Though we still don’t know much about Scott P. Roeder, who allegedly murdered Wichita abortion provider George Tiller, Kansas City Star columnist Mike Hendricks thinks some blame for the killing may rest with the “vitriolic rhetoric aimed at Tiller these past couple of decades by anti-abortion activists.” He said that certain groups “fomented hate toward a man who, rightly or wrongly, believed he was serving a noble purpose by being one of the few doctors in the country who performed late-term abortions.” And that blind hatred, Hendricks said, may have prompted “some maniac to take a gun into a church and shoot a man to death.”
Whatever one thinks of what George Tiller did for a living, and for the thousands of women who visited his East Kellogg clinic over the decades, the only appropriate response to his murder Sunday was shock, followed by condemnation, our editorial today argues.
The overwhelming majority of those who consider themselves pro-life in the community and country do not advocate or condone the killing of abortion providers. Several local and national pro-life groups responded to the murder with unequivocal condemnation.
Still, sadly, it won’t be surprising if the searing heat of the debate, and the extreme name-calling directed by some toward Tiller, once again motivated someone to think such an act of violence was justifiable.
It can be hoped that in dealing with the horror of Tiller’s murder, people will pause to consider what the abortion wars have wrought, and whether there might be a better way.
Gov. Mark Parkinson made the right call today in restoring federal funding for Planned Parenthood of Kansas and Mid-Missouri that the Legislature had cut. Anti-abortion lawmakers opposed the funding because Planned Parenthood performs abortions at its clinic in Overland Park. But the federal funds aren’t used for abortions; Planned Parenthood said the money only goes to clinics in Hays and Wichita, which provide health and family planning services to low-income Kansans. As Parkinson noted, “Eliminating funding for programs intended to reduce the number of unplanned pregnancies does nothing to help reduce abortions in Kansas.” In fact, it could have the opposite result.
A Washington Times editorial took a different tack in opposing Gov. Kathleen Sebelius’ nomination to be secretary of Health and Human Services, painting her as a friend of an industry (abortion) who therefore is unfit to run the department that oversees that industry. “If she were the cat’s-paw of any other industry, Mrs. Sebelius would be in trouble. Yet she appears to be sailing toward a sure confirmation, thanks in part to the support of Republican Sen. Sam Brownback, a fellow Kansan and one-time pro-life leader. The industry is good to its friends, the way Standard Oil and Big Sugar once were. And it intimidates those it doesn’t buy.”
Social conservatives’ last-ditch effort to keep Kathleen Sebelius from becoming secretary of Health and Human Services hasn’t been entirely about her, according to the president of pro-choice group NARAL. Nancy Keenan told Politico: “The attacks by the right wing are, quite frankly, a dress rehearsal for the big dance, which is the Supreme Court vacancies. They are testing their tactics.”
Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s frank, poignant speech at an Indiana pro-life dinner Thursday carried a message in line with her view that abortion should be illegal except to save the life of the mother. Palin revealed that she had fleeting thoughts of having an abortion — “of trying to change the circumstances” and “make it all go away,” as she put it — when she learned she would give birth at 44 and later that her baby would have Down syndrome.
But, argues Washington Post columnist Ruth Marcus, Palin ended up underscoring the value of choice to each pregnant woman. Marcus wrote that “for the crowd listening to her at last week’s dinner, Palin’s disclosure served the comfortable role of moral reinforcement: She wavered in her faith, was tempted to sin, regained her strength and emerged better for it. As for those us less certain that we know, or are equipped to instruct others, when life begins and when it is permissible to terminate a pregnancy, Palin’s speech offered a different lesson: Abortion is a personal issue and a personal choice. The government has no business taking that difficult decision away from those who must live with the consequences.”
Just as Barack Obama’s election has been a stimulus package for the guns-and-ammo industry and Rush Limbaugh’s career, it’s been a boon for anti-abortion groups. The American Life League said its contributions have been 30 percent up over last year. Americans United for Life plans to expand its operations. An online petition calling on Notre Dame to cancel its invitation for the pro-choice president to speak at commencement was up to 262,000 signers Monday. “A lot of activists are waking up,” Joy Yearout, political director of the Susan B. Anthony List, told Politico. “For eight years we had President Bush and his veto pen to protect us — and we don’t have that anymore.”
Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., has been getting hammered by pro-life groups for not opposing Gov. Kathleen Sebelius’ nomination as secretary of Health and Human Services. But Brownback told the Topeka Capital-Journal that there is a “practicality” to his decision, saying that anyone President Obama nominates for that job will be pro-choice. “If you’re going to have a pro-choice person in that position, it’s better to have a Kansan,” Brownback said. But pro-life activists don’t seem to care much about practicality or national health issues besides abortion. “It leaves us to scratch our head and wonder if he’s with us,” said Troy Newman of Operation Rescue in Wichita. Maybe Brownback should wonder the same thing about some pro-life groups.
Anti-abortion advocates are variously describing as “baffling” and “appalling” the failure of GOP senators to quiz Gov. Kathleen Sebelius on abortion last week during her Senate confirmation hearings to become secretary of Health and Human Services. “I think this is why Republicans are in the minority,” Marjorie Dannenfelser of the anti-abortion political fundraising group Susan B. Anthony List told the Hill newspaper.
Meanwhile, Kansas City Star columnist Steve Kraske noted that while Sen. Pat Roberts and former Sen. Bob Dole were alongside Sebelius for her hearings, Sen. Sam Brownback “was nowhere to be seen, even though he had said he would back Sebelius.”
It wasn’t a surprise that a jury today found Wichita abortion doctor George Tiller not guilty of 19 misdemeanor charges. Based on news reporting on the trial, the prosecutors presented a weak case that Tiller violated a state law requiring an independent second opinion for the late-term abortions.
“Part of what we do is investigations. We find stuff out and I feed the information to the prosecutors.” — Troy Newman (in photo), president of Operation Rescue, taking credit in the Los Angeles Times for providing information that helped lead to charges against abortion provider George Tiller
To support his conclusion that the “culture wars are a luxury the country — the GOP included — can no longer afford,” New York Times columnist Frank Rich pointed to what happened when President Obama nominated Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, a pro-choice Roman Catholic, as secretary of Health and Human Services. Rich wrote: “Tony Perkins, the leader of the Family Research Council, became nearly as apoplectic as the other Tony Perkins playing Norman Bates. ‘If Republicans won’t take a stand now, when will they?’ the godly Perkins thundered online. But congressional Republicans ignored him, sending out (at most) tepid press releases of complaint, much as they did in response to Obama’s stem-cell order. The two anti-abortion Kansas Republicans in the Senate, Sam Brownback and Pat Roberts, both endorsed Sebelius.”
Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne noted how wannabe peacemaker President Obama aggravated the culture war in tapping Gov. Kathleen Sebelius to be his secretary of Health and Human Services, because she’s a Catholic who has vetoed anti-abortion legislation and otherwise upset social conservatives. But Dionne observed that liberal Catholic groups have pushed back in Sebelius’ defense, in part because abortion has declined in Kansas 10 percent since she took office. He wrote: “The rapid mobilization behind Sebelius marked the emergence of an organized movement of religious progressives as a forceful counterweight to religious conservatives, and it brought home the centrality of abortion reduction to the overall argument.”
Good for Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., for being unequivocal Tuesday in confirming his support for Gov. Kathleen Sebelius’ nomination for secretary of Health and Human Services. “The president won the election and has nominated a Kansan to the Cabinet,” Brownback said in a statement. “Despite our profound policy differences, I will support my fellow Kansan.” In signaling that he’ll vote for her confirmation, Brownback is bucking the anti-abortion lobby, which seems inexplicably surprised that a pro-choice president would prefer a pro-choice HHS secretary. American Life League president Judie Brown even said: “I’ll never use ‘pro-life’ to describe him (Brownback) again. People have just lost their moral compass — which means Obama’s winning.”
It was no surprise that Sedgwick County District Judge Clark Owens decided Wednesday to let the state’s case against Wichita abortion provider George Tiller (in photo) go to trial next month, rather than dismiss the charges or suppress all evidence obtained by former Attorney General Phill Kline. But neither was the ruling a vindication of Kline and his overzealous pursuit of Tiller, who was charged by Kline’s successor with 19 misdemeanor charges related to how Tiller obtained second opinions necessary to perform late-term abortions. Kline’s “procedures have certainly been questioned by the Kansas Supreme Court, but his conduct in the investigation does not merit the sanction of the dismissal of the charges or suppression of evidence,” Owens wrote. The judge opted to let the case have its day in court. The rest of us should do likewise.
Former Johnson County District Attorney Phill Kline told a Johnson County district judge on Jan. 8 that he wouldn’t take any abortion records, copies, summaries or notes with him when he left office. Yet the very next day, his office mailed summaries and other documents to Kline’s new office in Virginia — though the mailing was returned because of an incomplete address.
An attorney for Kline said it was an unintentional mistake that the records were shipped to Virginia. If so, that’s one monster of a mistake — though it’s in keeping with how badly Kline mishandled these records.
Court testimony has revealed that the records were stored at times in a subordinate’s dining room and in a car trunk. In December, the Kansas Supreme Court scolded Kline for his “grossly incompetent” handling of the records and said that he exhibited little, if any, respect for the rule of law.
In response to Barack Obama’s order last week easing restrictions on the use of federal family planning money overseas, Rep. Christopher Smith, R-N.J., declared in a press release that Obama “will be remembered forever . . . as the Abortion President.” Douglas Johnson of the National Right to Life Committee thundered that the order reflected “Obama’s sweeping abortion agenda.”
Columnist Davis Merritt responded: “Such overheated language is neither accurate nor helpful. Neither Obama nor anyone else wants more abortions; everyone on all sides of the issue would like to reduce the need for them. But trying to stamp out abortion by legal force or moral persuasion rather than through education is in fact fruitless.”
Merritt argued that women’s health clinics in poor countries by necessity provide a range of education about such things as sexual and neonatal health, maternal nutrition, breast-feeding, contraception and AIDS prevention in addition to information about abortions. “Denying operating funds to such clinics cannot stem the tide of abortions; in fact, the opposite is likely true: that unintended pregnancies – and thus abortions – are reduced by the education those clinics provide.”
“We may have lost an election, but we have not lost the war. We will continue to fight for life, no matter how long it takes, no matter how many marches it takes.” – Sen. Sam Brownback (in photo), R-Kan., at Thursday’s March for Life in Washington, D.C.
“Who knows what song would have been written, or book. Or (what) cure for disease that would have been given from that young mind. We lose that through abortion. I think we just push it to the back of our mind under the false pretense that women have the right to choose.” – Rep. Todd Tiahrt, R-Goddard, to a Philadelphia newspaper
“Depends on how you get there.” – Senate Minority Leader Anthony Hensley, D-Topeka, asked what he thought of the GOP’s goal of cutting $300 million from the state budget
Anthony Stevens-Arroyo, a university scholar, opposes the Freedom of Choice Act, which would statutorily establish that women have a fundamental right to choose to bear a child or terminate a pregnancy. But he doesn’t understand why the Catholic Church and some pro-life groups are exaggerating the likelihood of the act ever becoming law and the impact if it did become law – such as the claim that it would force the closure of Catholic hospitals. “I respect the propagandistic value of fear tactics, but are they necessary in this case?” he wrote. He also wondered if the Catholic Church would expend the same amount of effort and money opposing immigration laws that violate Catholic teaching.
The George Tiller hearing this week in Wichita has been like a soap opera, complete with adultery, lovers’ fights and possible blackmail. You can get blow-by-blow updates on the testimony via Eagle crime reporter Ron Sylvester’s Twitter site.
This startling statement from Mark Gietzen, the Wichita-based leader of the Kansas Coalition for Life, made Kansas City Star columnist Steve Kraske’s roundup of memorable 2008 quotes:
“From a moral perspective, for someone to vote for Obama, it is much the same as someone aiding a person who is planning to do a school shooting – only much worse! A person doing a school shooting will likely only kill less than 1,000 persons, whereas a vote for Obama will enable him to enact policies that will kill millions every year, and for years to come!”
Abortion doctor George Tiller’s effort to dismiss the misdemeanor case against him seems like a bit of a stretch. But hearings this week have shown that the public was correct to be concerned about former Attorney General Phill Kline’s dogged pursuit of Tiller and abortion records.
Tiller’s attorneys contend that Kline convinced a Topeka judge to let him subpoena medical records based on a false claim – that Tiller wasn’t reporting to authorities cases involving sexual abuse of minors. An internal memo shows that Kline had neither a complainant nor an allegation that Tiller knowingly violated the law. It’s even more serious that Kline’s office may have deliberately misled the judge by presenting a specific case as evidence of a possible reporting violation when it knew – or should have known – that Tiller had in fact properly followed the law.
The hearing has also revealed how Kline’s office worked closely with anti-abortion groups. And former Kline investigator Jared Reed testified that he believed Kline’s office was willing to do whatever it took to get a conviction, “up to and including breaking the law.”
That’s what it looked like to many voters, too.
The Bush administration seems to be trying to leave a parting gift for anti-abortion groups by moving quickly to grant new protections to health care providers who oppose abortion, sterilization and other procedures. The proposed rule is opposed by top officials in the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission who say it would overturn 40 years of civil rights law and who complain that they weren’t even consulted about the sweeping change. Some doctors, pharmacists, hospitals and others also oppose the new rule.
Meanwhile, a growing number of anti-abortion pastors, conservative academics and activists are taking a different approach. They are “setting aside efforts to outlaw abortion and instead are focusing on building social programs and developing other assistance for pregnant women to reduce the number of abortions,” the Washington Post reported. Such efforts “reflect the political reality that legal challenges to abortion rights will not be successful, especially after Barack Obama’s victory this month in the presidential election and the defeat of several ballot measures that would have restricted access to abortions.”
The 154-page legal filing by George Tiller’s attorneys is meant to persuade a judge to dismiss 19 misdemeanor charges against the Wichita abortion provider. Its point of view is strong and some of its claims so shocking as to be hard to believe, such as that former Attorney General Phill Kline lied to judges and had his investigators give false information in affidavits. And it’s accurate, as Operation Rescue’s spokeswoman argues, that the current criminal case was filed by former Attorney General Paul Morrison, not by Kline.
Still, it’s remarkable to learn of the claim, based on internal memos, that Kline tried to obtain search warrants and have armed officers raid abortion clinics, by force if necessary, to seize patient records, employee files and license plate numbers of cars in the clinics’ parking lots. And that it reportedly took two years for Kline investigators to begin looking into records of live births to underage girls, though he’d said all along that his primary concern was unreported sexual abuse. The filing also details more about Kline’s reported copying, mailing and other mishandling of women’s medical records.
The candidate forum at Saddleback Church last weekend seemed to present a clear contrast: John McCain is pro-life, and Barack Obama is pro-choice. But a Washington Post article noted that it’s not quite that simple. Obama, who is more open and reflective about his faith than McCain, has been seeking common ground on pregnancy prevention and adoption and was criticized by Hillary Clinton for not being sufficiently pro-choice. Meanwhile, McCain, who has been at odds with pro-life groups on campaign finance reform and stem cell research, is under fire for not ruling out having a pro-choice running mate. But how many voters does this really matter to? Twenty-six percent of Republicans and 18 percent of Democrats said they would not vote for a candidate who didn’t share their views on abortion, according to a Time magazine poll.
