Domestic terrorism and religiosity

There is a great deal of controversy surrounding the practice of late-term abortion. Moral arguments, religious and non-, may be made both for and against the procedure, the details of which are readily available, and to a certain extent central to the argument. In the State of Kansas, there were only three doctors who provided this service. One of them was Dr. George Tiller. Tiller had performed this procedure for years, and had paid the price as the center of a firestorm.  He was, for more than a decade, the primary ideologic target of the antiabortion movement. For years, he was vilified by the right, compared with Mengele, called a mass murderer, accused of the most heinous crimes on national television and radio.

It turns out that someone was listening.

Scott Roeder, a long-time anti-abortion activist, a man who had been monitored for years, and who had committed trespassing, criminal mischief and other minor nuisance crimes against clinics including Dr. Tiller’s, allegedly killed Dr. Tiller while the physician served as an usher at his church. Dr. Tiller was more than aware of Roeder, who had on more than one occasion glued the doors to his clinic closed, and about whom Dr. Tiller had made numerous complaints to both local and Federal authorities. Tiller had made such a complaint less than twenty-four hours prior to the shooting.

Roeder was following his faith, which defined abortion as murder of unborn children. In the service of this faith, fed by the voices of ideologues, Roeder believed that any measure, including killing, was justified to protect the lives of those unborn. He was, it seems, not alone. In the wake of George Tiller’s murder, hundreds of posts on far-right and anti-abortion message boards celebrated the murderer as a hero, while making such statements as “George Tiller was aborted in his 203rd trimester,” and “George tiller: now in his fifth hour in Hell.” The suspect himself has made numerous statements to the press essentially celebrating Tiller’s death as a good thing, while denying his involvement in the killing itself.

This “celebration” is not limited to individuals. Randall Terry, founder of Operation Rescue, has tried to simultaneously distance his organization from the murder and laud the act itself. This is proving more difficult by the day, as the investigation reveals the involvement of employees of his organization with Roeder. Commentators who previously referred to the victim as “Tiller the baby killer” are now attempting to claim that they never, ever advocated violence, of course they didn’t.

This is terrorism. The intent of the slaying was to create terror, to reduce the availability of abortion services by killing a provider while at the same time sending the message to others, both providers and those who seek their services:  you could be next. It’s the same message sent when a man detonates a bomb strapped around his waist in Tel Aviv. It’s the same message sent when men fly planes into buildings in New York City. It’s the same message sent when a bomb made of fertilizer destroys a Federal Building in Oklahoma. It is, as of today, the same message sent when a man walks into a museum recording the deaths of millions and opens fire in the name of hatred.

Guess what? It’s working.

Women’s Health Care Services of Witchita, Kansas is closing. How could they not? Who would dare take Dr. Tiller’s place, to be the next target of Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity, the next subject of curses in the mouths of those who claim a god’s love while advocating the murder of another physician? Won’t women now reconsider before going to a clinic providing abortions, wondering if one of the people standing in front with a sign showing the picture of a fetus might have a gun as well? George Tiller’s murderer knows this. It’s a bonus, above and beyond the removal of a hated opponent, this chilling effect.

There are non-religious terrorists. I don’t mean to imply that religion is the only motivator for senseless killing. It is, however, the most common by far. When you hear about a terrorist attack you, like me, immediately thing of one thing: religious fanaticism gone to the extreme. It’s fed by the rhetoric of hate, it’s fanned by the apostles of publicity, it’s perpetrated by the true believers of the Cause, whatever it may be.

In the state of Kansas, whatever you may have thought about the practice of late-term abortion, Dr. George Tiller was within the bounds of the law. Why is it then that the victim of a murderer is being portrayed as less sympathetic than his killer? And what are we, as rational people, doing to counter those voices that celebrate death as a tool of ideology?