Political Commentary: Joan McCarter

Terrorism in Kansas

By Joan McCarter, 6-01-09

Dr. Tiller has been invariably described in the media as a “controversial abortion doctor.” But to the people who knew him, and more particularly his patients, he was their friend and provider. Consider this tribute from a Daily Kos commenter:

In 1975 my Mom noticed an indention in her left breast. She called and made an appointment with her OB/GYN, Dr. George Tiller. After his initial examination, he ordered a biopsy. While performing the biopsy he immediately knew that the lump was cancerous. Instead of just closing and scheduling surgery, he “grabbed a handful”, his words not mine. Her cancer Dr. credited this quick thinking by Dr. Tiller with saving her life, and due to this she didn’t even have to undergo chemotherapy.

Several years later my Mother and I were driving by his clinic in Wichita. Mom started complaining of chest pains, so I drove into his parking lot and ran in to get help. Dr. Tiller was by Mom’s side immediately, and stabilized her, before the heart attack could cause severe damage.

In 1980 I was pregnant with my first child. I had no insurance and couldn’t afford a doctors appointment until I was approved for a medical card.. Mom told Dr. Tiller and he brought me into his office where he examined me, free of charge. I can credit him with the very first picture taken of my son.

The last story I have to share is about my friends who could not have children. Dr. Tiller’s office worked with several attorneys in the Wichita area to provide adoption services for his patients who wanted this option. My friends have a 10 yr. old boy now, who is loved and adored.

That’s the man Randall Terry of Operation Rescue would have you believe was a “mass murderer.” A man gunned down, shot in the head because his assassin spent so much time stalking him that he knew the doctor wore a bullet proof vest. Gunned down on Sunday morning while he ushered in his church.

Here is why he was the victim of a terrorist attack, from another commenter at the blog Balloon Juice:

In 1994 my wife and I found out that she was pregnant. The pregnancy was difficult and unusually uncomfortable but her doctor repeatedly told her things were fine. Sometime early in the 8th month my wife, an RN who at the time was working in an infertility clinic asked the Dr. she was working for what he thought of her discomfort. He examined her and said that he couldn’t be certain but thought that she might be having twins. We were thrilled and couldn’t wait to get a new sonogram that hopefully would confirm his thoughts. Two days later our joy was turned to unspeakable sadness when the new sonogram showed conjoined twins. Conjoined twins alone is not what was so difficult but the way they were joined meant that at best only one child would survive the surgery to separate them and the survivor would more than likely live a brief and painful life filled with surgery and organ transplants. We were advised that our options were to deliver into the world a child who’s life would be filled with horrible pain and suffering or fly out to Wichita Kansas and to terminate the pregnancy under the direction of Dr. George Tiller.

We made an informed decision to go to Kansas. One can only imagine the pain borne by a woman who happily carries a child for 8 months only to find out near the end of term that the children were not to be and that she had to make the decision to terminate the pregnancy and go against everything she had been taught to believe was right. This was what my wife had to do. Dr. Tiller is a true American hero. The nightmare of our decision and the aftermath was only made bearable by the warmth and compassion of Dr. Tiller and his remarkable staff. Dr. Tiller understood that this decision was the most difficult thing that a woman could ever decide and he took the time to educate us and guide us along with the other two couples who at the time were being forced to make the same decision after discovering that they too were carrying children impacted by horrible fetal anomalies....

Here’s a remembrance of Dr. Tiller from a fellow physician, a Texas ER doc who examined a young man having a severe anxiety attack mimicking a heart attack. In questioning him, he found out the story:

His wife was 28 weeks pregnant - about 7 months (far too late for a normal abortion). He and his wife had just been informed that day by their OB-GYN that the fetus had severe deformities of its heart’s left ventricle and pulmonary veins. The fetus would live about 5 minutes upon birth. However, they were told, there was a surgical corrective measure that could be done immediately upon birth that would give the child a 10% chance of living to be 21.  Furthermore, that procedure would require a 50,000 dollar co-pay - and the baby would have to have several very expensive open-heart procedures througout its lifetime.  The total cost to them and their insurance company (and by extension SOCIETY would likely be 2 - 3 million dollars in the first 15 years of the baby’s life. The young man was beside himself - not only with grief - but with overwhelming fear about the future. Any conscious human being with an IQ would be able to immediately realize the ENORMOUS FINANCIAL strain this would take on this young family. 

This young man and his wife had discussed this together. They had decided that 50 years ago - if this had happened to their grandparents - the baby would be born and just die. They both decided together that they wanted to abort the fetus, mainly, just to get the death of the fetus over for all involved and to do so in a controlled way. They decided they would immediately begin working on another baby to join their other two.  They had prayed about it, discussed it with their families and wanted it done.

Then they talked to their OB - and found out it was not going to happen in Texas.  By the laws of the State of Texas - and by extension the Southern Baptist Convention, late-term abortions are impossible to be done here.  And thus, in total despondency - my patient just could not handle the stress and ended up in the hospital with chest pain.

I spoke with Dr. Tiller’s clinic the next day - and fortunately, he was able to help them very soon thereafter. This family now has 4 healthy kids - and more importantly, are not burdened with the financial disaster of having a child who needs open heart surgery every 3 years. They are ardent Evangelical church-goers and they called me this morning to share their intense grief at what had happened to someone they view as their hero.

It shouldn’t have to be, but apparently does, said that the kinds of late term abortions provided by Dr. Tiller were sad, desperate, and grim acts of mercy for the families who have just found out that the baby they had hoped to help complete their families will possibly not survive birth, or more than it’s first few months, that the time it does have on earth will be spent in horrible pain. The admission criteria for Dr. Tiller’s clinic attest to that:

In order to offer you an appointment, we require that a physician refer you to our center. In addition, we need your genetic counselor or doctor to provide us with gestational and diagnostic information regarding your pregnancy. Over the past twenty-five years, we have had experience with pregnancy terminations in such situations as anencephaly, Trisomy 13, 18, and 21, polycystic kidney disease, spina bifida, hydrocephalus, Potter’s syndrome, lethal dwarfism, holoprosencephaly, anterior and posterior encephalocele, non-immune hydrops, and a variety of other very significant abnormalities.

The story that includes that link also has links to descriptions of what all those medical “situations” actually mean for babies those women are carrying, and for the women themselves. What’s more, the “genocide” that Dr. Tiller has been accused of taking part in actually representes less than one-fifth of 1 percent of all abortions in this country, according to a 2000 survey by the Alan Guttmacher Institute. It is, by the way, also legal.

Dr. George Tiller was not a murderer, if only for the simple fact that what he did was legal. There is no justification for his cold-blooded assassination. There is no justificaton for the reign of terror under which Dr. Tiller lived and cared for his patients. Dr. Tiller’s assassination is just one more act in the reign of terror that groups like Operation Rescue, with which it’s becoming increasingly clear Scott Roeder has been associated since at least 2007, have been holding over reproductive health care providers across the nation.

They can’t make abortion illegal. Thirty years for trying has proven that, and with public support for the continued legality of abortion as high as it still is, they won’t be able to accomplish that goal in the near future. So anti-abortion extremists will forego the rule of law entirely and try to achieve their goals by terrorizing doctors into not doing their jobs.

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