Monday night I watched the documentary The Assassination of Dr. Tiller during The Rachel Maddow Show's regular time slot on MSNBC. I have a lot of different thoughts about his murder. They all come back to the same feeling: I can't believe this happened and I'm still sick with grief for those who were directly affected by his murder.
As a feminist and pro choice supporter I am sickened that Dr. George Tiller was murdered for performing a legal and desperately needed service, often for people who have received devastating diagnoses affecting their babies or themselves. Women came to Wichita, Kansas, from all over the world to be treated by Dr. Tiller and his staff. Where will these women and their families turn now when they receive a horrible late term diagnosis and need to be treated? Where have they turned for the last year and a half? The truth is that we don't really know. For women in our area, they can travel the 200 miles to Kansas City to receive an abortion at an earlier stage of pregnancy, but there are very few doctors in any part of the entire United States who take on the late term procedures Dr. Tiller did. It sickens me that this option has been so selfishly taken away from people who are already going through horrible grief at the loss of their wanted and loved babies.
It feels surreal for this to hit so close to home. This man was murdered in my best friend's church. I have attended services there and know how much he was admired in the church community. He was an active member of their congregation and attending services there is probably the only time he wasn't strongly protective of his safety. There is no doubt Scott Roeder took advantage of this. He attended services to case out the worship service and came on an earlier occasion with a gun ready to take Dr. Tiller's life only to find Dr. Tiller hadn't attended services that day. I felt sick when they showed pictures of the outside of Reformation Lutheran Church. I was selfishly so thankful when I learned my best friend and her husband and baby had not attended services that Sunday. I have another friend who attends that church who is close to the entire Tiller family and was there on the day of the murder. I don't even know how you process going through that or how to be there for people you love who have experienced something so incredibly awful. It's such a fundamental violation for someone to come into your house of worship and commit murder. What I most appreciated about the documentary itself was its focus on the larger forces that encourage a disturbed person like Roeder toward violence against their "enemies" in this sick war, then stand back and say they had nothing to do with it. On one hand groups like Operation Rescue called Dr. Tiller a murderer and preached hate against him. But when Roeder took Dr. Tiller's life they said they were horrified by Roeder's act. If you are so horrified stop preaching hatred and violence. Bill O'Reilly also promoted hatred against Dr. Tiller. O'Reilly called Dr. Tiller "Tiller the Killer" and railed against him on almost 40 separate occasions on his show. While there is no way of knowing whether Roeder watched the program, it is safe to say O'Reilly's vitriol contributed to the atmosphere of hatred surrounding Dr. Tiller and a climate of misinformation about him and his work.
You can watch the documentary here on the MSNBC website when you have a chance: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39826191.
