Pro-Abortion Groups Falsely Blame Pro-Life Movement for George Tiller’s Death
by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
May 31, 2009
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) — Just hours after the shooting death of late-term abortion practitioner George Tiller and without a potential suspect, leading pro-abortion organizations immediately blamed pro-life advocates for George Tiller’s death.
The statements by the pro-abortion leaders appeared to use Tiller’s death for political gain by painting the pro-life community with a broad brush and accusing them of fostering a climate leading to Tiller’s death.
Vicki Saporta, the president of the National Abortion Federation, a trade group for abortion businesses, claimed "individuals who oppose the right to choose have used violence to try to advance their extreme anti-choice agenda."
Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards relied on the same kind of comments to attack the majority of Americans who are pro-life and also peaceful, law-abiding people.
"He was continually harassed by abortion opponents for much of his career," Richards said.
She pointed out that Tiller was recently "targeted for investigation by a jury," referring to the charges brought against him by a Kansas Attorney General who supports legal abortions but had evidence suspecting Tiller may have been engaging in illegal abortions.
Richards called the late-term abortions that Tiller did, which involved the death of unborn children after viability that most Americans oppose, as "critical reproductive health care."
Eleanor Smeal, the head of the Feminist Majority Foundation, said Tiller was a "hero for women’s rights" who "many legal challenges by anti-abortion extremists."
Accusing pro-life advocates of killing Tiller, she said he "was murdered in his church by such an extremist" on Sunday.
NARAL president Nancy Keenan also accused pro-life advocates of being behind the Tiller killing, saying "we suspect it is" a case of "anti-abortion violence."
Other abortion advocates carried on the blame-the-pro-life-movement banner including Andrew Sullivan of The Atlantic newspaper, who went as far as blaming Fox News political commentator Bill O’Reilly for Tiller’s death.
He called it the "campaign of domestic terrorism against him" and blasted pro-life advocates for protesting at his abortion center and O’Reilly for calling him Tiller the "so-called baby killer."
Susan Demas of the Capitol Chronicle newspaper in Michigan claimed the killing was the result of the "sick side of the pro-life movement" and said she wasn’t surprised by the killing.
"So why wouldn’t some "pro-lifer" go off the deep end as another pro-choice justice is poised to join the Supreme Court and take out a doctor who performs abortions?" she wrote.
ACTION: Contact Demas at [email protected] with your comments about her post.
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