Roundup: More Details Emerge on Tiller's Alleged Killer; Mourners Turn to Vigils Across the Nation

Two days after the murder of Kansas women's health care provider Dr. George Tiller, more details emerge about the suspect's hate-mongering, clinics across America tighten their security, and the religious right continues to worry that Tiller's death will derail their focus on Sonia Sotomayor's position on abortion rights.

The Washington Post describes the scene in Wichita: "In Wichita, dozens of mourners left flowers outside Tiller's clinic, where an American flag flew at half-staff. Across town, the man accused of killing the doctor awaited formal charges in the Sedgwick County jail."  Mourners in Wichita and in cities across the country gathered for vigils honoring Tiller's life and recommitting to the struggle for reproductive freedom.

USA Today has more details about suspect Scott Roeder:

Scott Roeder called himself a citizen of the Republic of Kansas who didn't want to pay income or Social Security taxes or register his car. In the 1990s, he belonged to a group that said its members were not subject to federal or state laws...

Roeder was arrested in Topeka in 1996 for having an improper license plate that declared his vehicle sovereign private property. Police found bomb-making materials during a search of his car.

He was sentenced to 24 months in prison for criminal use of explosives and ordered to end contact with anti-government groups. An appeals court overturned the conviction, calling the search illegal.

In 2007, someone identified as Scott Roeder from Kansas City posted comments on the web pages of Operation Rescue and ChargeTiller.com, both groups that oppose abortion.

"Tiller is the concentration camp Mengele of our day," the person wrote, referring to Josef Mengele, a Nazi doctor who conducted experiments on prisoners.

"Scott Roeder harbored a burning,'eye-for-an-eye' anger toward abortion doctors. He once subscribed to a magazine suggesting 'justifiable homicide' against them, and apparently likened Dr. George Tiller to the Nazi death-camp doctor Josef Mengele," reports the AP.  "'The anti-tax stuff came first, and then it grew and grew. He became very anti-abortion,' said Lindsey Roeder, who was married to Scott Roeder for 10 years but 'strongly disagrees with his beliefs.'"

Roeder had recently harassed another Kansas clinic, the AP adds: 

Roeder was also known by sight and license plate number to personnel at a clinic in Kansas City, Kan., where he had put glue in backdoor locks - twice in 2000 and twice this year, most recently the day before Tiller's death, a clinic worker said Monday night.

The worker, who spoke on condition that his name not be used because of fears for his safety, said another employee was in the kitchen at Central Family Medicine early Saturday morning and spotted Roeder approaching the back door.

"She saw his shadow and knew who it was," the worker said. "She chased him away and caught up with him and had a conversation with him. He just kept repeating, 'Baby killer.'"

Meanwhile, the Times reported that "Mr. Roeder, 51, had not been among the people considered most worrisome to some abortion rights groups, some of which keep a close eye on anti-abortion groups and their Web sites to monitor what they consider threats, leaders here said."

One doctor remembers Roeder confronting him inside a Planned Parenthood clinic in Kansas City in the 1990s after first asking for him by name.

"I came out and he stepped up about six inches from me and said, 'Now I know what you look like,' and turned and walked out of the building," said Robert Crist, 73, adding that he had put the incident out of his mind until Sunday. "It really does send a chill down my spine. You wonder, 'Was I a target?' "

Clinics in the Boston area and around the country are tightening security, reports the Boston Herald: "Abortion clinics in the Boston area tightened security and moved to calm workers yesterday as U.S. Marshals were dispatched to clinics across the country in the wake of the murder of a church-going Kansas doctor."

The anti-choice movement continues to worry that Tiller's murder will distract from their attempts to draw attention to Sonia Sotomayor's position on abortion rights, the Boston Globe reports. "But they also worried that the murder will damage the credibility of the antiabortion movement at a time when they are anxiously pressing for an aggressive inquiry into Sotomayor's views on Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion, as well as other regulations limiting the procedure."

The LA Times provides statistics about the occurrence of late-term abortions, pointing out that, "Most doctors don't perform late-stage abortions. Nationally, only 1.3% of all reported legal abortions occurred at 21 weeks or more gestation. A slightly higher percentage, 3.7%, occurred at 16 to 20 weeks gestation."

On Feministe, Jill Filipovic has a fiery, must-read reaction to Will Saletan's absurd "Is it wrong to kill an abortionist?" headline:

First: "Abortionist" is a word made up by right-wing fanatics. They use it to downplay the fact that abortion providers are doctors, often OB/GYNs. It would be like calling a dermitologist an "acne-ist." It doesn't really make sense, and there's already an actual term for what those doctors do. "Abortionist" is a loaded and totally incorrect word, and it's appalling to see it used over and over again in an article written by a supposedly pro-choice person.

Second: Tiller is not the pro-choice equivalent of Scott Roeder, and Saletan should be ashamed for suggesting as much.

Third: The headine "Is it wrong to murder an abortionist?" suggests that there's actually some debate amongst reasonable people on that issue. There is not.

Here's how Saletan describes Tiller's work:

Several years ago, I went to a conference of abortionists. Some of the late-term providers were there. A row of tables displayed forceps for sale. They started small and got bigger and bigger. Walking along the row, you could ask yourself: Would I use these forceps? How about those? Where would I stop?

The people who do late-term abortions are the ones who don't flinch. They're like the veterans you sometimes see in war documentaries, quietly recounting what they faced and did. You think you're pro-choice. You think marching or phone-banking makes you an activist. You know nothing. There's you, and then there are the people who work in the clinics. And then there are the people who use the forceps. And then there are the people who use the forceps nobody else will use. At the end of the line, there's George Tiller.

Nothing about the heart-breaking circumstances faced by the of the women Tiller served.  Nothing about the fact that the abortions he performed weren't ones women could have prevented.

In The American Prospect, Michelle Goldberg offers a deeply moving assessment of Tiller's work, an antidote to Saletan's dismissive treatment:

Late-term abortion is often spoken of as the most morally dubious aspect of the abortion debate. Many people who are nominally pro-choice, particularly politicians, are quick to condemn it, to treat the work that Tiller did as repugnant even if it's legal.

Ironically, though, many of the procedures Tiller did were as far away from the much-reviled concept of "abortion on demand" as one could get. Unwanted pregnancy can, to some extent, be prevented. A pregnancy that goes horribly wrong cannot. Almost anyone of child-bearing age could end up needing Tiller's services. And now some of them will be forced to carry pregnancies to term against their will even when their fetuses can't survive outside the womb...

Of course, not all of Tiller's cases were as morally clear-cut as those recounted on A Heartbreaking Choice. Tiller performed abortions at 26 or 27 weeks for developmentally disabled abuse victims or girls who'd hidden their pregnancies and then become suicidal. Harrison himself is uncomfortable with such late abortions. When patients of his sought them, "Unless they were a real threat to the mother's life, and I consider suicide a threat to her life, we would talk about having a baby and putting it up for adoption," he says. But it was precisely because such abortions are so grueling for everyone involved that Harrison admires Tiller's willingness to do them. As everyone who knew Tiller points out, Tiller's motto was "trust women." He had the phrase printed up on buttons.