... credibility to the "pro-life" morons in my neck of the woods.
The time is nearing: we need to lose the "cultural" dependance on the US (read: importing sitcoms), build a big-arse wall around the USofA and let the smart ones emigrate before the gate is shut.
Late term abortion - horrifying.
I worked in a tertiary care hospital. I've seen babies with no head and eight limbs. I'll see your 'horrifying' and raise you a 'bloodcurdling'.
13: "the only thing left to do is seek the death penalty for the killer."
I'm happily volunteering my time to start construction on that wall, people. A government that tortures, a populace that lets their government murder it's own citizens at astounding rates.
What is wrong with you people?
Lol Fox.
What is most horrifying is the framing of this murder/terrorism as an almost inevitable result of the abortion "debate". Gunning someone down in cold blood because of his LAWFUL activities and membership in a group (in this case doctors who provide abortion) to suppress that groups activities is domestic terrorism and should be treated harshly as such by federal and state government.
My heart goes out to Tiller's family and I thank them and him for dealing with daily horrors in order that those who were truly suffering could be helped. I thank those who received his services for courageously speaking out in his defense. I think at this point there voices are the only ones that will cut through ignorant hate monger blitz.
I'm sorry - I didn't read all of the post before I commented. In the situations listed, I have no problem with late term abortion. I think that people that use abortion as birth control and some of the horrible stories I've heard relating to this has made it difficult for me to think about this subject clearly.
@19- J France
The answer's quite obvious-- a relatively large number of people here compared to other industrialized countries consider the value of (adult) human life or human happiness to be of relatively low value compared to the average in other countries.
Put another way, we're much more attached to ideas than we are to actual people.
18: Horrifying, distressing, life shattering.
And that is for the people making the choice... having to make the choice. Add the weight of feeling like a murderer, being harassed and vilified by media, by morons at the clinic.
For the armchair judges and holier than thou, nothing about it should be horrifying. Perhaps their reflections, or the machinations of their thoughts. Sometimes things suck, life sucks, life is unfair. It's equally true of pregnant women and the developing embryo they carry.
How bringing a human being into the world who will live a short life filled with nothing but pain, possibly at risk to the mother's life is not worse than abortion I don't understand.
@21 JBAD- Again, consider the perspective of the person who is doing the shooting. Would you suggest that shooting a state-supported killer in a foreign country would be an act which needed to be punished harshly, or one that should be supported?
To you or me, he's a medical doctor performing an important service. To the shooter, he was morally indistinguishable from a concentration camp guard.
22: At least you can be honest.
And from whom did these stories come, the ones you base you horror on.
And how many people use abortion as birth control? Citations? Stats? Hysterical ranting from a biased source?
And even if a woman choses to do so - it is irresponsible, and not in the interest of her long-term reproductive health. But it is also her decision. And no-ones idea of what or who their god is, or what is right or wrong, should have any say in her right to do so.
Once you've removed a woman's right to control her own body, you've removed her most basic freedom. Life without freedom isn't much of a life.
cicada - nice troll there.
or are you serious?
a very simple proof who is in the moral right here: anti-choicer/pro-slavers: blood repeatedly on their hands. Pro-women/anti-slavers: not one opponent (even that walking sack of hyena vomit, Blotchy Oreilly, killed.
To the shooter, he was morally indistinguishable from a concentration camp guard.
To psychopaths, we're all indistinguishable from cattle. Not a very compelling moral argument.
JFrance - I don't want to get into a discussion about choice vs pro life - I don't think we'd get anywhere on that subject.
I won't be a hypocrite though - when I was 17, my girlfriend was 3-4 weeks late. We decided to abort the baby if she was indeed pregnant. We were scared to death - thank God she wasn't pregnant.
@28- MDH.
No trolling at all. Just trying to explain what's probably going on in the shooter's head-- that he sees the issue as a case of a man who kills innocent human beings by the dozen? hundred? with the sanction of the state.
Arguments of the type "But it made someone's life better for the Doctor to do this" aren't going to fly against that line of thought.
@30- Let me ask a question of you, if you don't mind participating in a thought experiment- if you thought that fetuses were actually human beings, and essentially possessed of the same rights and protections that a newborn baby had, would your views on abortion change to any degree?
1) I am a Christian.
2) Killing Dr. Tiller was WRONG. Christ never advocated killing anybody as a means of winning an argument or proving a point, so please understand that a true follower of Christ will be just as horrified as the rest of you at this turn of events.
3) Bill O'Reilly is a hateful, condescending douche.
@ 21
You miss the point
1) I referred to the framing of this murder by the media as somehow permissible or semantically dismissible see post 21.
2) even Nazi concentration camp guards have the right of being tried by an international court.
3) do you suggest guards at Abu Girhab should be murdered in church?
Bill O’Reilly, give us some of that preaching about "personal responsibility".
Doctor’s Killer Is Not Alone in the Blame, Some Say
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/02/us/02blame.html?_r=2&hp
+1 exosystem, thanks for saying that.
@35- For point number two, consider a case where the International Court supported death camps? Or, basically, where you know full well there will be no legal remedy to what you consider to be a horrifying moral wrong.
For point three, poll the families...
Abu Ghraib, get it right, it is important.
#14 "As a general principle, preventing human suffering comes second to preserving human life"
And therein lies the problem. Far too many people believe that they have a right to interfere in the lives of other people, to make life or death (or worse, because only an idiot would think that is the worst thing) decisions on their behalf, all without having to deal with any of the consequences.
The sad fact is that the fundamentalist ideal of life being more important than wellbeing has been allowed to smother any thought or discussion on that very subject. Life isn't paramount, and only those untested by its harshness would blindly subscribe to that idea. There is a choice in these situations, as there should be, as to whether the benefits justify the costs. That choice shouldn't rest with anyone other than those who'll be paying the price for it.
Nobody is forcing those who value life above living to practice abortion - if only the rest of us were shown the same courtesy and respect.
America is slowly turning into a real mess. As an outsider, I keep hoping that rational people will take back their own country. However, I fear that we are just going to see more domestic terrorist activity like this.
#19--I was being facetious. Sorry that did not come over in type.
I have no doubt that the state will, in fact, seek the death penalty. I find it tragic that justice will somehow be done by killing the murderer. He killed to stop killing, so we will kill him.
@Cicada
"if you thought that fetuses were actually human beings, and essentially possessed of the same rights and protections that a newborn baby had, would your views on abortion change to any degree?"
No. The circumstances related in this article are ones in which bringing the baby into the world would not only cause the baby pain and suffering, but the mother as well.
It all comes down to the calculus of human suffering; is the baby's short pain-filled life going to be better then no life at all?
I believe in causing the least amount of pain and suffering. And if aborting a rape baby causes someone to suffer less? Then that is a REAL victory.
@42- Then the next obvious question about that logic is-- would you support a parent wishing to euthanize a young rape victim to keep her from enduring the subsequent pain and emotional suffering? That would be the route that would cause the least amount of pain and suffering. Consider the question also in the context of societies where there's considerable stigma attached to being a rape victim, adding to the suffering.
the fundies never gave a damn about the "life" of a few cells, what they have always craved is the utter obedience of the woman. It has always been about control, hatred, fear, power and control.
Cicada:
It doesn't matter that Dr. Tiller's murderer believed that he was doing the right thing. Everyone already knows that, in any case. Your inappropriate and condescending "thought experiment" isn't teaching anyone anything new.
Most murderers who are motivated by ideology believe that what they are doing is right. They don't think to themselves, "Bombing a bus stop is the wrong thing to do, but I'm going to do it anyway because it's fun," they think, "I'm protecting my people from [x]." They don't think, "I'm going to round up Jews and kill them," they think, "The Jews are threatening our way of life."
The way you keep harping on this frankly irrelevant and obvious fact makes it seem as though you're trying to legitimize the murder - not by excusing it entirely, but by making it out to be somehow different than other instances of terrorism and hate crime, because the man had the "good intention" to save babies. But it's just more of the same.
The shooter has far more in common with your hypothetical Nazi camp guard than Dr. Tiller.
Takuan makes a good point. Conservatives are only the target when someone is trying to impress Jodi Foster.
Cicada - I can imagine feeling so terribly misrepresented by my government and society, because I lived through the Bush years.
But I didn't pick up a weapon, I voted. That guy was a fuckwit, End of statement.
("That guy" being the shooter, for those who don't follow my occasionally extreme grammar)
Godwin's Rule of Nazi Analogies
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_law
@45- I'm not trying to legitimize the murder, merely asking the question of how you would persuade someone who thought shooting abortion doctors was a good and moral thing to do was in fact not a good and moral thing to do? Killing to save a life has precedent, killing to stop suffering (without the consent of the sufferer) generally does not.
Or, hell, we can all say "Yep, guy ought not have shot the dude" and have a group hug.
I'm fairly certain that for late-term abortions like the kind Dr. Tiller performed, patients needed at least two doctors who would state that a late-term abortion was a possible alternative. I'll try to find the article I read with that. Point being -- these weren't "oops, I sort of changed my mind" kind of situations, they were women in danger and foetuses with little or no hope.
@43
"That would be the route that would cause the least amount of pain and suffering."
Not true. Let me lay it out for you.
Fetus with inoperable heart condition: Born to pain, waits for an organ, in pain, dies. Other option is abortion, less pain, less suffering, less trauma for the mother.
Rape victim in Islamic state: Already a human being with a depth of experience, with some small (or large) part of it positive. No matter how much negative social stigma you attach to that, there is the potential for more positive experience. A baby with a .00001 percent chance of a normal life doesn't have that potential for a positve experience (or that potential is so small that subjecting it to pain for that chance is cruel).
Your scenario would have us euthanize the portion of the human race that has experienced any sort of suffering at all (that would be EVERYBODY).
merely asking the question of how you would persuade someone who thought shooting abortion doctors was a good and moral thing to do was in fact not a good and moral thing to do
seriously?
You can't.
But you can teach their children better.
If that scumbag (the shooter) cared so much about children that he was willing to commit murder in order to save them, why didn't he care enough to commit lesser crimes in order to save them?
Did he break into parking meters and give the money to unwed mothers?
Did he hold up a liquor store and give all the money to an orphanage?
Did he prostitute himself and give the money to someone else so they could adopt a child?
Did he adopt?
No?
Then the 'saving the children' angle is just a smokescreen, and he's just a hateful murdering nutcase.
And there you have it, this guy is an ass, I've proven it without even touching on the subject of whether a foetus is 'human' or not.
@51- Yes, it would require euthanizing everyone, which was why I was a bit confused at you saying it in that fashion. Now, whether you'd euthanize someone who was unlikely to have more positive experiences _after_ already having a life of some ups and downs...
@53- I don't think the shooter was concerned with _quality_ of life in any way, merely the presence of the life itself. Your examples, save possibly the first (pay 'em not to abort) would be unlikely to have saved lives.
A member of a religious faith believes that an action of another person is reprehensible, morally wrong, and destructive to society and individuals. This person believes it is his duty to take matters in his own hands and stop the action that he believes is killing people. So he straps on a bomb, flys a plane into a building or shoots a doctor.
If this were a muslim killing marines who invaded his town and bombed his sisters wedding - we'd call him a terrorist. If this were a Somali attacking ships with the flag of the country dumping nuclear waste on his coastline - we'd call him a pirate.
Because he is a white, American, Nascar loving, mouth breathing, semi-literate, Jesus loving, fat idiot - we call him pro-life or anti abortion.
He's a religious terrorist - maybe we should bomb his country?
At risk of being called a troll, I'm going to (not sarcastically or ironically) agree with you, Cicada. Your "thought experiment" has been my thoughts about this murder since it happened.
I know I think this Roeder guy acted quite immorally. But who am I to impose my moral system on him? I'm OK with killing Hitler, and to Roeder, Dr. Tiller was equivalent to Hitler. Are my morals so unassailable that I must be correct in saying that Dr. Tiller is much more morally good than Hitler?
I'm not sure I can make that judgment. What if the pro-lifers are right, that a fetus really is a human life? What if we are all "Little Eichmanns"? What then?
I doubt that's the case. I hope that's not the case. But it's a legitimate possibility and something to think about.
@52- MDH- Which, barring courses in grade schools on why abortion is a good and moral thing, you can't do. They teach their kids.
It's sad that the truly good people in this world end up killed when the truly deserving Bill O'Reileys of this world live on to spew their hate and lead the sheeple to blind hatred.
#54 Cicada: Your examples, save possibly the first (pay 'em not to abort) would be unlikely to have saved lives.
Irrelevant.
It's easy to come up with ways that Roeder could have used crime to save the lives of children without having to resort to violence.
Did he ram ATMs and send the money to starving children?
Did he forge money to help fund research into deadly childhood diseases?
No.
Instead, he'll spend the next few decades living off the taxpayer's money. Money that could have been spent giving life-saving immunisations, giving life-saving education, or putting in place life-saving safety measures.
I've read a bit more about this, and it looks like Roeder might suffer from Schizophrenia, and did not take medication.
His actions were not the actions of a sane man, and I think this is the kindest thing one can say about them.
What if the pro-lifers are right, that a fetus really is a human life?
Doesn't matter - Roeder is still wrong. See my previous posts.
For those that couldn't make it through the linked-to NYT article:
@29: What about John Brown? Very anti-slavery, but a murderous fanatic too.
@45: I don't think there's anything condescending and inappropriate about Cicada's "thought experiment." A lot of otherwise descent and caring individuals become bizzerk when it comes to certain issues -- not to the point of murder, of course, but enough to become hateful fanatics in this one area. People are complex. I know a lot of people like this. I prefer to try to see their point of view rather than to demonize them as Nazis. That doesn't mean I give their beliefs any legitimacy -- quite the contrary. I think that they have been blinded by hate. It's a trap I've never quite fallen into, but I'm sure I've felt its pull.
I also think there's a difference between addressing the issue of fanatical anti-abortionists in general, and an apology for the particular man that murdered a doctor. Anti-semitism used to be quite common -- if I inquire as to its causes, am a then an apologist for Nazism? Where I'm from (a very "red" state), many people feel the same way about abortionists as radical anti-semites feel about Jews (again, not enough to murder them, but with an intense hatred). These aren't kooks on the street corner; they are my neighbors and co-workers. Many of the most strongly anti-abortion have adopted children (including so-called "special needs" children). They aren't cartoon Nazis. I've found -- from talking and listening to such people -- that they become hateful when they have learned to reduce their ideological enemies to caricature.
Not only does killing Dr. Tiller not save lives by any pro-Choice definition, it probably isn't really saving any by any anti-Choice definition, either. What with the *reasons* Dr. Tiller would perform abortions and all.
Anyway. 'To save lives' may indeed be how Roeder and his ilk justify their violence, but I will note that you don't see them protesting over things like genocide in Darfur. Born people apparently aren't as important as fetuses.
From Wikipedia on Godwin's Law:
Saying that civilian violence stirred up by political invective is analogous to events in the history of the Third Reich is different than saying, "You're a Nazi because you disagree with me."
#53 Watch the news, read books, see a movie. They all tell you that it's acceptable to kill the badguys. If said doctor was killing kids in his basement, and was killed for it, our conversation would be very differant right now.
From the point of view of this sort of person, it's perfectly simple. "He's killing babies. Nobody else will stop him. I will."
In the mind of the shooter, this probably isn't any differant from killing a werewolf, or hitler or what have you - Tiller was a monster that needed to die.
As Chris Rock once said (roughly), "Why can't people just do crazy shit because they're crazy?"
Cicada- I also agree with you. Also let me add something to the table. In my college morality and ethics class (which was a while ago so...) my teacher told us that one way to "test" your morals is to ask yourself if you think you would still be for/against x if you didn't know which character you were. Meaning would a person still be pro life if you didn't know if you were A) the mother, willing to die B) the doctor, performing the abortion C) The fetus who may suffer over great lenths of time, or D) the father (I add this because I do feel that a father's input should at the very least be considered). In this case I would say that I would still be pro choice because A) I think would choose death, but I won't tell my neighbor they have to B) I believe in every person's right to choose for themselves what is best for their life C) I would rather not suffer needlessly (obviously) and D) as a perent in general I wouldn't want my kids or partner to suffer needlessly. Now obviously I don't know for sure about these as I haven't experienced them, but based on my beliefs and morals I do truly hope that I would feel this way.
for many years, the mouth-breathing, sloping forehead, bigoted homophobes have felt free to beat and kill gay people at will - with the fundies cheerleading each murder and giving shelter and comfort to the killers. As of late I see a new trend: meeting force with force. Groups like the Pink Pistols advocating the carrying of guns - and their use in self-defense. I imagine in time your average idiot thinking he will enjoy a Saturday night of assault and mayhem may begin to think again after the first few killings in self-defense.
I hope so. I wonder if we are reaching a similar critical phase in the anti-choice/pro-slavery battle? The health care providers that are being attacked by the cowardly assassins are not all under religious proscriptions against killing assailants. I wonder if we will start to see violent reaction to violence - at last.
Cicada - "Until or unless the debate over what a human being is gets resolved between the pro- and anti-abortion camps, there's literally no common ground for discussion."
This is what you're missing man. The people who whip up these masses RELY on unresolved differences. Whenever there is a resolution there is just a new schism to create new unresolved differences to whip people up with.
resolve THAT and we're working towards something.
@Cicada
I think you're a brave soul playing devil's advocate on such a topic, and generally you're doing well. However when you boil the argument down to:
I think your analogy disolves.
An unborn child is part of the mother. They are one physical entity. In a case where the growth of the foetus poses a severe risk to the mother, to try and consider them as unique entities, or make comparisons with unique entities, is impossible.
A personal story I'll share:
While all the haters think of abortion as a black and white issue, the reality, as stated by many above is that it is quite nuanced. When my wife and I found out she was pregnant in 2005, we jumped for joy. The first ultrasound was well and, like many expectant parents we began to plan for our little bundle of joy. At the key 3 month mark, with our doctor out of town, we were referred to a colleague who would give us the next ultrasound which was also one to determine the health of the baby. Like some of the stories shared, we watched the screen carefully, not noticing anything amiss. It was the look on the doctor's face that told us everything we needed to know. Something was wrong. Very wrong.
I'd never thought much about abortion. I'd been all for it, and thought and still think it is a fundamental right for women everywhere. But as the saying goes, until you've walked a mile in a (wo)man's shoes...
The baby was utterly deformed. The suture along the front of the chest cavity hadn't closed properly and all the digestive tract was developing outside the body. The baby was alive, but clearly this wasn't a viable fetus and even if it were to survive, it would lead a difficult life filled with surgeries with questionable success rates.
In trying times when making decisions about your kids, who cannot speak for themselves, I believe most parents ask what they would want someone to do for them if they were incapacitated. Leading a painful life without much hope isn't something I'd want for me, so you make your decisions and hope it's the right one.
It was the first time I'd have to think about something like this. In the end the fetus died before we had to make a decision, making a tough call a no-call on our parts, saving us much anguish (but still anguish-filled).
Don't judge these people who get a late-term abortion. They all have individuals stories filled with heartache, pain and sorrow. For anyone to carry a baby almost to term and decide to abort is not an easy decision and will ultimately haunt her (and him) for a lifetime. We still think about our little one that wasn't-to-be.
Judge not lest ye be judged. Don't think what is best for you is best for any and everyone in this world.
@67- One would imagine so. There's nothing like a good dose of self-interested concern for personal wellbeing to encourage debate and negotiation rather than a shoot-out.
Unless the guy actually was schizophrenic as suggested, in which case the doc'd just have to hope to get lucky.
@69- That one's tricky to argue, admittedly, and I can see definitions going both ways. Generally people talk as through the fetus was a separate thing-- "Want to see an ultrsound of my baby?" versus "Want to see this growth I have?".
tricky? Difficult to draw a line perhaps, as say death with dignity is not always so easy.
As will a true Scotsman !
Takuan @29, actually, exactly one opponent of abortion rights killed: In 1993, Eileen Janezic fatally shot Jerry Simon (a TV show host and minister) in his own church.
That's compared to at least nine murdered clinic doctors, other employees, or escorts, over the same period.
(I'm not counting attempted murders, other violence, vandalism, bombings, arson, etc. I'm also not counting ordinary personal violence -- where a couple disagrees about whether or not to get an abortion, and one attacks the other.)
Avram @ 74
Eileen Janezic, however, wasn't doing it in the name of freedom. From Wikipedia:
"Janezic had previously attended at Simon's church but claimed to be a Satanist. A psychologist, Dr. Roger Rinn, testified that Janezic suffered from bipolar disorder and believed that carrying out the murder was "Satan's will""
I disagree Cicada. I think its very tricky indeed to argue that terminating a pregnancy that poses a significant threat to the mother is comparable in any way to a situation involving two persons.
Establishing the personhood of unborn children is philosophy, not science, and I'm certainly not arguing that an unborn child has no claim to personhood or that it is totally irrational to give them equal personhood to those who are born.
I am saying, however, that the nature of the relationship between a pregnant woman and her feotus is unique, and cannot be morally compared to the relationship between any two people in a sensible way. This is perhaps less true if the pregnancy does not pose a danger to the mother, but I think it is still an issue.
Certainly, the suggestion that it is in any way comparible to euthenising trauma victims to spare them suffering, is glib, inappropriate and unsustainable.
a stupid debut
@77- Robulus
Of course it's a matter of philosophy- the entire concept of "person" is a matter of philosophy, not science, and likely comes down to a "gut feeling" with bare scraps of reason to support it. Are siamese twins separate people?
As for the comparison, the notion of ending a life (or whatever you'd call it) to end suffering again seems to hinge on whether the euthanized is a person or not. What difference, basically, does cutting an umbilical cord make? Some? None? All? Anything that doesn't reduce to an arbitrary premise?
when does awareness begin? I see aware people every day, left on the street to die. No question about them.
cicada, the concept of a person, to a medical doctor, in practice, is based quite squarely in science. It's why the schooling takes so long.
The only 'gut feeling with bare scraps of reason to support it' in this debate was felt by an assassin with a gun, who you seem to be defending, for reasons that are entirely elusive (and shifting regularly). So, as I said before, nice troll.
Xeni, thanks for this post. It's nice to put a human face on the doctor and his patients, outside of the rights debate.
@71, I can't say I know how it feels, but I can say my wife and I reached a similar conclusion. She's about eight months pregnant now. Before we went in for our 3 month, health of the baby sonogram we had a long conversation about 'what if'. We made some general decisions, but mostly we just agreed that there was no way to 'know' what to do until we were at that bridge. We were very happy when we found out all was well.
I can't even begin to imagine how heart wrenching a decision like that would be. Thanks for sharing that.
Since we're already wandering through theoretical territory, I would like to point out that the logical conclusion of "to him, it was like killing Hitler" is utter anarchy. Anyone can equate someone else with Hitler. It happens about 23958629 times a day, not only on online forums and blog comments, but on major news networks (FOX has compared Obama to Hitler more than once). Anyone can shoot anyone and truly feel they are doing it for the greater good. I would like to be able to conduct legal activities without having to fear that one or the other is going to get me murdered.
Additionally, the late-term abortions that Dr. Tiller performed should be the least controversial. They were never done electively, only therapeutically, in the case of severe birth defects that often threatened the mother's life. Aborting a late-term fetus rather than watching a 6-week-old baby die in horrible pain may not be pleasant to think about, but it should not inspire murderous thoughts in anyone.
these kind of "people"
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-rowe/krxq-sacramento-radio-hos_b_210637.html
Against abortion? Don't have one!
The murderer is a terrorist by any definition, trying to terrorize physicians away from providing lawful (and necessary) services.
Have all means of the anti-terror laws been used in this case? Are all means of the anti-terror laws used against groups of people alike?
@82- The concept of a human being, H. sapiens, can be said to be based in science. Personhood, though, is a social construct.
Anyhow, I'm not defending the guy, but trying to get or explain some idea of why he did what he did. If it's anything other than "Guy was nuts", then that's useful to know.
@84- You're quite correct-- anyone can shoot anyone and truly feel it's for the greater good. Wouldn't it be nice to know when and why they do feel it's for the greater good, the better to convince them otherwise?
The Puritan heritage persists in the U.S. in everything except Common law, and so these witch-burning sentiments still exist and are treated as a serious discourse.
It is no more or less a strain of fundamentalist insanity such as Wahhabism in Saudi Arabia.
Debating about "when life starts" means giving in to anti-abortionists: since it's as arbitrary a concept as the concept of God, you're really talking about nothing, and you're debating on their territory. Religious people wasted thousands of years talking about arbitrary concepts completely unattached to reality, you can't compete with them.
What you should talk about is that fetus is inside the body of the adult female. As such, it's part of the body. Any projection ("look at my baby growing!") is just that, a projection, the same way I could call my finger "Pinky". If I want to cut off my finger because it's gangrenous, nobody is legally nor morally allowed to stop me.
Stating plain facts like this means bringing the debate back to reality, where it belongs.
And yes, this means you could theoretically remove a 30-week fetus without any moral implication. We don't allow it mainly because it becomes very stressful and risky for the woman and there is a big risk that the severed part would actually survive on its own (if just for a few days/weeks) in deeply damaged conditions. It's the worst possible situation, so in the Law we say we don't want it to happen. And even then, it happens anyway (we just call it "unplanned early cesarean"), because life can be shit.
Medicine is not for the weak of stomach; otherwise I'd have studied it more :)
(This is all irrelevant to current events anyway. The debate on reproductive choices is just another "wedge issue" for the corrupt republican/religious right to strumentalize. They are only after power and control, and their irresponsible propaganda machine doesn't care for consequences.)
Thank you very much for posting this Xeni! It's an important issue that is imho too often set aside. Too many people confuse themselves (and others) with metaphysical and ontological questions that don't belong in hospitals. And they fear, or ignore that reality isn't just about "life" or "death", and "good" or "bad". But that's part of our (as human beings) dualistic mentality which unfortunately forces us to over-simplify everything. We must fight that.
1. Believe it or not, i didn't create my user name specifically to comment on this post.
2. I get the fact that people tend to be in one camp or the other in regards to abortion as an umbrella issue, but it seems to me that what this doctor was preforming was euthanasia more than abortion. I don't really know how he operated day to day, but it seems that he tended to specialize more in late term abortions where the people being operated on were experiencing extreme circumstances, and death or extreme pain and disfigurement would often be an outcome for either the parent or the child.
3. Playing devil's advocate on the minutea of pro-life / pro-choice arguments in reference to the article posted above is poor form. A man that did a great service to many people (including people who weren't born yet) is dead at the hands of someone who is mentally ill. Weak sauce, Cicada.
Yeah, thats what I said.
Two people who are co-dependent on internal organs would be about as close as you could get to a meaningful analogy, were you quite insistent on doing so.
"Whatever [I'd] call it"? I do you think you're playing the man.
Yes, that is certainly the fundamentalist line, and the great strength of the position. You have a person at conception, and granting personhood at any other time is arbitrary.
On the other hand, that position typically holds that human life is a sacred thing that is not for mortals to decide, and that wandering into a Church and shooting someone dead is as prohibited as abortion.
This brings me to my conclusion that the shooter in this case was not acting out of a well reasoned, substantive, rational framework, and was in fact, almost certainly, a very poor moral philosopher indeed.
Cicada @54 Now, whether you'd euthanize someone who was unlikely to have more positive experiences _after_ already having a life of some ups and downs...
At the risk of opening a whole other can of worms, I am going to ask you to consider the hypothetical situation of a brain dead adult on life support. What do you do? Keep them on life support indefinitely with no hope of recovery, or withdraw life support and allow them to die?
And at the risk of opening a third can of worms, what about a terminally ill adult? Should a person in that situation have the right to decide to end their own life?
@#93 Yup.
@Jackie31337 @93,
Of course, why not?!
@92- Jackie31337- Me personally? If it's my pesonal opinion, you yank the plug on the brain-dead person whenever you feel like it, assuming you're the person with power of attorney, the heir, or something similar. Or keep 'em around as a sort of very slow pet. With no thinking going on, you've basically got property, not a person.
For the adult, it doesn't matter if they're terminally ill or not-- deciding they want to not live any more is sufficient reason for them to be able to die.
And I suppose the question of abortion is implied, so if not answered explicitly by my first paragraph, I'm all for it, and consider it no more immoral than having chicken for dinner-- no human thoughts mean no human. Of course, by extension I think this means that early infanticide is also morally fine-- until the kid thinks, it's not really a person.
#71 Anonymous,
Thanks for this story. It pretty much confirms my opinion. If some people hold the personal belief that no matter what, a fetus needs to be born, it should stay their personal belief or philosophy, and not affect others very personal and hard choices.
And that brings me back to my point, don't mix up ontological, metaphysical/religious positions, questions of philosophy, with the state, or with hospitals! Because two very different philosophical views can be valid, since in certain cases, we'll never have definitive answers to questions like "do we have a free will" or "what makes us a human being" etc.
@Cicada: "Of course it's a matter of philosophy- the entire concept of "person" is a matter of philosophy, not science"
NO! not in a hospital!
@#93:
suicide isn't illegal in most states in the US as far as I remember.
Ugghh. Your purported actual glib beliefs are even more offensive than your purported devil's advocate glib beliefs.
You really are trolling, aren't you? I feel used.
Cicada, you let your mask drop at #96, big time. Thanks for playing. Now off you go, I'm sure you have quite a few more on your list of people to get murdered in cold blood while they are going to church.
Can we cut to the chase? Our religious friends and neighbors believe in a book with a TALKING SNAKE!!
and what the TALKING SNAKE did, fall of man and all that is the sole reason for mankinds need for a saviour.
Do you see where I'm going with this?
As someone mentioned out on Facebook (where NPR has a story about this) it seems that the pro-life movement ends once the baby is born and then it's we don't want people on welfare.
If the pro-lifers really want to stop abortions, they should support comprehensive sex education in schools and also make it easy for people to get a hold of birth control. Only problem with that is in the mind of a rabid pro-lifer, that is worse than an abortion.
Sad all around.
@101: Blotchy Oreilly is a snake?
a running jackal anyway:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/06/03/oreilly-suddenly-distanci_n_210744.html
In fact the most sober and logical view on abortion has been said many times and the "pro-life" side does not acknowledge it: abortion should be legal but rare. The cases cited in this article provide the most obvious evidence of abortion actually being the humane thing to do, and the fact that there were only 3 doctors in the US that performed this particular procedure prove that it was indeed rare. Instead we hear "baby killer" associated with the doctor's name.
You want abortion to be considered murder? Fine, but acknowledge that in these cases it's murder in self-defense, and we shouldn't be taking away a woman's right to self-defense. The abortion debate is never going to be sober and civil if one side can't understand that in some cases abortion IS medically necessary.
Furthermore, the abortion debate is never going to go away if the same side opposed to abortion is also opposed to any effective form of birth control, thus insuring many more unwanted pregnancies. The "pro-life" crowd needs to ask itself which is worse: abortion or pre-marital sex?
why is it that human society didn't evolve the custom of killing the father of unwanted conceptions?
First, in general, non-situation-specific terms, I believe that the untimely death of a person is always a tragedy. If the person who dies untimely is a horrible human being, they'll never get a chance to repent, apologize, and try to compensate. If the person who dies untimely is a wonderful human being, we are all diminished by their passing. No matter whether you think the deceased is wonderful or scum, an untimely death is a tragedy. This was an untimely death.
Second, please understand my comments following in light of where I come from: fundy-land. Yes, I'm a fundamentalist Christian who believes that abortion is killing a human being and that the overwhelming majority of abortions are elective and, therefore, murder. I really don't care whether abortion is legal or not; I just wish it didn't happen in most cases.
That said, I have always found the invective poured out on those who perform late-term abortions to be a complete mystery. As Lauren said in #84, these should be the least controversial procedures. Christianity does not foreclose violence (Read *all* the accounts of how Jesus evicted the money-changers from the Temple; Our Lord was not above handing out a real, physical ass-kicking.) nor does it require passivity in the face of physical threat. It is moral, ethical, and sinless to kill someone in self-defense if that person, even innocently, is about to cause you great physical harm or death.
In third trimester abortions, this is frequently the case. A child whose full gestation would reasonably threaten the physical life of the mother can be aborted, in my view, without committing a sin. We need highly skilled doctors who can perform those procedures competently. The loss of Dr. Tiller is not just a tragedy in principle, as alluded to in my first paragraph, but a tragedy in a very real and practical sense.
Now, there are other justifications for late-term abortions that are not sufficient. Mental anguish, no matter how severe, is not sufficient. I don't care if the mother-to-be is a 9-year-old rape victim with no fundamental understanding of her situation. Treat the situation like a physical illness that's going to last 9 months, place the newborn for adoption, and then treat the mom like you'd treat any young victim of a traumatic illness - with whatever love, caring, and therapy is necessary to help them recover.
This bears on Dr. Tillers death in this way - for all his rampant douchebaggery, O'Reilly does make a point that I find valid. He has consistently implied (and quoted various authorities who claim to have reviewed case data) that Dr. Tiller performed abortions in cases that did not meet the "obvious physical harm to the mother" criteria and, instead, were based on some notion that the psychological harm to the mother was sufficient to justify abortion. I obviously don't know since I haven't read any of the case files. But, if true, I find that allegation quite disturbing.
And, of course, there are a range of cases between these two extremes. Some have pointed out that late-term abortions should be OK even where there is no physical danger to the mother if the child will be unable to survive very long and will suffer horribly for their short time on earth. In those cases, as pointed out in #90, abortion is really euthanasia. I consider euthanasia something that is morally acceptable if you're careful, very careful, about your decision-making process. I have some personal experience with this that I won't go into but I'll accept that the decision to let someone die still turns my stomach every time I remember it. It's a horrible situation to be in but allowing the death, or even assisting it via some extra drugs in the IV or the performance of a late-term abortion, are morally acceptable choices. Again, we need skilled doctors like Dr. Tiller to carry out procedures in these awful circumstances.
Now, this is where I go off the deep end, according to some of my Christian colleagues. I have often considered (though I first had these thoughts far too late in life to be able to act on them) that I should become a doctor specializing in late-term abortions. Any objections I had to the way Dr. Tiller carried out his practice (i.e. that, while his work was usually vital, he may have occasionally carried out an abortion in ethically dodgy circumstances) could be remedied in the way I would practice - by applying my Christian morality to the choice of whether or not to do a procedure.
Imagine that - a fundamentalist Christian abortion doctor. Some may find the concept mind-boggling but I think the U.S.A. needs a couple. (As an aside, I don't think I could have possibly done such a thing unless I also spearheaded a resident facility for those carrying to term for whom I declined to perform abortions. They have a great a need of help; they just need a different sort of help. And, yes, we also need some serious, early sex education and lots of easily, anonymously free preventative birth control in this country to help cut down on the need, perceived or real, for abortions.)
It's been nearly 10 years since I sat in a comedy club in Indianapolis and watched and politely clapped as the local chapter of Planned Parenthood presented a lifetime achievement award to a doctor who wrote a standard text used to teach medical students how to perform abortions. This issue is not a new one in my consciousness. As an old man, now, I just with I had thought about it when I was much, much younger.
It's one thing to say that "deliberately ending a life is murder," but the point is that there is disagreement over when a "a life," or "personhood" begins. Pro-lifers typically speak as if they assume there is a non-arbitrary, objective answer to this question, typically the moment of conception. But what makes that point less arbitrary than any other? Are you going to tell me that a separate sperm and and egg the second before conception is medical waste, and the fertilized egg the second after has the same moral significance as a fully grown human? On what possible basis? How is it that what makes human beings worthy of protecting is fully present in one thing but not the other? And on what possible basis could you claim that there is no legitimate room for disagreement?
The fact is that life is a continuous process without a clear beginning or end. And pregnancy is a time in which that process progresses from a point in which almost no one cares if it is interrupted, to a point in which almost everyone cares very much. It is a continuum. At what point in that continuum do we begin to apply the moral concept of "person?" There is no objective answer, so it relies on consensus. Except that obviously there is no consensus, which is why I'm pro-choice. I have my own feelings on the matter, but I know they're neither widely shared nor based on objective reality, and so I refuse to make that decision for anyone else.
@106 benenglish - very interesting read. What is the argument against someone becoming a doctor for the reasons you've described?
...aside from the typical "all abortion is murder" argument, that is, because that argument ought to have been addressed by the moral conditions you describe.
@Benenglish,
You see, the problem is that you base your ethics and morality on totally abstract and old (very old) religious/philosophical views. They may be sometimes correct, (I doubt it in the case of most Abrahamic religions), but your convictions aren't necessarily representative of mine for example.
That's why it's only okay for you to believe whatever you want, as long as your beliefs and convictions don't threaten my right to make decisions about my personal life. And you're absolutely right, the concept of a religious fundamentalist doctor is mind-boggling, and I'm very happy and relieved you didn't become one.
#108 - I don't see any valid argument against becoming a doctor for the reasons I describe. There are practical considerations - I'm too old to do it, for example, and I think most people would find my logic pretty tortured and insufficiently motivating. Also, I doubt anyone could hold to those principles throughout the training process; how do you train doctors to do high-risk late-term abortions if they aren't willing to gain experience by doing a few low-risk, first-trimester procedures? I know I couldn't overcome that hurdle. So while I see no argument against becoming a doctor for the reasons I described, I theorize that the practical reality would be very difficult if not impossible.
Any doctors or med students in the audience want to take a stab at pointing out the potential problems?
btw - My apologies for a couple of typos in my original post.
#74, I acknowledge that you've taken a Critical Thinking class, but I still contend that it's necessary to make a distinction between people who wear the label of "Christian" but have no idea what it's about (Fred Phelps and his ilk), and those that actually try to emulate Christ.
Regardless of anyone's feelings about abortion, killing Dr. Tiller was unjustified vigilantism. It would be equally irrational for a Christian to murder Pablo Escobar (were he still alive) because they oppose the drug trade.
My only point is that the anti-Christian and anti-Fundamentalist sentiment in this discussion is directed at people who are not truly representative of Christian ideology in any "standard" sense. "Normal" Christians simply don't kill people whom they believe are sinning - that would be completely counterproductive for everyone involved.
I had a childhood friend whose family was Christian Scientist, and so forbade the use of most (all?) medical treatment. His father died of pneumonia. I also had a friend whose great aunt was a Christian Scientist and who spent many years suffering in severe pain with cervical cancer before she ultimately died from it, again because her religion forbade her from seeking treatment. I am OK with that, each of these people had their spiritual/theological reasons for their own suffering and death; they knew the score and stuck to their principles. But if they instead tried to prevent you or me from getting medical treatment because of their religious conviction, nobody would stand for it.
So maybe you have a deep moral conviction against abortion, so what? I have a deep moral conviction against women being forced to bear a child which can kill them or which will suffer and die shortly after birth. I also have a strong moral disgust for children being forced to bear children conceived from rape or incest. So what. The bottom line is I'm not interested in forcing other people to adhere to my personal moral convictions, the Randall Terrys and Bill O'Reillys and Ayatollahs and Talibans of the world are.
Utterly amazing thread -- thanks Xeni for posting.
For additional narratives like those on Salon, see This Common Secret by Dr Susan Wicklund.
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All the sane people already knew who the good guy was here. It's the "true believers" that are confused.
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Speaking as someone who is much closer to pro-life than pro-choice, this piece is spot on. After reading this sort of thing I wonder how someone cannot favor abortion in these cases. The pro-life movement as a whole should be ashamed of itself. Tiller was doing difficult, emotionally draining work that absolutely needs to be done. And he was killed for it.
Ill Lich - I completely agree with you. Even attempting to force other people to adhere to your own moral convictions is utterly foolish and a waste of time. "Swordpoint-Christianity" and other attempts at compulsory "conversion" leave a foul taste in my mouth, just as they do in yours.
Cosanostradamus - I assume that you were talking to me. If so, you've drawn a conclusion that is the exact opposite of my point.
(Disclaimer: IANAD.) BenEnglish, your scenario is basically GWB's "Provider Refusal Rule", rammed through during his last days in office. This rule was rescinded by Pres. Obama; however, older conscience clauses still protect some health care providers from discipline for refusing to provide legal and standard care.
At the risk of sounding glib, here's an analogy. Imagine that instead of being pro-fetal life, your cause was pro-animal life. You're vegan, you eschew animal products in your clothing and household goods, you do everything in your power to departicipate in animal exploitation. And you're a server at a restaurant. It's your life's calling, you always wanted to be a server, it's your dream job. This restaurant where you work serves meat, which you believe to be murder. Do you:
A. swallow your principles for a paycheck and do the job you were hired for?
B. find a different job that does not require you to compromise your principles--at, say, a vegetarian restaurant?
or C. continue to work at the carnivorous restaurant, but refuse to serve animal products due to your moral objection?
In your scenario, you are proposing option C. As a server, that would get you canned. As a health care provider you'd be protected because of the conscience clause, but it still makes no sense. Why go into a field solely to withhold care from certain patients?
In Kansas, where Dr. Tiller practiced, by the time a woman gets to the point of a late abortion, she has already seen two doctors who agree that this is an appropriate course of action. For you as a provider to decide to disagree with your colleagues is your professional prerogative, but your disagreement should be medical, over the best course of action for the patient, not ideological. If your conscience dictates that you must not treat this patient, basic ethics require you to refer the patient to a doctor who will treat her. Leaving the patient untreated because of your religious beliefs is unethical and potentially life-endangering.
If you (general "you" here, not specific to BenEnglish) truly want to decrease late abortions, you should advocate for a couple of things. First and foremost is education, education, education. Maternal education DOES correlate with late abortion (looking for citation; sorry, internet). And besides, sex education saves lives any way you look at it.
Second is better maternal health care. Many of the anomalies that cause a family to decide to abort a wanted pregnancy do not become apparent until late in pregnancy. Early detection of these anomalies would theoretically mean fewer late abortions. Though since only 1.4% of abortions happen after 20 weeks, you may want to look into other ways to show your support of life.
Simply taking legal abortion off the table does nothing to stop the need.
I'd just like to say that this has been an extraordinarily civil and polite conversation. I guess it helps that we're largely in agreement about the particulars of this case, i.e. that Dr. Tiller should not have been shot, and that the shooter was misguided at best, possibly deranged, and evil at worst.
cicada - "slow pet"?
seriously? Stop trying to get a reaction. It is called trolling. You suck at it.
I think BenEnglish made a good attempt to reconcile Chrisitianity with abortion, but I agree with Falix his views are based on "old (very old) religious/philosophical views."
I agree with #113, religion is acceptable as long as it doesn't color a person's outer interactions with society. If you believe that the only way to make some do what your religion says is to make a law about it, then perhaps your religion may have a few flaws in it's direction.
I would take a step further and say that you can frame the whole pro/anti abortion debate in completely religio-political frame; I think it's fair to say that most people who are pro-life are only so because of their religion, political bias, or both.
Show me an atheist who believes abortion should be illegal with a sound argument behind it, and I'll believe it. Anything based on so called "morals" is philosophical fluffery and not useful in reality.
#118 - Good points. As I said in a later post, I think there would be insurmountable problems to becoming a doctor specifically to meet this need.
I do want to stress, however, that while I am an anti-abortion Christian, I recognize the medical necessity of some abortions, including some very late in the pregnancy. The loss of Dr. Tiller means a statistically significant loss in the number of health care providers who can provide these (sometimes, rarely) essential abortions. That's not a good thing. My thoughts are aimed more at trying to see that the people who genuinely need this service can get it, not at going "into a field solely to withhold care from certain patients", an interpretation of my original post that's pretty much exactly backwards from the thought process that went into it.
FWIW: I thought I was proposing option B and please note that in my original post I stressed, just as you do, the need for education. After all, being anti-abortion doesn't mean I care whether abortions are legal or not; it simply means I wish they happened less often. Better education, better health care, easily available contraception, and easily accessible alternatives (specifically including free residential care and training for those with unwanted pregnancies who are willing to carry to term and choose adoption in exchange for said care and training) would all be helpful and shouldn't require any contentious debate about distracting legal issues.
Of course, people find reasons to engage in contentious debate concerning just about everything, don't they?
I think "safe, legal, and rare" is a good viewpoint about the ideal status of abortions in society. Abortions are not a method of birth control; they are a method of disaster recovery.
I know a number of young women who have brought into this world children with fetal alcohol poisoning, legal- and illegal-drug damage, zero pre-natal care and other serious trauma. These kids are then left to wither and molder at the hands of relatives and the state. If abortion is not alright in these cases, I demand that each pro-lifer take one of these kids into their home and raise him or her. Volunteers? I didn't think so. Alive during gestation, dead at birth. Hypocrites.
Cicada.
I'm impressed with the clarity of your arguments. I wish everyone could approach a subject like this with reason, logic and rationality rather than resorting to being called a Troll.
Too bad we can't correspond.
The crimes of Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot and so many other mass killers were committed under color of law. That contributed to the horror of their acts. Was the doctor in this case committing crimes against humanity or saving lives by removing unwanted "growths"?.......as you said, it depends on the humanity of the unborn.
I'm just waiting for the soon-to-be-announced breakthrough in male pregnancy by implant. Then we'll see all those ever-so-concerned step up to the bat to carry the fetus to term - and be responsible for it.
Wow, this thread has gotten fascinating and confusing.
benenglish - Thanks for the thoughful contribution. The views of practical Christians who can think beyond dogma often get drowned in a sea of foaming fundamentalism.
RalphSchmalph said: "Cicada. I'm impressed with the clarity of your arguments. I wish everyone could approach a subject like this with reason, logic and rationality rather than resorting to being called a Troll."
Which of Cicada's arguments are you impressed with, the one's characterising late term abortion as comparable to the euthenasia of people with PTSD, or the one's where killing newborns is no worse than killing chickens? I can't take either seriously.
JoshuaTerrell said: "Show me an atheist who believes abortion should be illegal with a sound argument behind it, and I'll believe it. Anything based on so called "morals" is philosophical fluffery and not useful in reality."
Thats crazy talk dude. A society without morality is no society at all. And if you've got to have morality, then best it should be underpinned by clear logic. Right?
And when it comes down to it, the view that a person is a person at the moment of conception is rationally defensible outside of religion. At the point of fertilisation you have a unique genetic code that left to nature will in all likelihood grow to a human being. It is probably the clearest event in the growth of human being, with birth a close second.
I think its easy to dismiss outright, but harder to argue against than a lot of people think.
On the other hand, the medical consensus favours a gradually increasing approach to personhood, corresponding with the complexity and viability of the foetus.
My view is that the issue is sufficiently unclear that it should be left in the hands of well informed patients and medical practitioners to make.
Benenglish: I echo other folks' thanks for a thoughtful and compassionate response from your perspective. However, I would have to disagree with you on the very young rape victims' right to an abortion. The trauma that childbirth would inflict on their undeveloped bodies would go far beyond mental or emotional. The risk of permanent physical damage and subsequent infertility would be very high in someone as young as 9.
That seems to be the politically convenient compromise position in the abortion debate.
However, I disagree with that position. I support the I'm Not Sorry perspective. (imnotsorry.net also provides personal narratives.)
You mistake my point, Zuzu. Abortions may be the healthiest alternative for a pregnant woman, but they're much less healthy than avoiding pregnancy in the first place. I think they should be rare because affordable birth control should be available without stigma to every woman who wants it, and because every person should be educated enough to understand why and how they should use it.
Not every woman has a traumatic experience of abortion, though many do (and certainly the women who had to terminate a much-wanted pregnancy because of problems with the fetus or their own health would experience grief). But let's keep in mind that abortion is never, ever the method-of-choice for birth control purposes. Using it that way is just crazy.
ahh, republicans
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/06/24/hal-turner-internet-radio_n_220442.html