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June 1, 2009

Tiller and the Silencers

By Michael Shaw

Tiller Trial March 09.jpg

“We are extremely disappointed” with the verdict, said the Rev. Patrick Mahoney of the Christian Defense Coalition and former national spokesman for Operation Rescue. “But we’re thrilled that it even came to trial. This will not stop us at all.”

Indeed, on the same day Tiller was acquitted, the Board of Healing Arts announced that it was filing an 11-count administrative case against him, which could result in the suspension or revocation of his license. He is accused of breaking the same law — with some of the same patients — that he was found not guilty of breaking on Friday.

from: Doctor acquitted by Kansas jury in late-term abortion trial (LAT)

What is important to emphasize regarding the murder of Dr. Tiller is that this situation was heading for a bad end.

After years of threats and attacks, Tiller faced a nuisance trial in March concocted by anti-abortion activists attempting to shut him down for allegedly improperly obtaining second opinions. Wackos from Operation Rescue packed the court room and demonstrated outside, and were furious when Tiller was vindicated in a jury deliberation that lasted less than an hour. As you see from the quote above, they planned to immediately go at him again, the escalating pressure also marked by vandalization of Tiller’s clinic in May.

Of course, any number of sites are documenting this story. For our purposes, though, I’m interested in the pictures that ran on the newswire during the March trial, the image above being one. The photo was taken March 23, 2009 outside the courthouse in Wichita.
Of course, these protests by now bear a common signature with the tape over the mouth, the standing in silence, the reading of the bible. Calling it out, I might add, I in no way challenge the right to demonstrate this way. Still, with the news that Tiller’s murderer may have been involved with Operation Rescue, and understanding that the group and its leadership did everything it could to harass, intimidate and, yes, terrorize the doctor and his patients, I will not look at these protests the same way again.
In their sanctimony and instigation of hate, in the standing as an echo of victimization, in the tape over the mouth as the symbolic silencing of the unborn, it is this action I — and I’m sure, many others too — will now associate with the snuffing out of Tiller’s life.
  

(image: Joe Stumpe/AFP. caption: Abortion opponents hold a silent protest outside the courthouse on March 23, 2009 in Wichita, Kansas, where George Tiller faces criminal charges in a case which activists on both side of the decades-long battle over abortion rights say is intended to send a chill through the medical community. One of the few doctors who still performs late-term abortions in the United States, Tiller has been picketed, bombed and shot in the arms. He has been demonized by abortion opponents who regularly protest outside his clinic, located just off a busy highway that runs through Wichita.)

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  • http://www.boston.com FRwritings on twitter

    This is very disturbing that an organization that stands for life would approve or celebrate some one being gun down @ church… Very disturbing.

  • http://www.wvablue.com/ Clem Guttata

    “I will not look at these protests the same way again.”
    Huh? I guess you don’t remember the murders and shootings from 1993-1998?
    Renewed acts of domestic terrorism are an inevitable consequence of: (a) Bush-era domestic law enforcement prioritizing potential non-WASP sources over white Christian sources of terrorism (b) media figures like O’Reilly and Beck condoning violence and (c) guns rights organizations spreading lies that promote record gun sales (see: NRA).
    How could you not looking at people with an eliminationist message and think they meant anything other than literally silencing their opponents voices forever?

  • Tena

    This is classic terrorism. They murdered him in his church – generally believed to be the safest place on earth – on purpose to terrify every doctor in the country.
    It’s just classic terrorism – end of story. All this blather and talk and nonsense about Islamic terrorism – when the threat is almost nonexistent. Yet we have all these damn terrorists walking around this country, professing to be Christians and killing for christ. How goddamn sick is this? About as sick as it gets.

  • http://profile.typepad.com/EvilPoet EvilPoet
  • http://www.woodka.com donna

    They don’t stand for life, they stand for controlling the actions of others and killing them if they don’t act “appropriately”. These people are nothing but murderers themselves, with no belief in a God of love, only one of hate.

  • Ursula L

    This image is interesting when you consider how Obama (and others) ask for a civilized dialog. In covering their mouths, it symbolically disables them from speech, conversation, and dialog. What is left is action, action without words or negotiation.
    The breakdown in negotiations is often the final step before war and violence. Making gagging themselves, removal from conversation and negotiation, a symbol of their protest, seems to be a call for the actions that come when you can no longer negotiate – violence and war.

  • http://solarray.blogspot.com gmoke

    Mouth taped shut. Eyes on the Bible only. Earbuds covering the ears.
    Man on the left with mouth also taped shut and eyes closed.
    Man in the back sitting, wearing sunglasses to hide his eyes, the direction of his gaze directly into the camera lens.
    Woman with her back turned. Woman half out of frame. Neither face visible.
    This is a picture of sexist disassociation from each other, from their bodies, from women.

  • mcc

    Mouth taped shut. Eyes on the Bible only. Earbuds covering the ears.
    No talking, just shooting.

  • Cat Ion

    Those protesters are part of an organization called Bound 4 Life (see http://bound4life.com/). Their modus operandi is to wear those “LIFE” stickers on their mouths and stand in a line to demonstrate what they consider a “silent siege” in reference to Ezekiel 4:2-3: “Lay siege against it, build a siege wall against it… Set your face against it, and it shall be besieged, and you shall lay siege against it.”
    What I find interesting is the alternative definitions of the word “bound”. I’m sure they intend “bound” to mean sure or determined. But, in light of Dr. Tiller’s assassination and the likelihood that many women will not get the life-saving abortion care they need, I can’t help but to think of the word “bound” to mean tied or secured. As in, by killing Dr. Tiller, more women will be tied to what these forced-birthers consider as women’s natural biological destiny as breeding machines. And the fact they have the gall to call their position pro-life makes them even more morally grotesque.

  • elfpix

    There’s murder, and there’s murder.
    There are terrorists and there are terrorists.
    Whether we tape our mouths or not we are terrorists in Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Cuba, and we have been in the Phillipines, in Nicaragua and right here on this continent. Our white male kind has been in India, China, all over the Middle East, in Gaza.
    Our capacity to ignore those examples simply means that in 48 hours noone will carry in their spirits any long-term impact from this image or any of the multitude of tohers that reveal our terrorism.

  • yg

    tape is supposed to spell “life” but reads as “lie.”

  • http://revcom.us Lee Thompson

    In the wake of the murder of abortion provider Dr. George Tiller, who always wore a button saying “Trust Women”, here is a must read article:
    “The Deadly Illusion of ‘Common Ground’ on Abortion – Response to Obama’s speech at Notre Dame on common ground and abortion”
    by Sunsara Taylor
    http://revcom.us/a/166/ST_on_Obama-en.html

  • gg

    Tiller’s killer is an uneducated douchebag. May he rot and burn in hell

  • http://profile.typepad.com/6p0115703d85eb970c spriche

    Just one of the many killings which, for whatever reason, are every day occurrences in this country.

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