The assassination of Dr. George Tiller is galvanizing people in a way I have not seen in 30 years or more. Suddenly, those of us, women and men, who took reproductive choice for granted realize just how under threat is is, and how numerous and organized those that would rob us of it are.
Not to mention scary.
Look at these tweets from a man following this blog, via Twitter.
Tonight I also received a follow message on Twitter from @IAmDrTiller.
At first I feared it would be another stalker who would preach fire and brimstone at me. But no. Instead, according to Our Bodies, Ourselves, this is a new website aimed at presenting the stories from the abortion clinic workers and volunteers who help women and who fight to safeguard choice.
Steph Herold, an abortion counselor at a women’s center in Pennsylvania who last month was inducted as an Our Bodies Ourselves Women’s Health Hero, and her partner, Yahel Carmon, created the interactive site. (Herold was nominated by her sister,
who submitted a video interview and wrote that her older sibling is “a
college senior who already has helped countless women with her passion
for variety of different kinds of activism.” Here’s yet another reason
to cheer on Steph, now a recent college graduate.)
“The goal of this project,” Herold told OBOS, “is to serve as a memorial to the lifework of Dr. George Tiller and as a living testimony to the courageous lives of abortion providers.”
The idea for the website was sparked by a staff conversation at the women’s center on how to respond to discussions that it’s OK to take the life of an abortion provider. Herold said she and Carmon decided to do something that would “perosnalize abortion care.”
“People need to know what we do and why we do the things we do,” said Herold. “It’s important for people to understand that so many of us who do this work in so many capacities do it for all kinds of reasons.”
Herold said she works as an abortion counselor — her full-time job since December – because women deserve the best available care.
“Women should be respected for the choices they make with their bodies,” said Herold. ” I want to be able to make that choice — and dealing with the physical and emotional realities of that choice — as healthy as possible.”
Finally, another find on via Twitter. This time, it's an explanation by the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights why a woman's choice is nobody's business but hers. Here's an excerpt:
It is religious faith, not scientific reasoning, that asserts the “ensoulment” of a fetus at the moment of conception. As the Catholic Encyclopedia says: “In virtue of the one eternal act of the Will of the Creator, Who is of course ever present at every portion of His creation, the soul of every new human being begins to exist when the cell which generation has provided is ready to receive it as its principle of life.” Based on that kind of dogma, anti-abortion groups seek laws that classify abortion as murder and condemn doctors and pregnant women to criminal punishment.
Fortunately, our Constitution forbids any such establishment of religion. The Supreme Court was right in Roe v. Wade to recognize a woman’s right to abort her fetus (even though many details of that decision and its reasoning invite criticism).
Because religious opponents of abortion cannot offer rational arguments for criminalizing first-trimester abortions, they often target the much rarer, late-term abortions of the type Dr. Tiller performed. Because such fetuses more nearly resemble infants, opponents hope to obscure the fact that the fetus is still part of the mother. Only when and if it is born—that is, when the fetus becomes a child—does it acquire individual rights. (A woman has the legal right to procure such an abortion; whether it is morally right to do so in a particular case is a separate question.)
I never thought I would agree with the Ayn Rand people, but I have to say I might have written that myself.
Organized, main-stream religion scares the crap out of me. For reasons much like those frightening tweets posted above.
I was just going to say "religion", but realized that someone would call me out for being Wiccan. Which I totally am and that is a religion, so I should watch my words. But I am not a member of an organized group of Wiccans. I practise alone, in my home. Because once you get more than two people together who share the same faith, some crazed reaction occurs and you become a complete jerk.
Also, YAY for Antonia agreeing with something from the Ayn Rand people! We're not all hardcore right wing crackpots. I'm not hardcore, about 2 milimeters right of center... and probably a crackpot. So I guess I should say we aren't all hardcore. :P
Posted by: neko | June 05, 2009 at 07:40 AM
"The assassination of Dr. George Tiller is galvanizing people in a way I have not seen in 30 years or more."
Indeed, Antonia. Based on the number of posts per thread, your statement does not appear to be galvanizing too many people. However, it certainly has galvanized you, given the number of threads you have devoted to the topic.
In fact, an open-minded journalism student might rightfully observe that you are using his death to further your own blog agenda. In fact, that very student might argue that Tiller's death was the best thing that ever happened to you, career-wise.
Fortunately, I am neither a journalism student nor open-minded.
Posted by: johnnykap | June 05, 2009 at 08:16 AM
The discussion surrounding the murder of Dr. Tiller serves to do nothing except make me sad and frustrated.
Sad that so many people who call themselves Christians can say such horrible things about a man who was murdered. His wife, his family and his friends are mourning the forceable removal of this man from their lives and rather than having compassion and sympathy for their pain people continue to "wish that he burns in hell." How can someone call him/herself Christian and wish that on any other human being?? How can someone call him/herself Christian and not feel empathy for the pain the the Tiller family now has?
Frustrated that women are forced to undergo such treatment. Frustrated that society spews equality and then shows such disrespect and disregard to the private lives of women. Frustrated with the lack of empathy that pervades every aspect of these arguements. Frustrated that we live in a broken society where people who torture others never face judgement, yet people who perform legal medical procedures face judgement everyday.
Posted by: Jeja | June 05, 2009 at 10:54 AM
This one's for JohnnyKap,
No. This is not the best thing that happened to me career-wise. The best thing that happened to me career-wise was when the US media cheered George W. Bush into office and into war.
Isn't that what brought you into my email, JK? And you were about on the mark about that as you are about this issue.
What Dr. Tiller's assassination has accomplished is it has reminded pro-choicers how fragile reproductive freedom is and how they must not be complacent.
The wonder is that I don't ban your IP as the mods have suggested.
Posted by: Antonia | June 05, 2009 at 12:45 PM
The killing of Dr. Tiller is so fraught with meanings and implications beyond the death of one man (admirable though he was) that Ms. Z could write, blog or muse for years without touching all the nooks and crannies of what his death means to society, to feminism, to those supporters of murder that call themselves pro-life.
That does not even touch the areas of things like the media: should public television call for the destruction of an individual? What does this mean for people like O'Reilly? Does religion and its' supporters deserve any blame? His killing was a capital crime, planned and plotted in advance, this brings in the whole dogs breakfast of capital punishment. That brings up the whole legal system.
and getting back to the murder itself - does not science have something to say ... when does a person become a person? Is a growth in some woman's belly a person, or is that something that happens at birth?
A lot of the babbling from the supporters of murder come from their religious views ... what would Dawkins Hitchens et al say?
Keep writing, Antonia .. you have not even scratched the surface. :)
Posted by: croghan27 | June 05, 2009 at 10:15 PM
Antonia, the time might have come. He's just so much waste of energy.
Posted by: ...pat. | June 05, 2009 at 10:52 PM
Antonia, I think the time has come for the banning. He's not offering anything, lately, in terms of counter arguments worth consideration. He's just something that pushes some of us away from some discussions, because we don't want to engage with him.
Posted by: ...pat. | June 05, 2009 at 11:45 PM
neko-san
"...realized that someone would call me out for being Wiccan. "
call you out if you don't pronounce it properly...
Esteemed and Beautiful Moderator,
"The wonder is that I don't ban your IP as the mods have suggested."
If you banned Hey Johnnie Cope, then you wouldn't be able to use him as a feminist provocateur
Posted by: The Stygian and his Shemitish Dogs | June 05, 2009 at 11:50 PM