Dr. Tiller's Death, and Anti-Abortion Terrorism

Let's call this out for what it really is. The Anti-abortion movement, whether intentionally or not, has fanned the flames of domestic terrorism. Dr. George Tiller's assasination yesterday, as he stood in the door of his church, is the DIRECT RESULT of decades of the "Abortion is murder" campaign. I don't care how "mainstream" or "peaceful" a group alleges to be, if they go around spouting the abortion is murder line, they have helped create the climate of hatred that spawned this attack. In a reply to a post on Pandagon, I summed up my position on what needs to be done about this:

The so called condemnations of Dr. Tiller's assassination were anything but. They never once condemned the parties responsible inciting this kind of violence, never once called for all of the "pro-life" faithful to renounce such people or tactics. The National Review fanned the flames even more by continuously referring to Dr. tiller as an "abortionist" or even "late-term abortionist". Someone needs to call them on this at a national level. NARAL's response, while doing a good job of highlighting the pattern of ant-abortion violence, fails to make the critical connection between the mainstream rhetoric and the violence itself. Planned Parenthood never even approaches the connection. NOW is the only prominent national organization I've seen thus far to call this out-and-out terrorism. Dr. Warren Hern, another late-term abortion provider said exactly the right thing in his interview with the Wichita Eagle:

Warren Hern, a Colorado physician and close friend of Tiller's -- who described himself now as "the only doctor in the world" who performs very-late-term abortions -- said Tiller's death was predictable.

"I think it's the inevitable consequence of more than 35 years of constant anti-abortion terrorism, harassment and violence," he said.

When Obama was elected last fall, Hern predicted that anti-abortion violence would increase, he said. Because Obama supports legalized abortion, Hern said, its foes "have lost ground.... They want the doctors dead, and they invite people to assassinate us. No wonder that this happens.

"I am next on the list."

This is the message that needs to be repeated endlessly. I don't have much of a soapbox- I think I have about three regular readers at my blog ;-). However, Pandagon reaches a lot of folks, and I know there are readers here who have well-read sites, too. Let's spread the word that the time is past to be conciliatory, to pretend that the "abortion is murder" rhetoric has no bearing on actual terrorist acts. I'm going to contact NARAL and Planned Parenthood, urging them to issue stronger statements highlighting the link. If anyone else has media contacts, or ideas, let me know- you can comment on my blog, or react to my comment here. This is intensely personal for me, as it literally "hits me where I live"- the suspect in this case is from my metro area.

Please join with me in setting the record straight. We didn't start this "culture war" crap, but we've got to meet in face on.