The heebie jeebies!

When I was hanging out with Scott Roeder's fan club, I knew these were people who thought he was in the right. Later, a friend told me about meeting Paul Hill at Shelley Shannon's hearing, and I became disturbed. First, fan club, now wannabes.

But an article today by KC Star's Judy Thomas made things all the more scary. Not just supporters, not just potential terrorists but actual terrorists. Jennifer McCoy, quoted in the article, was the same Jennifer who needed "utilitarian" defined for her. She served time. For setting fire to clinics. Hooray for me ...

It's really disturbing to know that not talking about something makes you innocent of a conspiracy. I'm sure they didn't all get together and dare each other to shoot Dr. Tiller. They just got together, talked about the evils, and glanced at one another, waiting for one of them to pull the trigger. And then they give aide and comfort to their hero while he's in jail, show him he's loved, and send him money.

They probably hang around passing quotes like we do. From men like Albert Einstein who said "The world is a dangerous place to live, not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it." And Edmund Burke's "All that is necessary for evil to succeed is that good men do nothing." They're perfectly content to do nothing. They know someone else will do it for them, so long as they keep talking it up.

There is this great double-edged sword. As an intellectual liberal, I know that in the 60s and 70s, the US government had documents on liberal leaders, even if they were non-violent. John Lennon had a huge file with the government trying to kick him out of the US. He spoke at great lengths about the need to "cool down [the revolution]," as he said, and spoke out against violence but in favor of a sort of revolution. But he was followed because he was not in favor of the political leaders at the time and because his words could inspire people to actually do something about it.

That he was profiled and harassed embarrasses me as an American.

While he advocated non-violence, Lennon still was friends with those that advocated a bit more violence. I remember a friend telling me Abbie Hoffman himself taught her how to make a Molotov cocktail.

I very much know that this loose association of people lead to all manner of violence. But I also very much fear advocating intrusion into their lives will be used, as it has been, against well-meaning people whose advocacy overlaps with those advocating violence. It's hard to be vegetarian without being associated with either PETA or ALF or a "radical" environmentalist without ELF. It's easy to support the American Anti-Vivisection Society (what with their cute little bunny rabbit logo on products), but it's not hard to see the next step to the Animal Liberation Front (even many supporters of ALF don't really like Jerry Vlasak's statements justifying violence against animal researchers). Similarly, ALF has no members, just principles, and supporters who wouldn't do it themselves smile when actions happen and send them letters and such while offenders serve time. Just because one believes the ends justify the means does not make the means (or even the end, for that matter) just.

Of course we want to aim only at those who advocate violence. But who else ends up in the crossfire? I'm still of the opinion the only real way to win the abortion culture wars is to educate Americans on abortion.

But until then and even then, we have people like Jennifer, living her beliefs. We have access to easy solutions, but we have to question the ethics behind such solutions (and the uneven application seeing as how we have the Patriot Act to go after brown people with foreign-sounding names but we don't touch the white people who openly admit they want to kill people). We want those solutions used when we're the ones needing protection from violence; but when our civil liberties need protected?

So that leaves me perplexed, confused. And with the wonders of the internet, I can share information with other people. Since I know the government and law enforcement won't protect me (Dr. Carhart's protection was removed in spite of rising threats), I've decided I have to be my own advocate and my best advocate. Operation Rescue has decided to move their efforts from Dr. Tiller to Dr. Carhart. As such, I am joining other advocates from Kansas to defend his clinic. (I know the people who read this have probably read all my tweets on the subject but please join us. If you can't join us, there is a link on the page to help us.)

Yea, also, check out Roeder Watch.

"Anonymous" stops remembering Dr. George Tiller

Previously, I complained that Congress wanted to pass a resolution denouncing church violence. Well, I was not alone in my annoyance that Dr. Tiller's profession wasn't recognized.

The House quickly, and unanimously, passed the aforementioned version. But the Senate proposed a different version. Three Senators, Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), Barbara Boxer (D-CA), and Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), changed the language:

Senate Resolution 187

Condemning the use of violence against providers of health care services to women.

Whereas Dr. George Tiller of Wichita, Kansas, was shot to death while attending church on Sunday, May 31, 2009;

Whereas there is a history of violence against providers of reproductive health care, as health care employees have suffered threats, hostility, and attacks in order to provide crucial services to patients;

Whereas the threat or use of force or physical obstruction has been used to injure, intimidate, or interfere with individuals seeking to obtain or provide health care services; and

Whereas acts of violence are never an acceptable means of expression and shall always be condemned: Now, therefore, be it

Resolved, That the Senate--

(1) expresses great sympathy for the family, friends, and patients of Dr. George Tiller;

(2) recognizes that acts of violence should never be used to prevent women from receiving reproductive health care; and

(3) condemns the use of violence as a means of resolving differences of opinion.

Finally! Hooray! Thank-you Sens. Shaheen, Boxer, and Klobuchar for introducing this, and thank-you to the 43 co-sponsors: Murray; Durbin; Dodd; Schumer; Lautenberg; Mikulski; Landrieu; Gillibrand; Harkin; Carper; Sanders; Kaufman; Wyden; Kerry; Lieberman; Tom Udall; Levin; Brown; Whitehouse; Burris; Mark Udall; Stabenow; Baucus; Cantwell; Bingaman; Inouye; Cardin; Specter; Johnson; Feingold; Leahy; Tester; Snowe; Begich; Akaka; Bennet; Feinstein; Warner; McCaskill; Reed; Kennedy, Lincoln; and Merkley.

However, damn the one anonymous Senator who stopped this. Wanted to back down on referencing reproductive health. That's why he was targeted! That's why we've been targeted for over 20 years! What is so hard about passing this?

It was killed before it even got to the floor. Why? Because someone didn't want to be seen opposing this resolution. Voting against this would be so easily spun as endorsing violence. Of course, whoever killed it is also endorsing the violence. Not just assassination but endorses the constant day-in, day-out violence faced not just by providers of the whole range of women's reproductive health but by women wishing to take charge of their reproduction.

Common ground? Apparently not.

Censored by Choice, Censored Choice

This morning, the Wichita Eagle ran a story about the threats of violence anti-choice groups have received, especially lately. The article is a total wash, such a tool. Umm, have you had your access to health care blocked for 20 years? Have you been called a baby killer for accessing contraceptives? Have you been stalked to your home or had the places you eat at boycotted? Moreover, has any "pro-life" group actually been bombed, attacked, or killed? No? Hmmph.

But the Wichita Eagle has never been known for being actually balanced on the issue of choice. They believe the local sentiment is largely anti-abortion and they write like the pro-choice side is barely here, dominated by older white women, and dying out. This, of course, isn't true. But given the politics of the NOW president elections this weekend, we young women really do want to get involved, and we are. And many of us are simply offended by the Eagle's coverage of tomorrow's events.

Stan Finger seems to only have reprinted parts of press releases when talking about tomorrow's "prayer vigil". Kansas NOW responded by holding a counter-protest and pointing out that "anti-choice extremists" are hypocrites (Mahoney, after Tiller's assassination, said "No one should use this tragedy for political gain."). They're praying for the end of violence "inside and outside of abortion clinics" and for "healing to the city of Wichita."

Wichita has been torn apart by abortion for 20 years, but it's not because of abortion. It's because anti-choice activists came here and ripped our community apart. And they continue to abuse us. They continue to use us as a staging point. Abortion is gone from our town, and they still come. They still pray for the fetuses. They act as if we are a horrid little burg because women have had a choice. Our police and our city council and even our citizens have allowed their violence, their stalking, their lies, their fake clinics within feet of actual health care providers. They have brought violence to us, not Dr. Tiller, not the clinics.

And they keep bringing it. Outside forces continue to not allow us to heal. Operation Rescue, original or West, are not from Wichita. Christian Defense Coalition is not from Wichita. Neither are from Kansas. Continuing to come here is not going to allow us to "heal," to move on. And by "move on," I of course mean "allowing women to advocate for their own health including contraception, abortion, safer sex education, pre-conception counseling, pregnancy and childbirth options, and early childhood care." Ooo, evil!

There is nothing honorable in their actions. They are not trying to mourn with us over a murder. They are dancing on Dr. Tiller's grave. And they're rubbing it in our faces by laying roses to honor fetuses. They didn't ask the citizens of Wichita if we wanted them to join us in praying for our community. They decided it for us. Of course, they decide everything for us.

I wish I lived in a world where I could just live. But I don't. Organized groups of citizens and politicians work hard to make sure I can't love who I want, have sex with whomever I want, have sex when I want as I want, decide for myself if I want to have children, how I have children, when I have children, berate me for not wanting to give birth but foster instead, where I live, how much I earn, where I'm allowed to work.

But there's a war over all these things. I wish I didn't have to fight. But I want to live *my* life, not someone else's and not what someone else has set up for me. People out there are attacking me, my choices, my decisions, as if I cannot. It is almost as if being human means I cannot think and moreso being female. But I have a brain, I am educated, I can think for myself, and I do.

So, please, we didn't invite you. Please leave. Leave my home and leave my body!

Between the lines of "murder"

Most of my thoughts on Tiller's assassination live on my Twitter account because it's easier to have sporadic thoughts than try to reason through the past day and a half. I've done what I could to scourer news sources and give a bit of commentary.

CommonDreams reminds us the violence escalated to murder 3 months after Clinton took office and didn't end until Dubya took over. Since then, no one's been assassinated through anti-choice violence. Almost as soon as we learned Dr. Tiller had died, "pro-life" and "pro-choice" decided to lump everyone together. Choice proponents quickly pointed out the vitriol expressed by groups like Operation Rescue; public officials like Phill Kline; and national media personalities like Bill O'Reilly are culpable in Tiller's assassination (and, presumably, future violence stemming out of yesterday's). Choice opponents quickly angered that most people automatically assumed (100% correctly) a "pro-life" activist committed the assassination and warned everyone that the "pro-life" movement is not violent.

R. Albert Mohler Jr., President of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, stated in today's Washington Post "For many years, Dr. George Tiller has represented the horrific reality of the abortion industry in this nation." Among many other epitaphs concerning the "industry". Throughout, he pointed out abortion is murder and Tiller was a murderer. Yet, at the same time, he condemns the murder of a murderer.

He calls to John Brown and Henry David Thoreau. John Brown, finding the government and system unable to confront slavery rapidly enough, commited many acts of violence in the name of abolition. Because of his violence, Kansas was known as "Bloody Kansas" and in modern times, we condemn his actions. Though we talk in theoreticals about the justification of killing Hitler as a child or Himler. While any theory of just war or self-defense could certainly be extended to include violent acts freeing slaves or harming the slave trade. And, of course, killing people who participate in abortion. (Oddly, I don't know that these same people would support groups such as ELF and ALF who commit large-scale acts of vandalism, never having harmed a living being)

I'll state now, I'm not supportive of violence. I'm quite the pacifist. I'm not even one who honestly supports the just war doctorine. I'm of the opinion that so long as we find any form of force as acceptable, we will find new ways to justify otherwise unjustifiable acts. What we do legally (such as self-defense laws) and promote personally can be different. I don't think people who harm another human through self-defense should go to jail, but we certainly need to do our part as a society to prevent violence that leads to anyone's harm. Though abortion isn't an act of murder, no matter at what point it happens. Viability assumes a baby and their parent(s) can afford the care necessary early in life and, potentially, for the rest of their life.

But we are a society that finds reasons to justify and celebrate violence and death. After all, John Brown with a rifle in one hand and a Bible in the other decorates a big wall in our Statehouse.

Honoring this history of justifiable violence officially, is it little wonder Dr. Tiller's clinic has been bombed, he's been shot once before, and this time killed in his church? Or that ORW stalks clinic workers and supporters.

Don't be fooled: if you use violent language to modivate your cause, violence will happen. You cannot use extreme language and expect non-extreme actions to happen.

This was not the first. This is not the last.

Dr. Tiller and Survival of Choice

Dr. George Tiller was assassinated just five hours ago as I write this, gunned down while he served as usher at his church, a church he has attended for over a decade. There are so many things to express, to say, about the hole that exists in my body right now.

I've run into Dr. Tiller at fundraising events before, and I know he was getting old. He was 67 and still providing late-term abortions to women from around the country. I knew that someday, probably soon, he would no longer be with us as a provider, and I've wondered what we are to do then. However, I had figured we'd have time to plan. Time for another provider to learn and take his place. Not for "the cause" but for women.

This is not just about an abortion provider assassinated. It's not about the cruelty of someone shooting him down in church. I don't know yet if the shooter is religious or not, but the chances of him being Christian are very, very high. This man walked into a place of worship of his God and shot down a fellow believer. Because they believed differently on a point or two. Everyone in that church suffered today, not just Dr. Tiller and his family.

There are two facilities in the state of Kansas that provide abortions. The other is in the Kansas City area. For Wichitans, that's a three hour drive. For other Kansans, it is quite a bit longer. Kansas has a 24 hour waiting period on abortion. We have to see providers twice. Now, that wait is even longer. Every woman in Kansas suffered today.

Dr. Tiller provided late-term services to women after 21 weeks. He was one of three in the country who did. Over the years, I've read plenty of articles from women about their difficult decisions. Some women who miscarried late in their pregnancy but who still had the dead fetus inside of them were denied life necessary procedures because late-term abortion laws are written in this country in such a way as to put doctors at risk for providing services when a dead fetus doesn't expel itself. Doctors who do not provide abortions are afraid to save women's lives. But Dr. Tiller wasn't. Every pregnant woman in America suffered today.

For years, protesters have stood outside Tiller's clinic and harassed women on their way in. They have taken pictures of women and their families and posted them on the internet. They have followed, harassed, and posted on the internet for all to see the faces, names, and homes of his clinic workers. And they are proud of this harassment as is evident from a 2004 Rolling Stone Magazine article. They did everything they could to take away the choice of women, a difficult choice, a sometimes necessary choice.

Today, choice was taken away from women. Sure, it still "exists," but at what cost? Three more hours to Kansas City? An overnight stay? More harassers camped outside in Kansas City since they don't have to be in Wichita? Knowing these harassers are willing not only to stalk and berate but assassinate ... What choice do I have?

With every assassination, with every attempt, with every hateful word spoken, they take away choice.

God gave humans free will. He gave Adam and Eve the ability to eat the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. He wanted them to make a choice. How could their hearts be pure if they were not given an option they chose not to take?

This was a political assassination, and it was an attack on women. We cannot choose not to terminate a pregnancy if we don't have the option. Our options to prevent pregnancy are limited. And, now, even moreso. The fear we already felt is greater now.

This is why you are labeled a threat to national security. This is why you are terrorists.

I hope you find yourselves in jail. All of you.