Why the murder of George Tiller is terrorism

[Tansy_Gold]

I just googled "terrorism definition" and cut and pasted what came up:

Definitions of terrorism on the Web:

the calculated use of violence (or the threat of violence) against civilians in order to attain goals that are political or religious or ...
wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

Terrorism is the systematic use of terror especially as a means of coercion." There is no internationally agreed definition of terrorism. ...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism


Think about those words and phrases for a minute.

The calculated -- not random -- use of violence.

The systematic -- not random -- use of terror. Of fear. Of threats to make one afraid of potential, possible, probable, certain violence.



Now, let's back up.

Dr. George Tiller performed abortions. He was an abortionist. That much is fact.

Also fact is that he terminated pregnancies that had gone beyond the roughly 22 week or five and ahalf months' gestation that normally signifies viability outside the womb.

In order to do that in the state of Kansas, Dr. Tiller was required by Kansas law to get the independent medical opinion of another doctor that the continuation of the pregnancy would risk the mother's life or severe impairment to her health.

In other words, Dr. Tiller could not legally terminate a 33 or 34 week fetus without medical certification that the pregnancy posed a risk to the mother. Or that the fetus itself was non-viable.

I want to examine several concepts here.

First, if the fetus is non-viable, then the doctor who terminates the pregnancy is not violating the law of any deity. It is, if you believe in such things, the deity's doing that the fetus is non-viable. If the fetus is already dead, then there can be no murder. One cannot murder the already dead. This is true regardless when the abortion is performed: It was GOD who determined that baby should not live, not Dr. Tiller or any other abortionist.

Second, if the fetus is potentially viable but for whatever reason the pregnancy poses a severe threat to the mother's health -- HELLP is just one of many complications of pregnancy that can prove fatal to the mother; my daughter-in-law's sister nearly died of it a couple of years ago -- failure to terminate is essentially a death sentence on the mother. If she survives and it's a miracle, well, isn't that sweet. If she dies, well, it's just God's will. I would like to know how many men, and yes, I mean men specifically, would refuse life-saving medical treatment on the rationale that "it's God's will" that they die? Probably not many. And yes, I am understanding that prostate cancer surgery or cardiac bypasses do not require that another "human being" be sacrificed. But the notion of "God's will" seems to be applied to only a very few select situaations: Namely, pregnancies that threaten women's lives.

That second concept reflects nothing on men, and only on women. It demonstrates no respect for women as living, sentient beings; it respects only the unborn and elevates the unborn, even though they are potential "murderers" in their own right, to a higher status than the woman. This is disrespectful of Woman as a gender.

As I've already mentioned, Kansas law -- and to differing extents similar laws in other states -- expressly forbids late-term abortion for any reason other than the life and health of the mother.

The third concept, therefore, is that the woman-hating terrorists like Bill O'Reilly and his ilk are liars. George Tiller would never just abort an unwanted fetus simply for the payment of a $5000 fee. Even if he was willing to do it, Kansas law forbade it. There are no abortionists crushing the skills and sucking out the brains of innocent little almost-born babies and tossing the remains in the nearest waste basket solely on the whim of selfish evil women who no longer want to be bothered. No abortionist blithely terminates healthy pregnancies an hour before the baby is born. IF THAT WERE TRUE, what does it say about women?

The doctor who aborts a healthy 9-month fetus for the payment of $5000 could be called merely mercenary, or perhaps just a capitalist. But what is o'Reilly saying about women? He's saying that there should not be legal and safe abortion because women are too evil, too selfish, too cruel, too worthless to be trusted with the fruit of their own wombs.

Late term abortions are very rare. Even the National Right to Life Committee, in 1997, estimated that there were only 4,000 second trimester abortions of healthy babies of healthy mothers. Note that that's second trimester, not third. (http://www.nrlc.org/abortion/pba/test.html) Third trimester abortions -- well into viability range -- are even rarer.

What the terrorism of Dr. Tiller's murder does is
1. Frighten many doctors out of abortion practice altogether.
2. Raise the cost of providing abortion services due to security expenses
3. Frighten women away from seeking abortion when it may be medically necessary
4. Restricting -- through both affordability and accessibility -- the ability of many women to obtain a medically necessary abortion. (The rich can always afford it, and find a doctor who will fake the records i fnecessary.)
5. Increasing the emotional trauma through social pressure that a woman already feels when she is confronted with an unwanted or non-viable pregnancy.

Ultimately, of course, it is the women who bear the burden, in more ways than one. It is the women, from the frivolous teen-ager who needs to fit into her prom dress (see the NRLC site) to the selfish law student who puts her career ahead of her embryo to the empty-nester who is anticipating grand children rather than babies.

So when Bill O'Reilly, who obviously sees women only as objects to satisfy his lust, accuses women of being shallow and selfish and cruel and greedy and heartless and bloodthirsty, he is only projecting his own shortcomings (and yes, pun intended).

This is the constant hatred of women that comes from the far right, especially the religious far right. They are the witch-burners, they are the rapists. They are the war-mongers. They are the killers and the terrorists.

Take a look again at that definition of terrorism and tell me that that isn't what O'Reilly and his army of woman-haters are practicing.



Tansy Gold

[BeFree]

1. I feel it

I am feeling terrorized. Those people are scary. And after watching the news talking heads, I almost feel like Bush protected us from those terrorists. Heck, we didn't have one act of that brand of terror committed on his watch, did we?

[Tansy_Gold]

3. check out the restriction on reproductive freedom -- all aimed at women --

that were enacted under the Bush administratoin and tell me the terrorism wasn't there. Of course it was. They didn't kill any abortion doctors, but how many women did they kill?

How much state-sponsored rape went on around the world and went unchallenged by the Bush administration? How many women were denied contraception under the "global gag rule"?

they didn't have to kill the abortionists; they had far more effective ways of displaying their hatred for women.

But now that some minor changes have been made, and the tide is shifting ever so slightly to the "left," they must ratchet up the overt terrorism. Their mouthpieces must spew more lies, more misogynistic hate.

But Olbermann doesn't tell us that. I think he knows, though, and that is why there will no more use of the terrorist O'Reilly as material for jokes. Terrorism is no joke.



Tansy Gold

[BeFree]

4. Hey, Tanse

KO is no talking head. He's the real thing. But the t/Heads are seemingly saying is now that Obama has taken control the nut cases who were mollified by Bush are now coming out of the woodworks. Was to be expected, eh?

Bush did more damage than we will ever know, but at least he kept the abortion terrorists from committing their terror, is all I was saying. And, frankly, its a damn good slam on the abortion terrorists who can't get what they want through politics.

[T Wolf]

2. Of course it is - obviously. But "our" government will tiptoe around dealing with it as such

so as not to offend the pukes and Christists.

Obama has only used (or failed to use) his power to sell out Democratic values and positions in favor of the rethug agenda (DADT is one easy example).

He is either afraid to do the correct thing or truly a fox in sheep's clothing.

[cosmicaug]

5. It's not just terrorism, it's effective terrorism

It's not just terrorism, it's effective terrorism. Why? Because it works.

1. Frighten many doctors out of abortion practice altogether.

It does that.

2. Raise the cost of providing abortion services due to security expenses

It does that.

3. Frighten women away from seeking abortion when it may be medically necessary

It does that.

4. Restricting -- through both affordability and accessibility -- the ability of many women to obtain a medically necessary abortion. (The rich can always afford it, and find a doctor who will fake the records i fnecessary.)

It does that.

5. Increasing the emotional trauma through social pressure that a woman already feels when she is confronted with an unwanted or non-viable pregnancy.

Possibly indirectly, but it also does that.

I would even say it is relatively efficient. It doesn't take many killings to achieve these effects. It is helpful, however, to show a constant presence and apply constant harassment to remind providers that some "lone" madman could be just around the corner. The beauty of this is that if you build the right environment, the "lone" madmen will come and do your bidding.

The antiabortion groups know this.

[Tansy_Gold]

6. "If you build it, he will come."

Exactly.


That's what I told the BF last night as we were discussing this. It doesn't take a "member" of the group to be trained and brainwashed, if you will, to do the Manchurian Candidate deed. It only takes the right environment, the right indirect encouragement, and the deed is done, with everyone's hands washed as clean as Pilate's. . . . or Lady MacBeth's.


TG

[Karenina]

7. I loves me some Tansy Gold!

:loveya:

[Puzzler]

8. Apparantly the black guy who killed an army recruiter...

... is being charged with domestic terrorism. Double standards here?

[Tansy_Gold]

9. Yeah, I noticed that.

If it threatens the army/armed forces, it's terrorism.

If it threatens women, it's no big deal.

Kinda makes ya wanna puke, don't it?





TG

[Seldona]

11. Indeed.

That is a miscarriage of justice right there. I don't know what laws are in place to allow them to treat one case one way, and a similar case another, but they should be changed. At minimum, this is a hate-crime imo.

[Wednesdays]

10. K&R

:kick:

[winyanstaz]

12. You are absolutely correct,

Until the day a man can pass a melon through his wahoo...he needs to shut the fuck up about a woman's body.
Men don't have to carry it, don't have to endure the pain of childbirth which would kill most men, and often don't even bother to support it.
The fact that a bunch of little old men that will never face pregnancy have the nerve to sit in judgment and pass laws regarding women's bodies is so medieval it stinks to high heaven!
Men do NOT have that right..period. If the Goddess wanted men to have that right..she would have made MEN have the babies. She did not. Women are the life bearers and the guardians of that right..NOT men.

[snake in the grass]

13. This is a good post, with one exception.

Dr. Tiller was not an "abortionist". He was a licensed physician, specialized in OB/GYN, who offered a wide array of services to women, including, but not limited to, abortion.

"Abortionist" is just one of the many pejoratives used by "birthers" and religious fundis to denigrate medical professionals, who take their jobs seriously. It's stems from the same twisted minds that gave us "Darwinist", which is used for anyone, who accepts recognized science.

[Igel]

14. You refute yourself.

Odd, but it often happens when we're goal oriented.

"the calculated use of violence (or the threat of violence) against civilians in order to attain goals that are political or religious or ..."

"Terrorism is the systematic use of terror especially as a means of coercion." There is no internationally agreed definition of terrorism. ..."

1. "Calculated" isn't simply a synonym for "intentional". It's part of a phrase, and if you delete the phrase you reduce it to a synonym for "intentional". One could just as well recast the sentence as, "The use of violence ..., calculated to attain goals that are political or religious or ..." with a loss of ambiguity, but no loss of the meaning that's almost certainly intended. So you have to show that Roeder calculated on having his action attain some goals that are political or religious, and presumably just having the calculation be to render Tiller dead is ruled out as trivial. If that's a sufficient calculation, then terrorism is common as dirt.

2. "Systematic." It's unclear that Roeder's killing of Tiller was systematic. He targeted Tiller; I have yet to hear that he also intended to target the other two providers of late-term abortions in the US, or any abroad. Or other abortion providers.

3. "As a means of coercion" returns to (1), but I bring it up separately because it's more patently obvious that any violence against anybody is coercion and so "terrorism" must be an apt description of any violence--or that the object of "coercion" here must be others in the same class as the victim. You get to show that Roeder targeted Tiller in order to target abortion-providers as a group.

So far the answers have generally been nothing more than assumptions--we assume his goals because, well, surely we know what his goals are better than he does. Or since we perceive an effect, that particular effect must be intended, only we are allowed to have accidents and produce coincidences. Abdulhakim Muhammed, who I don't think is a terrorist, fits the definition much better, and has all the same RICO-related implications that Roeder's "Operation Rescue" and militia ties have.

Roeder has a trail of paper and information that he's left. Pay attention to it and you'll get much closer to what he intended, and wind up almost certainly much farther from where you want to be. However, in the process of thinking critically about your own hypothesis knowledge or wisdom might be uncovered.