By: Gloria Feldt
Source: salon.com
It is good and necessary that people gather together at a candlelight vigil to honor the memory of Dr. George Tiller, murdered in cold blood today at his Lutheran church by an assailant believed to be Montana “Freeman” Scott Roeder. Tiller was a compassionate and courageous doctor who provided abortion services to women in some of the most distressing circumstances imaginable, when their pregnancies had gone horribly, tragically wrong. He provided services when no one else would, and he was stubborn enough to fight against everyone who tried to stop him. So it is right that people express their grief in public ceremonies.
Each time, we held vigils all over the country. We wept and we pledged to continue our work. Which we did, increasingly, in isolation. We were the ones who had been wronged, and yet we were labeled controversial, to be shunned rather than supported. The murders were only the tip of the iceberg, among over 6000 cases of violence, vandalism, stalking, bombings, arson, invasions and other serious harassment.
Later, during the nine years I served as president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, we dramatically beefed up our own security while figuring out how to make our health centers nevertheless welcoming to patients and workers alike. In fact, we got so adept at the task that during post-911 anthrax scares, we provided federal government agencies with model protocols for dealing with such threats. But though self-sufficiency is valuable, a just society should offer much more succor to citizens who are attacked.
That’s why today, after what happened to George Tiller, I know that the only thing that will assuage my personal grief over his shocking loss is for leaders across our nation to join me in expressing outrage at this heinous crime, this domestic terrorism. And yes, they need to call it out in exactly those terms. That’s what it is.
I want to hear massive outrage on the part of the community. I want it to start with President Obama. His statement today is a good beginning.
But that’s not nearly enough. He must immediately outline an action plan to increase federal protection for providers and clinics and call for stringent enforcement of the Federal Access to Clinic Entrances Act. He has an opportunity to make a speech that addresses women’s moral right to reproductive self-determination as passionately as his brilliant speech about race did during the primary. He can and should lead the nation to a larger and more productive conversation about the complex choices women make, and why women deserve the respect, equality and justice inherent in the right to choose to have, or not have, a child. He should bring together pro-choice and anti-choice leaders and get them to issue a joint statement decrying Tiller’s murder as well as all such violent opposition to one another’s efforts. Now that would be real common ground.
George Tiller needs more than candlelight vigils
