The murder of George Tiller

I understood that Dr. Tiller took on serious medical complications. Is there any evidence that Dr. Tiller ever engaged in late-term abortions that were elective? Since you condemn his behavior, are you saying that a woman should die of late term complications rather than have a late-term abortion? What happens when there are no doctors around who will save her life? Should both the woman and the fetus die because there are folks who are so adamantly opposed to abortion that they refuse to understand that there are times that the life of the mother or fetus are at stake?

Tom in West des Moines,

While I oppose the murder of Dr. Tiller, your attempts to make excuses for his conduct is abominable.

"And therefore it is permissible to murder him."

I never said it was permissible to murder him. All I'm saying is that he was a very, very bad guy.

Hector, until you develop a uterus and capability to give birth, then tell what it's like to be a woman. And that woman has a baby deformed due to dangerous prescription drugs she has to take to stay alive.

Tom,

Give it a rest. Pro-life outfits aren't endlessly advocating the murder of infidels as they know it sets their efforts back and because they believe it is immoral.

However, not grieving about the death of a truly terrible human being is not the same thing as murder and that should be obvious to you.

I think you are so anxious to deliver some "just desserts" rhetoric that your brain isn't keeping up with your tongue.

Hector, Tom in West Des Moines is a troll I banned a while back. Five hostile posts within 30 minutes of my posting this? That's troll behavior. That the Tiller murder energizes people like him is a practical reason why it was just stupid, aside from being morally wrong. The Tiller murderer, aside from being a murderer, has done a great deal of harm to the cause of protecting the unborn.

I don't know why it is so difficult for people to understand that one can think Tiller was a very bad man and still be adamantly and resolutely opposed to his murder. What sort of person believes that all bad people, even very bad people, deserve death? Psychopaths?

Mr. Dreher,

I fully agree with you. The murderer of Dr. Tiller should be punished up to the limit of the law. It was wrong to kill him- if nothing else, in a functioning society, not in the midst of war or revolution, only the state has the right to take life. I don't approve of any sort of violence or illegal behavior in the pro-life cause.

That said, Tom in West Des Moines should not be making excuses for abortion.

Ah. Crocodile tears all around.

Murdering someone is not the way to solve anything. It's a criminal and violent act. I can understand the rage and/or hate that might drive someone to want to see someone dead, but life is not ours to take.

That being said, Tiller took the lives of others on a regular basis, and he did so with pride and no excuse or shame. He is even being called a "hero" which is frightening because God abhors when people call evil "good" or call good "evil."

All I can think of is the verse that says "you reap what you sow." He had many enemies because he committed evil acts on the unborn. And I personally can't say that I feel any sadness over his death. I don't at all condone his murder but am glad that the babies he might have aborted might now live. And I am not a coldhearted person but it is hard to feel sorrow over someone who did the things Tiller did.

I do feel sad for his family, though, and I agree with the author of this blog... that Tiller will now face God and have to give account for the blood that is on his hands due to the lives he took. As well, the person who murdered him, unless he someday repents, will also have to face God for taking Tiller's life. Neither one was right.

I also agree that the murderer, if this was done as an abortion protest, has only hurt the pro-life fight because pro-choice activists are now outraged, which is fully understandable, and they will also belief that all pro-life people are extremists and capable of murderer. And Tiller is now a martyr and a hero, which is unfortunate, because his abortions were not at all heroic and his life was not one in which he was a martyr. His evil acts will now be overlooked because he is now a victim of violence from someone who is pro-life (well, we don't yet know that).

"Ah. Crocodile tears all around."

What crocodile tears?

To celtic dragon critter concerning that very sad case of the conjoined twins:

Those were not the only two choices-- the third option, that sanctioned by God, is to go ahead, have the babies, give them all normal care but nothing extraordinary, and let God decide when their lives shall end. The availability of extraordinary medical procedures blinds us to the fact that using those procedures is a choice that should be made with love in our hearts. Many times it is much more loving not to use those procedures.

It is better to just let go and let God.

"The Catholic Church itself teaches that abortion is permissible if the intention is to save the mother's life rather than merely to kill the child."

Uh, not quite. You can read up on how the Church addresses the narrow issue of ectopic pregnancy, but there is no general permission to abort in order to save the mother's life.

Judaism, by contrast, does traditionally allow for that, IIRC.

"Well, that excuses the murder then, doesn't it?

Er, no, no it doesn't."

Sure it does, John E. Say what you really feel and mean. Let's not have any of this pussyfooting around. You and everyone else here get to be judge and jury on this, and you KNOW how happy you are today.

So does everyone else.

Those were not the only two choices-- the third option, that sanctioned by God, is to go ahead, have the babies, give them all normal care but nothing extraordinary, and let God decide when their lives shall end. The availability of extraordinary medical procedures blinds us to the fact that using those procedures is a choice that should be made with love in our hearts. Many times it is much more loving not to use those procedures.

Perhaps, but do you presume to tell those parents that they should have done that?

I can't.

I can't imagine the heartbreak and horror of what should be one of the happiest moments in life turned into a nightmarish decision into whether to stop a pregnancy now...or allow one child to die at birth and almost certainly have the other die painfully within days.

I'm having trouble seeing "Let go and let God" in that one.

Sure it does, John E. Say what you really feel and mean. Let's not have any of this pussyfooting around. You and everyone else here get to be judge and jury on this, and you KNOW how happy you are today.

You're new here, aren't you?

I'm waiting for the reasonable, rational scholarly Christian cleric explaining how the murderer can be seen as an instrument of the hand of God.

After all, condemning a murder and, with the same breath, explaining the victim's probable punishment in the afterlife is not much different, logically.

Ruth said: "There's a feeling that this murder won't be investigated and prosecuted with real sincerity because so many people think it was just desserts of some sort, or that he's "hard to mourn". That's a problem."

I'd be very surprised if that was the case. I do not think it won't be fully prosecuted. There will be far too much outrage over it, as there should be. There should be outrage over ANY single person who has been murdered, no matter who that person is. Murder is both illegal and it's immoral. The only "murder" in the U.S. that is legal is abortion, which I consider to be murder because murder basically means to take somone's life.

So, today, a murderer was killed by a murderer. However, because abortion is illegal, Tiller is not seen as a muderer and instead is seen as a "hero."

But anyways, I do not think that anyone thinks it shouldn't be prosecuted or that it was an act that was right. The law should apply to this man who killed Tiller just as it should apply to anyone who commits murder.

JS, that much pain will make anything resembling civil discussion well nigh impossible. I respectfully and with great concern for your well being suggest that you avoid this thread and any of the many others sure to exist or be created in the next few hours.

I sincerely hope to find your contributions in other threads that are less likely to be triggering for you.

Be well.

I don't think any truly pro-life person condones the murder of George Tiller. We can't tell women that killing their children isn't the answer to their problems, and then remain silent in the face of such a murder; murder is always the unjust taking of a human life, and this murder is as heinous as any murder, and must be deplored.

Though I have never found anything even remotely admirable about Tiller and, indeed, find the work he has done for so many years to be abhorrent and inhumane, the fact that I can't pretend a level of sorrow I don't feel over the fact that he has left this earth does not in any way mean that I support the way in which he was untimely forced to leave it, or the person who committed this act of violence. I need not violate my conscience by claiming some sense of heartbreak or loss which would be the rankest hypocrisy on my part in order to say that the murder was unjust, and that the murderer must face justice (a suspect has been apprehended, I believe).

That said, as a Christian I can't help but point out, as Rod did, that depriving someone so steeped in something so evil as Tiller was the full amount of time God is giving him to see the error of his ways and repent is, in itself, a truly wicked act. I have followed my usual custom upon hearing of a death to pray for Tiller's soul, regardless of such considerations, but shudder at the thought of what it would be like to be a person who kills viable unborn humans for a living, and is dispatched in this sudden and terrible way to meet his Maker with no possible opportunity even to reflect on his life's work, let alone repent of it.

JS,

You were abused and hence you now have the charism of "reading people's hearts"? You certainly don't know people as well as you think.

Your story doesn't invalidate Christian doctrine; your knowledge of Biblical verses wouldn't hold up to the Devil's so who cares?

I'm waiting for the next story of teacher abuse in public schools to serve as your rallying cry against education.

FE:

Well, thanks for the concern, but I'm not buying it. As I said, I've met many people professing to be Christians, but I've never met a real one. I know what they really are. I've been in the heart of the beast.

JS

I hope you can get competent, caring counsel from somebody qualified to deal with severe abuse issues from childhood. As Franklin said, it may be best to avoid this thread for now if it too powerful a triggering issue for you. I am not trying to be snarky, patronizing or mean spirited here. I am aware of how strong feelings can be wrt these issues, and you need to deal with them in a controlled setting with a professional.

Take care and best wishes

AnneMarie

Erin,

Your words are exactly my thoughts. There is somewhere in the Bible a verse about how people do not mourn the loss of an evil person (it might even say they rejoice over their death). I can't think of what verse it is though but it keeps coming to my mind. It might be referring to political leaders, though, but I keep thinking of that verse with this situation.

Did people mourn Hitler when he died? Did people mourn the exectutions of serial killers? Now, I guess Tiller might not quite be as "bad" as them, but that would only be because in this nation we have justified, leaglized, and normalized abortion. Perhaps in the 1940's or 50's, he would've been seen as the Hitler of his day in regards to the unborn.

I do feel sadness for his family and loved ones, and I feel sadness for the person Tiller could have been had he chosen to live his life differently and had chosen to get right with God. But yet, I also feel glad that he can no longer perform abortions. In no way do I condone his murder. I was shocked to hear of it. Truly shocked. But the Bible does say that we reap what we sow. Tiller murdered unborn babies, and has now been murdered himself. Doesn't make it right, but it is somewhat "ironic."

JS, I've unpublished the last two of your comments. People have offered you kindness, and there's really no reason to lash out at them.

If you'd like to continue posting here on this thread, please keep to the discussion of George Tiller's death for the time being.

Ruth said: "This was not just a crime against George Tiller. If this turns out to be motivated by what he did for a living, it's a crime against all of us, because it's a crime against the rule of law. It damages the systems we use to live together despite our seemingly insurmountable differences.

I don't quite understand how it's a "crime against all of us" other than that he took the law into his own hands. And people throughout the history of this nation and this world have done the same. Serial killers. Columbine. Scott Peterson. Melissa Huckaby. Recent family members who killed their own family. I don't need to go on, but the point is, just because someone murdered him does not mean it's any less or more evil than all other murders that occur.

There will be people who are going to romanticize his death by making him a hero, and no doubt, this is going to become symbolic for the pro-choice movement. They will villify, for the most part, those who are pro-life as a result. But this murder is no different than all other murders in this world. Someone decides to kill someone... it might be politically motivated, it might be revenge, it might be a fit of rage... but the bottom line is someone kills someone. And no one has the right to do that.

And collectively, they ALL "damage the systems we use to live together." Tiller's murderer alone certainly didn't damage it any more or any less than other murderers... some of whom have murdered others in church settings as well. Trust me, you will read of more murderes and more acts of violence in your lifetime. As long as man lives on this earth, there will be murder and hate and all sorts of sins because of what is in the heart of humans.

Erin:

Do as you must. And I really have no interest in continuing to post here for very long. Not my kind of people, I'm afraid.

Your name:

Adolescent? Well, there are worse things I could be, aren't there?

Ashleigh,

You tell us that you want to see justice done in this murder, but then go on, repeatedly, to accuse the doctor of crimes, the implication of your comments is that you think he deserved to die, but you know that it isn't very civilized to say so the way Norris Hall, who is probably a poe (someone trying to mockingly parody a side that already has people who are pretty far out so that it's impossible to tell who really believes and who is doing the mocking), did say it.

No one is asking you to feel sorrow about this or change your mind because this behavior, presumably from someone who agrees with you about abortion, shocks you into reconsidering what has been going on, but you undermined your condemnation of the murder. If you want to defend your anti-abortion-rights stand, do it before you condemn the murderer and do it in general. Don't do it after you condemn the murder and then set out a litany of why the victim deserved it.

Freelunch wrote:
May 31, 2009 6:57 PM
“The following false claim was made:

The fact is George Tiller murdered conscious, sentient babies.

No, he did not. Repeating this claim will never make it true. It was not murder. They were not babies. They were fetuses If you are unable to argue for the side you have chosen without uttering falsehoods, why should I treat you and your claims with any respect? Of course, not only do you drive me away from considering your point, but you drive me away from considering your side. If you want to persuade me, don't make false claims.”

MH wrote:

Yes, he did murder babies. Repeating the claim that he did not will never make it true. It definitely was murder. They were most certainly babies. If you are unable to argue for the side you have chosen without uttering falsehoods, why should I treat you and your claims with any respect? Of course, not only do you drive me away from considering your point, but you drive me away from considering your side. If you want to persuade me, don't make false claims.

There. That’s better.

"And anyone want to take bets on what's going to be written throughout the liberal blogosphere if (as unlikely as it seems) Tiller's murders turns out NOT to be pro-life? I'm giving 2 to 1 odds that it will be less than 5% as much as has been written today."

No doubt that less will be written if that's the case. If it turns out he was killed due to his abortion practices, he will be an icon/symbol for the pro-choice (and "liberal") movement, the same way Harvey Milk is for the homosexuals and activists. In a way, they will "use" him. They will make him a hero due to his murder and they will politicize it so they can stereotype all conservatives and/or pro-life people and label them as "terrorists"... all because of one man's lone act.

Wouldn't it be "interesting" if the man who murdered him did so because Tiller aborted his daughter's or wife's baby, maybe against his wishes? Does anyone ever think about things like that? I mean, there are people out there who have lost a child or a grandchild because the woman carrying it decided to abort it, with the help of the abortionist, of course. There are surely many husbands, boyfriends, fathers, and others who have anger, sadness, etc. over the loss of a child because of the mother's decision.

What would the pro-choice movement even say to something like that? "Well... uh... get over it... the woman's choice is more important than anyone else's...."

Ashleigh,
We should mourn all life, oppose all murder, we are not equipped with the forsight and descretion to determine whether someones life was on point 'Good' or not (see Matthew 7). If people calmed down they would find that there is pretty much unanimity of opinion on what should be done with this case.

I hope all murderers are prosecuted to the full extent of the law. Unjust laws do not justify murderer OR excuse light sentencing. The republic is a nation of laws not a nation of men.

Also, to JS. How do any of your experiences, however horrible they might be, give you insight into what I feel on the matter? I hate this atheistic rhetorical flourish: 'I had a bad experience with Christiainity, so now I know what it "really" is ...'. Please, lets at least respect the rules of logic and civil discourse.

It's a bad thing that Tiller was murdered, especially in church, but it's a very good thing that he won't be aborting any more children Monday morning.

And another thing, an important thing. It's not insignificant that Tiller was a practicing Lutheran. It would be an easy thing I suppose to identify the outlines of Lutheran social policy regarding abortion, divorce, sex, buggery, immigration, the economy, and whatnot. I would not be surprised to find that George Tiller's politics mirror very closely the social teachings of the Lutheran Church. So should George Tiller have been reprimanded for confusing the realms of Church and State. That is, is it only Catholics and Evangelicals who must respect the separation of Church and State, whlie Lutheran (Tiller) and members of the Church of God (Obama) and Methodists (Hillary Clinton) freely advocate for social policies that conform to the social teachings of their churches? This separation of Church and State has never been brought up against Tiller that I know of. But he seems to have been busily advocating and funding the political implementation of Lutheran social policy. Whuzzup with that?????

For whatever end, Pro Choice has its martyr now. It only remains to be seen how far he will be exploited.

KateA,

Wow, that is so sad. 14 years old and having an abortion... all because her parents drove her to the abortionist (Tiller) and of course, paid for it. Had they not done that, she might have very well had the baby, or given it up for adoption. What if they had actually shown her support? What if they had decided that this was not the best scenario but they would help her raise the baby?

Instead, this VERY young girl went through such a very traumatic and life-changing experience, and a child's life was ended. If the parents had helped her keep the baby or give it for adoption, the girl would grow up to feel thoughts of pride and courage. Instead, she will undoubtedly wrestle with thoughts of guilt, shame, and remorse, as most women who abort do. The pro-choice people conveniently fail to talk about this but the majority of women who abort are deeply scarred and affected in negative ways as a result. And often, there husbands, boyfriends, parents, and/or children are also deeply affected.

Even if a person argues that it's "just a fetus," there is no arguing the FACT that if that fetus is not aborted, it will one day be a human being. Years down the road, after an abortion, many people wonder what kind of child that fetus woul've become... what kind of adult that fetus would've become.

For one, I cannot imagine as a parent allowing and/or helping my child go through that experience. I also cannot imagine ending any unborn life. And I cannot imagine as a physician taking MANY lives, like Tiller did. And not only taking these lives but encouraging women to allow him to take these lives and receiving their money as a result. It seems to be completely antithetical to everything physicians are supposed to represent... the curing, healing, and saving of lives.

freelunch,

your arguments are about 20 years behind the times. half the time, i expect you to start running out with its "just a clump of cells" and "keep your rosaries off of my ovaries" line that even the most ardent prochoicers have left by the wayside. sure you do the typical three card monte "i am/might be opposed to abortion but we can't live by what we know" stiche but the rest of it is embarrassing. The points you are trying to score off this guys death just illustrates how intellectually and morally bereft your positive support of abortion is.

i prayed for tiller when i heard the news, it wasn't easy.

Merle Haggard -

The law is clear. You may not like the law, but it is clear. Please, tell us, who made you the one who gets to redefine the law? Abortion is not murder, no matter how many times you assert it is, even the Bible doesn't claim it is.

freelunch:

In answer to your question -- "Please, tell us, who made you the one who gets to redefine the law?" -- the same authority that gave the same mandate to the Taliban.

I hope that everyone who ends up on the jury agrees with Rod that Tiller's life deserves full legal protection.

Me too.

I was at one time in contact with a man who murdered an abortion doctor. It was a celebrated case - the doctor was shot from his own backyard, in his own dining room, with a sniper's rifle, and my contact was in hiding in France when I was corresponding with him. It's a long story.

My contact was eventually apprehended and tried. He told the court that if they turned him loose he would do it again, a statement I believe with every fiber of my being.

I am pro-life, militantly so. But I hope they never turn this guy loose.

We cannot live together on the principle that if you take a stand I militantly disagree with, well then, I will simply take a gun and shoot you. What's next? Does that mean that if I take part in a pro-life rally, some militant pro-choice person will feel justified in shooting me through my dining room window? Does that justify the assassination of George W. Bush (or Barack Obama)? Or Martin Luther King? Do we all just abandon the law now, and shoot one another on sight?

Freelunch,

I dare you to explain how it is not murder considering that IF the fetus is not aborted and the mother then goes to full term, the baby WILL then be born. How then, is it not "murder?" And I'm not talking about murder as far as legal or not (we all know it's legal) But I'm talking about the very definition of "murder."

Please feel free to explain. Good luck. I can say with 100% certainty that there is no way to defend your position because when you consider the FACT that a fetus that is not aborted will then become a human being. There is simply no way to deny that abortionists take fetuses out of the womb and then discard them becaues if the fetus is left alone inside the womb, it will grow into a baby and be born. If the abortionist does not touch the fetus, the fetus will grow and become a baby.

How then is abortion not murder?

Erin, as a Christian, can you find it in your heart to sincerely mourn for the pain Tillers' widow and children are going through? Can you find it in your heart to mourn sincerely for the pain the congregation of the church is feeling at having their place of worship so savagely violated?

I understand that your feelings regarding the abortions Tiller performed may prevent you from feeling sincere sorrow over his death. But I hope that those feelings have not blocked you from feeling something approaching sincere sorrow for the other victims in this murder.

For those of you here who are all aglow at the thought that this Dr. Tiller is going to burn in hell, I've got some bad news: He was murdered while collecting the offering during a Lutheran church service. In the Lutheran liturgy, the offering comes immediately after the prayers and the confession and forgiveness of sins. If you're looking to kill someone when he's not in a state of grace, thus dispatching him to hell, that is the absolute worst moment to pick in the entire week. In fact, it almost makes me wonder if the killer knew this and deliberately hoped to minimize his crime, kind of like Hamlet in reverse. (If you know Hamlet you'll recall the scene where Hamlet declines to kill the praying Claudius for fear that that will just reward him by sending him to heaven. Hamlet turns out to be wrong -- Claudius's efforts to pray aren't working -- but he doesn't know that, just as we don't know what Tiller's relationship to God was at the moment of his death either.)

Even worse news: Lutherans believe that God's grace does not have to be earned in the first place -- there is no salvation through works -- but is freely given, in spite of our totally not deserving it. In Lutheran theology, we are all fallen creatures and none of us deserves salvation, whether we're Mother Theresa or Charles Manson, an abortion doctor or a blog-commenter hoping for the damnation of abortion doctors. (In fact, that very hope is a manifestation of sin.) So if the Lutherans are right about any of this, then God decided whether to save Dr. Tiller or not irrespective of anything he did, and without regard to what you or I might think is right. And we do not know the mind of God -- although some here arrogantly presume to -- so, again, for all we know, Tiller will spend eternity in paradise while his murderer rots in prison. Oops!

Ashleigh, murder has a definition. So does human being. You may not like that a fetus is not defined as a human being in the law, but that is how the law has worked for a very long time. Abortion is not murder because it is not the killing of a human being with malice aforethought.

Remember that if we were to define fetuses and embryos as human beings, then we would have to have an inquest for every single miscarriage. Is that what you want? Just because miscarriages are so common, it is very likely that you know someone who had one. Do you think that she would be happy to have an inquest about the circumstances of the miscarriage, a review of everything she did, a risk that she would be tried for murder if her behavior didn't meet some standard of care that may have been missed even before she knew she was pregnant.

Lunch, you're confusing the civil law of the several States with the moral law (as asserted by Ashleigh). This is a difficulty that haunts us a good deal on this site.

In its usual manifestation, Rod Dreher or someone else of his party will assert that same sex marriage violates Christianity. (Or is an oxymoron or something, under Christian rules.) (The truth of this statement, of course, depends on which Christians you're talking about, since there are plenty of churches which perform same sex marriages. Rod means, "Christian churches that agree with me.")

But most advocates of SSM aren't advocating Christian marriage rights, but civil marriage rights. They aren't necessarily the same.

You are correct that abortion is not defined as murder under the civil law, because the fetus is not legally a human being. You are further correct that defining the unborn child as a human being for all legal purposes would entangle us in so much legal string that we might never see the light of day again.

I think Ashleigh is talking morals.

Shooter has definitely been identified as Scott P. Roeder. White. 51. Tax protester. May be a militia member. Registered Republican.

About "moral law." There is such a thing, and written records from at least the 3rd millennium BCE -- long before anyone had ever heard of YHWH or the nation of Israel -- suggest that these laws are exactly the same from one society to another. The basic laws are very much like the last six of the big 10 commandments from the Bible, and appear to be those laws that are absolutely essential for maintaining a society. Without them, society collapses.

We cannot live shoulder-to-shoulder with those who would kill us, steal from us, lie to us or others for advantage, ignore authority, and/or obfuscate property rights of inheritance through blood, among other transgressions. Scattered Egyptian laws, Hammurapi's Code, the Hittite Code, Hurrian law, Ugaritic law, and many others attest that these were basic laws long before there was an Israel, and similar codes in later societies that had never heard of Israel attest to their universality.

Many societies with these basic "moral" laws, however, engaged in outright infanticide, including some that most of us admire very much -- such as the society of Classical Greece. Love it or hate it, abortion has never been embedded in universal, moral law.

So after 9/11, president bush made a point of highlighting that the vast majority of muslims are peaceful and do not support terrorism. he even visited a couple of mosques to underscore this point. I hope the current president will take the same broad minded approach to this crisis and not use it as an opportunity to "create caricatures".

if andrew sullivan is any indication, it doesn't look good. he is doing his best to create a caricature of christianism.

freelunch,

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness"

sound familiar?

JS,

"Love it or hate it, abortion has never been embedded in universal, moral law."

ever heard of the Hippocratic oath?

freelunch said:

"She may be, but asserting that something is natural law, or God's law or moral law doesn't get us anywhere since there is no common agreement on what things are forbidden by these laws or how to determine what is forbidden by these laws or even whether such things exist. There is far more common agreement on what statutes of states or the federal government say and how the law is interpreted in court."

So the laws of the state are inherently just? That's an absurd argument.

Max:

I'm afraid this is going to sound snarky, but I'm genuinely curious. When I was taught to pray, I was taught to ask God for things, not command them from him. Oh, the ministers often prayed that way, and I suppose they thought they could command things.

Why, when you published your prayer, did you not ask for these things?

Max's prayer, a traditional one, is a request, JS. We don't "command" God.

Is "give us this day our daily bread" an order?

Observer:

I'd never thought about how the English translation of the Lord's Prayer is a command. I basically just mouthed the words growing up. But now that you mention it, it is certainly in the imperative. There's no "please give us our daily bread." If my children said to me, "give us our breakfast," I'd tell them they were being rude.

Interesting.

If my children said to me, "give us our breakfast," I'd tell them they were being rude.

(smile) It's all about saying "please"?

I don't really think so. The English language lacks an imperative case, so the words could be interpreted either way.

If Jesus thought this an appropriate way to address God, well, it's good enough for me too. I daresay God knows I'm not barking orders.

Many who post here would say that these children should be allowed to live with their illnesses. I almost always would, myself. But a simple provider of infanticide the doctor was not.

Thank you, Robert.

I might or might not agree with your assessment, depending. As to a child with a condition sure to cause death immediately or almost immediately upon birth (eg, anencephaly), although I am pro-life, I wonder when common sense kicks in. (Answer? It doesn't. Read what the radical pro-lifers have to say about ectopic pregnancy, where the fetus is doomed to die long before birth, and maybe take the mother with it unless there is immediate medical intervention.)

I see no point in continuing a pregnancy where the only likely result is to make everyone involved as miserable as possible.

Observer:

Of course you're right. It has to be written in bad Greek. I read a bit of that, but I'll get someone who knows more to help me. Since the prayer was translated in the English, imperative mood, I'd like to know the feeling from the Greek.

There is an imperative mood in English grammar that is a command, otherwise, there could be no commands in English, and that would make our military friends very sad. "Bring me a shrubbery" was an example I used from Monty Python's Holy Grail. I thought it would be fairly universally recognized. Try this one instead: "Rastus, fetch me that blanket." That's definitely imperative.

Can the imperative be a request? Yeah. If the inflecton goes up on the end of the line, then it can be read as something like "Will you do it for me?", but in the end, polite requests in English demand a please, unlike in Swedish where being polite is a matter of inflection.

Perhaps Jesus didn't see God as being under contract, but the Jews most certainly did. A covenant is merely an unbreakable contract, n'est pas? Under the covenant, Abraham's descendants had certain responsibilities and so did YHWH. This was the basis for Isaiah's? charge that the Assyrian menace was a result of breaking the contract on the Hebrews' end.

Prayer imperative language may well stem from that earlier tradition. I'll have to check with my sources who actually graduated from divinity school ;-).

Another abortion doctor has been killed by terrorists and Randall Terry will be on TV. Now, THAT's ironic.g5ckrs

Perhaps Jesus didn't see God as being under contract, but the Jews most certainly did.

Well, I'm not a Jew.

And what's a shrubbery?

A different perspective:

Tiller remained committed to patients despite threat of violence

http://www.kansascity.com/657/story/1226353.html

Who's next on the social conservative hit list?

Cecelia:

Well, only if you assume that religious texts and tradition aren't, as Twain would say, "fol-de-rol."

The debate over Tiller's moral guilt is beside the point in one sense. It's one thing to say he deserved to die (as do a great many of us) and another to say that a private individual had the right to kill him. In a modern peacetime society, barring conditions of war or revolution, only the state has the right to take life. I wouldn't support the random murder of Klansmen or American Nazis by private individuals, either. His murderer should be punished up to the limit of the law.

In a moral sense, of course, it does matter. That said, I do believe that we may have a moment to turn to Christ at or just after death. (That seems to be necessitated if we believe that virtuous non-Christians can be saved, which I do believe as do the Catholic and Anglican churches). Thus maybe Mr. Tiller has had time to repent as well. I sincerely hope he has. I don't _want_ him to suffer eternal hellfire, although a couple thousand years of purgatorial torment would probably do him a power of good.

I'll take the phrase "Vengeance is mine, says the Lord", which is very true! However big that man sins is, his life should not be taken by his fellowmen. The only person who can give the final judgment is the one who give his life.

Let just pray for him and to all the innocent souls his taken life with.

Your Name:

Why do I care? I suppose it's because so many people kill, maim, and rape in the name of their particular god (and sometimes gods, interestingly enough, but polytheists more rarely did so). That means that religionists are very dangerous to the rest of us.

I'm a psychologist. I specialize in mass behavior. Language is very important in the way people structure reality, which is very important in the way they behave. Grammar and semantics are crucial for understanding that part of behavior shaped by cognition.

Answer your question?

Erin:

I will refrain from asking questions in the future. I stand corrected.

JS, you stand, sadly, where many other atheists/agnostics have stood on this blog before. The next development in your conversation here is for someone to point out that quite a lot of people have been killed by the godless, too, and even in the name of godlessness (Communism etc.), whereupon you bring up Dan Brown or the Jesus tomb, and round and round we go.

Questions, especially on-topic ones, are very welcome. Off-topic semantic games in which a person on either side of the God debate decides to take advantage of the cause celebre or issue du jour to launch into this same pre-programmed routine fired off randomly by neurotransmitters in the brains of some carbon-based biological organisms who experience chemical reactions which they interpret as amusement based on a perception (however unreal) of one-upmanship as a side-effect of this particular routine are not, generally speaking. If you want to explore the psychological reasons why Tiller's murderer did what he did, or why Tiller himself liked to end the lives of near-birth human fetuses for a living, knock yourself out, and ask as many questions as are necessary in the pursuit of such knowledge. But considering we know little of the murderer as yet, it's a bit of a stretch to claim that the language Max uses in the English translation of the Fatima prayer proves that all worshipers are blind idolaters thrown back upon themselves in impotent frustration leading up to an act of desperate rapine impulse such as the murder of a man known for his late-term abortion practice--which is the only remotely possible way I can think of that you could tie in your line of questioning about prayer grammar to the subject at hand.

It should go without saying, John E. and others, that I don't mean that JS is exemplary of the atheists/agnostics who do read and post hear regularly. Far from it! JS is simply reminding me of the ones who don't last long here--the fundamentalists, if you like.

Jesus stated "He without sin among you let him cast the first stone at her." Some religious still stone raped women & own women. Who should own them as a slave? Exodus describes no penalty for women who choose to terminate pregnancy, nor does any Bible verse.

Do you want the government to outlaw your right to your bodily functions and quality care? I hope your loved ones are not turned away from quality doctor care. One of mine was. She was luckier than others and survived a nonprofessional abortion.

Medically, a fetus becomes a baby at its first breath. Then, siblings recognize it & it's named, christened, given citizenship, & celebrates zero. Unless you're a surrogate, the only way to give rights to unborn is to take away women's.

My mom, aunt, school teachers and even my communities church women thank centrists for allowing women the right to their body. Thank you centrists for allowing reproductive freedom rather than forcing women to create newborns or to abort their pregnancies. I value reproductive freedom, knowledge, privacy, and the right to privately regulate my own bodily functions.

Freelunch said: "Ashleigh, murder has a definition. So does human being. You may not like that a fetus is not defined as a human being in the law, but that is how the law has worked for a very long time. Abortion is not murder because it is not the killing of a human being with malice aforethought."

Freelunch also said: "Remember that if we were to define fetuses and embryos as human beings, then we would have to have an inquest for every single miscarriage. Is that what you want? Just because miscarriages are so common, it is very likely that you know someone who had one. Do you think that she would be happy to have an inquest about the circumstances of the miscarriage, a review of everything she did, a risk that she would be tried for murder if her behavior didn't meet some standard of care that may have been missed even before she knew she was pregnant."

Like I said, I am not asking you to explain murder as far as is it defined by law in America. Nor did I ask you whether a fetus is a person. I am challenging you to defend how it is NOT murder based on the definition of murder. And to explain how it is not murder based on the fact that if an abortionist does not abort a fetus, the fetus will eventually become a human being. Murder by definition is the taking of a life. It does not matter whether or not you view a fetus or embryo as not a human being. Like I said... give it a few months, it WILL BE a human being.

And no, we would not have to have an "inquest" for every single miscarriage. That is ridiculous. No one purposefully or with "premenditation" causes a miscarriage. A miscarriage, or a stillbirth for that matter, is an unfortunate and uncontrolled happening. An abortion on the other hand requires someone to kill a fetus... in other words, stop it's source of life... the womb... by either suctioning it out or medically inducing it's death. Abortion requires a person purpsefully and intentionally destroying the fetus so that it does not grow into a baby. No one intentionally causes a miscarriage! I can't even believe you would even compare a miscarriage to an abortion. That is a total slap in the face to every woman who has suffered a miscarriage.

Now, again, I challenge you to explain how it is not murder based on the DEFINITION of murder... not the legal interpretation of whether or not abortion is legal. Murder is the taking of a human life. You say a fetus is not a human... okay... so be it... HOWEVER it WILL be a human if an abortion does not intervene with the process of its maturity. So again... how is abortion not anything less than the stopping of a life??!! You simply cannot argue it because it's clear as day. A fetus WILL become a baby IF the abortionist does not abort it!

And why is it that if a man kills a pregnant women who is pregnant, he is then charged with 2 counts of murder (like in the case of Scott Peterson).. that of the woman and that of the fetus? I'll tell you why. Becasue that unborn and undeveloped fetus would have been a child had the man not killed the woman. The man killed two lives... the fetus just happened to be a life that had not yet matured to be able to live on its own. An abortionist does the same. Ends a life, one that is dependent on the mother and her womb. The abortionist uses medicine or surgery (as in suction) to separate the fetus from the womb, thus cutting off the source of life for the fetus. It is tragic.

Freelunch, Do you realize that under the Endangerd Species Act, it is ILLEGAL to harm sea turtle EGGS? Yes, the eggs (the unborn turtles). According to this Act, you will face either fines or even imprisonment if you harm the eggs in any way. Now, explain to me why that is.

I can tell you why. It's because those eggs, if given the chance, will become turtles. Right now, they are eggs. They are not fully formed. They are not matured. They are not live turtles. They are fetuses basically. Our government recognizes that if a person does something to them, they could "die." But if a person does not harm them, they will eventually hatch and be baby turtles.

Sadly, sea turtle eggs have more protection than human fetuses.

Bottom line is that abortion is a very tragic act... something intentionally done to end the life of an unborn child. And it's especially tragic and heinous because the unborn baby has no voice and is completely dependent on its caretakers and life-givers (the mother). A fetus cannot defend itself. And those it depends on view it as either wanted or unwanted, and if unwanted, they can legally exercise their "choice" and end the life. The fetus, however, has no choice and no voice.

That is one reason why pro-lifers are so passionate about it. They are the voice for the unborn child who has no voice. Who else will stand up for them? Certainly not Planned Parenthood. Certainly not men like George Tiller. Certainly not our President.

Human life is precious, and every single unborn child is a human life. And many women face very deep and painful emotions... grief, regret, shame, suicidal thoughts, depression... after they've had abortions. Instinctively, they know they ended a life. Instinctively and logically, they know that had they not had the abortion, they would've had a child.

And as far as people bringing up these cases of scenarios of children who are going to die anyways, etc... those are very rare cases. Most abortions are done simply because the baby is unwanted and viewed as some sort of burden or hindrance. But abortion robs the mother and all other relatives of something that would've been a blessing and a joy to them, and abortionists and Planned Parenthood don't tell women the realities of abortion. Why? Because they are a business. They make money off of abortion. They don't care whether or not the woman suffers emotionally. They lose money when women don't have abortions. If an unborn child is just a fetus, a pregnant woman, in their eyes, is just a client and a patient. One of many.

It's a sad, sad world we live in, and Dr. Tiller has the blood of many unborn babies on his hands, and his legacy, unfortunately, is that of a man who took life. It's not a legacy to be proud of. But that is how he will be remembered. He will be remembered as an abortionist... and as an abortionist who provided late term abortions. That is his legacy, and it is a sad one indeed.

BreathetoBreathe said: "Exodus describes no penalty for women who choose to terminate pregnancy, nor does any Bible verse."

One of the 10 Commandments is "Do not murder." That's all they needed back then. Back then, the unborn were viewed as children, not as fetuses or embryos. There are many verses to support this (Rebekah's babies "jostling" in the womb, Psalm 139, and there are other verses that indicate how unborn children were viewed as children, not as fetuses.

Back then, they did not talk about whether or not the unborn child was a life or not. And they did not have advanced technology like today that told them their child would be handicapped or cojoined twins or other scenarios where they could then decide... oh, well, I don't want that child then.

And back then, most women wanted children. The more children, the better. A barren woman was shameful to them.

So, when the commandment says "do not murder," they knew full well, that murder included the murder of any human being, and they viewed the unborn as a human being, not as a blob of cells or lifeless. Thus, "do not murder" was all the command they needed to know that it was wrong to kill an unborn child. Who knows if it even crossed their mind to begin with. I don't think abortion was even a thought or a consideration back then.

George Tiller murdered? No ways! He was aborted, admittedly a very late-term abortion.

As an Orthodox Christian, We are to pray for all people, evil and good. I pray for Tiller, may God have Mercy on him. I don't know where he will end up, it is not my place to say where a person will end up. It is my job to constantly strive to be truly human or saintly as we all have the capacity to. In this striving I no longer need to strive for "my rights" because the focus is not "me" but "we"-We humans as a whole.

Franklin J: your concern is well taken, and my concern -- that "it was the will of God" will be invoked -- has sadly been confirmed by some of the posts on this thread.

When technology is used to save a life, God is thanked. When the life saved is not in conformity with the believer's idea of life, the "perpetrator" using the technology is damned. I hope you can forgive this pagan's cynical view of such hypocrisy.

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.
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Please forgive me for not having read all of the comments related to this post, but after I read the above paragraph, I am writing this comment with shaking hands and a chill running down my spine. You see, in 1995, I was faced with the same decision as the woman above. Twenty-three weeks into my second pregnancy, I was diagnosed with conjoined twins, precious daughters whose hearts were fused and livers shared, whose chances for life were bleak at best. Both my local doctor and all of the specialists we saw advised me that abortion was the best "treatment," but we chose to spend whatever time God granted us with our daughters loving them the best that we could. That time ended up being achingly short--they lived for 43 minutes--but what joy I have in having known them for even that brief period of time! What peace God has granted me knowing that we did all that we could for our daughters!

I understand the wrenching sadness of the couple above. But I ask you--how is a mother "protecting" her children from pain by having them torn apart in her womb? How much more complicated will the grieving process be if your children not only die, but they die through your decision to abort them? It took me at least three years to weave my profound sadness about what had happened to my daughters into my life, to integrate it into the new reality I found myself in. I shudder to think of the pain involved in a more complicated grieving process, of the pain involved in knowing that as a mother, you didn’t do all that you could to give your children a chance to live.

Dr. Tiller's death is unfortunate because he was a creature made in God's image, no matter how tarnished that image was in him, but to call him a hero for extinguishing the lives of all of those precious babies who were also made in God's image (and whether a baby is perfectly formed or seriously deformed, whether he/she will live a few minutes or many years, he/she is still God’s child) seems to this grieving mom to be a diabolically-inspired sentiment, an untruth that can only hinder true healing.

JenRH,

My condolences on this.

Don't different women come to different conclusions about this? Don't they all have to find the best way for themselves, not the way that others want to mandate? Erin's post on the miracle of a single flower touches the same issue, but the question is not whether the prospective mothers will be allowed to give birth to a baby with a serious birth defect. They will. The question is whether they will be forced to. You found that giving birth was the best choice for you. That is not the decision everyone makes.

With great respect to JenRH and the women in her shoes, there is a rebuttal to their conclusions, but it is one that stomps on their toes and would make the "messenger" an uncaring monster at best.

It boils down to a two-fold question: who do you trust (on the doctors' side) and what aspect of your feelings will control your decisions?

If a doctor could promise you that letting the child(ren) be born would mean constant pain for them, is your desire to spend even a few minutes holding them in your best interest or the child(ren)'s? If pain is a guaranteed outcome, who gets to determine if that pain is short and final (abortion) or prolonged and lingering?

JenRH,

I firmly believe that aborting my daughters would have complicated the grief process immensely (and the experiences of one of my friends who made the choice to abort a baby with fatal defects has only further confirmed that belief for me).

It would have complicated the grief process for you, and for your friend it did. Can you accept the idea that not everyone in that situation would agree?

Because we didn’t go along with the doctors’ suggestions to abort, they treated us as dangerous zealots, instead of accepting our beliefs and working to do whatever they could to help us during this time with our daughters.

This is a failure of medical care. Being the mother of a disabled child, I am something of an expert on failure in medical care. (I don't mean the inability to work miracles, I mean a failure to be caring.)

But it's hard to reason from this experience to the idea that every woman in this situation should be forced, by the police power of the State, to make the decision you made. I can't get there.

JenRH,

Nothing in medical science is certain. A person's beliefs come into play whether the rest of us (the medical scientists included) like it or not, agree with them or not.

My point is simply whether you (specific and general) expect to impose a set of legal requirements on situations that are never certain. I would no more deny you your decisions in your experience than I would deny a doctor deciding to perform an illegal procedure (should late-term abortions at least become so) in order to save the mother's life when the fetuses are going to die anyway according to his medically expert opinion. Based on the medical professionals I know and what they've told me, I suggest that you might have some sympathy for the fact that while you had your own personal situation to deal with, they have multiple such situations to deal with, and ignoring that they have personal feelings about them is, for me, an egregious evil in and of itself.

That said, and perhaps belatedly, please accept my humblest admiration for your ability to share such a painful experience here.

FreeLunch said: "Life is life. Reproduction is a part of continuing life. You may choose to see something special in it, something miraculous, but reproduction, like everything else about life is wondrous but understandable."

Huh? I'm really not sure I understand what you're saying here but it sounds like you are basically saying that life is no big deal... it's just another "bodily process" like BreathToBreath said... like pooping and peeing. You call it "wonderous," though but also also "understandable." I really don't quite get your point.

But I am wondering... do you have children by any chance? I can't imagine that you do because I would think if you did, you certainly would understand how precious, valuable, beautiful, and miraculous the birth of a child is and the life of a child is. And I would think that when you look at the face of your child, you would realize that had you aborted that child, there would be no child to look at. I'm guessing though, that you do not have children.

A lot of people bring up scenarios of extreme situations (cojoined twins, mother's life at risk, etc) but I want to point out that these types of situation are a very small percentage of abortions.

The MAJORITY of abortion are due to the baby simply being unwanted... because of various reasons. And IMO, most of the reasons are selfish and are things they should have thought of before they had sex!! And none of these reasons, IMO, justifies the destruction of a fetus, a life.

The Guttmacher Institute does various studies on abortion. Now this is an institute that is pro-choice. It was orginally a division of Planned Parenthood.

And in their studies, even they have found that the MAJORITY of elective abortions are NOT due to the health of the baby or mother.

In 2004, they did a study and found that the most frequently cited reasons for abortion were: it would interfere with a woman's education, work, or ability to care for the child. Also, that the woman felt that she couldn't afford a child. And the rest of them felt they were either beyond childbearing age and they did not want more kids or they felt they were too young and not ready for kids.

Most women chose these two answers as the reason they wanted an abortion: "having a baby would dramatically change my life" (DUH!) and "I can't afford a baby right now."

Only 13% gave health problems of the fetus as the reason and only 12% gave health problems of the mother as a reason, and some of those "health problems" included MORNING SICKNESS and gestial diabetes (very common among pregnant women)!! Only 1% said rape was the reason and only .5% said incest was the reason.

But talk of abortion doesn't end with the baby. Planned Parenthood and abortionists fail to explain the trauma that the mother endures. Almost all women say that the abortion was a traumatic and horrible experience. And many of them regret it and suffer emotional problems afterward.... many suffer for years and years, and even become suicidal over the sadness and/or guilt they feel.

Most women will testify that the nurses, doctors, and others at the abortion center did not offer them comfort or much explanation of what would happen or what to expect afterward.

Like I said in another post, it's a business for the abortion clinics and abortionists... a BUSINESS. I also think they have to harden their hearts to an extent because on a daily basis they end pregnancies... they end something that is norally a joyous and wonderful occasion. They see fetuses thrown into trash bins. They see the tears roll down the mother's cheeks. They know what has taken place. And they have to harden their hearts in order to deal with that on a daily basis.

It's foolish to justify abortion using cases such as health factors of mother and child since these are a very small percentage of abortions. Most abortions are committed simply because the child is seen as something that will hinder the mother's (or father's) life. And most of the mothers (and often also the fathers and/or parents of the mother and father) suffer a great deal of emotional distress afterwards... some never get over it.

It sickens me to hear people trivialize pregnancy and birth and dismiss it as just a "bodily process" or just some normal, routine scientific act of reproduction. Abortion is a very, very serious issue, and it is nothing less than the killing of a life. And it's very, very sad that there are doctors out there who make their livings off of ending life. They do have the blood of those babies on their hands.

I am posting an apology to this site for my uncharitable remark in my May 31, 2009, 8:06 pm comment. I am sorry that I wrote "Tiller be damned." Despite his evil work, I hope he had received grace of repentance at the last minute of his life.

If men who are fighting hit a pregnant woman and she gives birth prematurely but there is no serious injury, the offender must be fined whatever the woman's husband demands and the court allows. But if there is serious injury, you are to take life for life.