Dr. Tiller’s Murder is an Act of Terrorism

As  Gloria Feldt, former president of the Planned Parenthood Federation, asks us to do, I am proclaiming the murder of Dr. Tiller — a doctor who worked tirelessly to continue providing women reproductive choices despite numerous attempts on his life and work — a despicable act of domestic terrorism.  And as Bonnie Erbe explains, anti-choice (anti-American) extremists are to blame.

I don’t even know what else there is to say. I just know that women cannot — and should not have to — continue living in a society that deems their sovereignty, their bodily autonomy, less important than that of men, than paternalistic politics, than the fucked up gender roles so many of us cling to desperately.

Dr. Tiller did not deserve to die. The women whose lives he saved through late-term abortion procedures — that were found in numerous trials to be medically necessary — did not deserve to die either. And, thankfully for them and for others whose lives he touched, Tiller was one of few who recognized that. 

Now, as a result of Scott Roeder performing the logical outcome of the “pro-life” movement’s philosophy and hate speech, we have lost a man who helped women when no one else would or could. 

The anti-choicers should be scared — they should be very scared — that this act of horrifying violence will cause the rest of us to cast a jaundiced eye upon those who would take away women’s reproductive rights. Indeed, the rest of us should look even more critically at those who defend Roeder, who defame Tiller, and who wrestle women for control over women’s bodies.

Feministe has a list of organizations you can donate to in honor and memory of Dr. Tiller while supporting women’s right to choose.  I’ll be donating to the George Tiller Memorial Abortion Fund and Medical Students for Choice.