Boston Episcopalians celebrate Tiller's life, work

FYI, Rod, that's not how he did it according to this website: http://www.dr-tiller.com/methods.htm

He invented his own means, something called MOLD which involves killing the child with an injection of digoxin in the child's heart.

According to Kansas State Law, which investigated him in 2007, Dr Tiller was in violation of their late-term law because he performed late-term abortion for elective reasons.

According to the ELCA website, he was also in violation of his own church's policy regarding abortion, particularly late-term abortions (anything after the second trimester). It's a long read, but it's worth digging this out...

http://www.elca.org/What-We-Believe/Social-Issues/Social-Statements/Abortion.aspx

I assume you feel the same about allowing Operation Rescue to use a church space, given that groups radical rhetoric?

Btw, it appears the event is bring held at a church--an appropriate place for an anti-violence vigil and memorial--but it isn't a church event or service.

Rod, this is substantially what I posted below in response to Erin. Normally, I wouldn't post the same thing more than once, because I know that is not ok, but I said pretty much every thing I wanted to say below, and I would really appreciate a response from you if you have time.

I don't blame the pro-life movement as a whole for the murder of Dr. Tiller, but I do think we ought to hold those who say "he was an evil man," "he was an abortionist," "he was a mass-murderer" "even though we deplore his killing" accountable for hypocrisy if not their mendacity. You may hate what Tiller did and believe it was wrong, but that does not make him an evil man.

The murder of Tiller, a very courageous man (if you think being shot in both arms and then continuing to perform abortions was cowardice, you are not being honest, IMO) was an act of terrorism, pure and simple, and should be condemned as such, in the strongest possible terms, without qualifications, by anyone who considers themselves prolife.

As I've said before to you, I think the prolife movement raises many important ethical and moral issues about abortion that the prochoice movement ignores at its peril. But that never, ever, ever excuses justifying or rationalizing acts of terrorism.

Otherwise, people like your are doing the exact same thing Osama Bin Laden does when he justifies killing American civilians because they vote for politicians who enact U.S. policies that he believes are responsible for the deaths of Muslims.

Alicia,

"he was an abortionist,"....but he was an abortionist...we aren't allow to say what he did for a living?

"You may hate what Tiller did and believe it was wrong, but that does not make him an evil man." does the same apply to stalin or hitler? the Episcopalians are celebrating his work.

so we are all supposed to believe he is courageous because we know he was attacked but we can't believe he was evil because we know what he did?

how courageous is it to stick a pair of scissors in the back of the skull of a defenseless baby?

so is MLK responsible for the violence by the nation of islam or black planthers, yet he condemned segregation in unequivocal terms.

if we want to reduce the tensions in the country all we need is pres obama to truly seek common ground and support an informed consent law with sonogram. this wouldn't legally prohibit one abortion but it would make pro-lifers feel as if they are part of the political process.

As a pro-life, Anglo-Catholic who worships within the diocese of Boston (when I go home on vacations) let me thoroughly dissociate myself from this abhorrent and horrid behavior. They are not doing this in my name, and I thoroughly despise it. It's enough to make me consider emigrating to the West Indies, where I could at least belong to an Anglican Province that believes in human life. My only consolation is what Christ the Savior said: the gates of hell shall not prevail against the Anglican church, any more than they prevailed against the church at the time when Arianism and Monothelitism seemed like the coming thing.

Thanks for the MOLD information, I guess, but aesthetics aside, it's largely a distinction without a difference. The essential thing is that he aborted late-term unborn children.

"I don't blame the pro-life movement as a whole for the murder of Dr. Tiller, but I do think we ought to hold those who say "he was an evil man," "he was an abortionist," "he was a mass-murderer" "even though we deplore his killing" accountable for hypocrisy if not their mendacity. You may hate what Tiller did and believe it was wrong, but that does not make him an evil man."

A few questions.

Are we allowed to say that anyone still living is an evil man?

If we do and that person is subsequently murdered, does that make us responsible?

What if we say that someone who has already died is an evil man, and then someone else is murdered who fits the same criteria for evil as the previous dead person? Does that make us responsible for the second death?

"Larry, a grand jury heard the evidence and made the determination, not the prosecuring attorney."

I don't know anything about the case or the charge made regarding the prosecuting attorney, but this seems to be a specious response. The grand jury heard the evidence that the prosecuting attorney presented. If the prosecution wants you found not guilty, your chances of acquittal are excellent.

"But I guess at least some of you Kansas pro-life types think its fine to take the law into your own hands when the legal process doesn't give you the result you want."

Do you always argue in bad faith?

Okay, here's a totally neutral statement: one of the billions of highly evolved primates on earth composed, mainly, of animated carbon became an unanimated specimen (during a recent block of time in which the Earth made one of its customary complete rotations on its axis) because another such specimen used a lethal weapon on him.

You want anything else? You want a denunciation of the murder, prayers for the victim, sympathy for what his family and connections are going through? Then you must also accept a realistic look at what the victim did for a living and why people of traditional Christian morality find it so terrible.

You don't get to insist that all pro-life people shut up, now and forever, as if it's only possible to see Tiller as a hero for what he did. You don't get to insist that everyone call him a good man without owning for the possibility (and allowing for the expression) of the notion that he was an evil one.

So the Bean Town Episcopalians are having a time for Tiller. Sub sole nil novi. I wonder whether they invited Al Cutie? Has he been trained in baptism of the pre-butchered? I'll bet there's a lot to learn in that Tophet of turpitude against which the Gates of Hell have not prevailed.

Here's a link to a story on the Tiller acquittal: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/28/us/28abortion.html.

The quick acquittal was probably because there really was no case against him (on these grounds) rather than any prosecutorial misconduct.

And pray tell me how I'm arguing in bad faith. We already know that one Kansas pro-lifer killed someone over this.

alicia,

hitler believed what he was doing was right and his first responsibility was to germany and the humiliation of ww i. slave owners believed what they were doing was right and their first responsibility was to their family. how is this any different? you can't live in a cult of indiscriminance and still be moral. you have to be willing to make choices. actions have consequences. we can't all just close our eyes and say as long as he thought it was right then their is some legitimacy to it.

as far as church, they should not celebrate his life. they should intercede for God's mercy. and then they should be ashamed that they gave false witness that attacking the least of our breathern is ok as long as it done for historically disadvantage groups.

Hector, There is no promise that the gates of hell will not prevail against the Anglican church.

"You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it." Whatever is His Church is what the gates of hell will not prevail against. If you are a Protestant, that Church is the invisible association of all true believing Christians...and the rock is Peter's confession. If you are a Catholic, the rock is Peter, and his successors in the Episcopal See of Rome, and the Church is all those in communion with that See. Either way, the promise is not to the Anglican church as an entity.

In my opinon, Anglo Catholic worship notwithstanding, you are in communion with those who support the NCRC and who are celebrating the life of late term abortionist Tiller. (There is a very nice, if small, Anglican Use congregation in the Boston area, by the way...)

Tiller's actions were objectively evil...even if he was deluded to believe that they were good and bravely continued in them. I think it is possible to be brave in service of an evil goal that one is deluded to believe is good, and that this could be said, for instance, of the 9-11 hijackers, as well as of Tiller. It is up to God to judge how honestly or dishonestly he was (they were) deluded. But Christians should not be celebrating such actions.

Susan Peterson

A lot of people on here seem to have strong opinions on how other Christian denominations - that they do not belong to - should conduct their memorial services.

Usually the same people who bridle the most at the mere suggestion that someone from another denomination might tell them how they should be conducting their wedding ceremonies.

Charming. How about you all leave the relatives of this poor man alone in their grief? All that empathy for the unborn must fill your heart so fully that you have none left for any living human, like perhaps this man's family and friends.

Further, if you don't want to be blamed for this act, condemn it. Don't equivocate. Don't attack the deceased. He is safe from your arrows, which only serve to wound those who loved him. After you have unequivocally condemned it, shut up. Allow a seemly moment of silence for your sworn enemy, who was killed on your behalf, by one perhaps motivated by your words. The debate can wait a week or two.

You still assume that the crime was committed, lack of evidence be damned. Is this because you can provide evidence that Tiller had broken the law against elective abortion in late-term pregnancies?

I am not assuming anything, even if no crime has been committed a political "fix" can still be put in. Given the rhetoric of the governor (now HHS secretary), the attorney general and the Wichita prosecuting attorney, none of whom were enthusiastic about pursuing Tiller, it is not an unreasonable conclusion.

For all of you that insist on turning Tiller into saint, what if a fringe member of the anti-capital punishment movement had killed an executioner? Would you feel similarly compelled to elevate the executioner to sainthood? Or do you think that you could both condemn the murder and abhor the actions of the executioner when he was living?

According to what I've read on the internet (I've never met any of these people, including Dr. Tiller, and I'm betting that very few people here have) there were some women who had found themselves trapped in untenable pregnancies who were very grateful to this man and what they experienced as his compassion.

Dr. Tiller did not arrange that any baby should develop without a brain. We will lay the blame or the praise for that at Chance or God, according to your preference. Nor did any woman carrying such a baby so arrange matters.

There are many people who think that this mother has a moral obligation to carry such a baby to term, only to see it die within a very short time thereafter. Not everyone sees the point in that. Dr. Tiller and his patients seem to have felt that hastening the arrival of that inevitable end, death, was more compassionate to all parties involved, and more protective, certainly, of the mother.

There is no way, apparently, to bring these two points of view together.

When my youngest entered college, the Dean of the school gave a speech to us, the assembled freshman class and parents, and said that the goal of that college was to produce minds which could see and understand and credit points of view with which they personally disagree.

There are a lot of people on both sides of this controversy who are incapable of what that Dean was demanding of his undergraduates.

I am not an Episcopalian. I disagree with a lot of the positions taken by that community. But I do try to recognize that they do not agree with me and that they do have a point of view which makes sense to them.

Perhaps, probably, Dr. Tiller and his family sincerely and deeply believed that what he was doing was right.

RJohnson
June 2, 2009 1:40 PM
I just love the way so many good Christians here have offered prayers and condolences for the family of Dr. Tiller, who mourn the death of their husband/father/grandfather. And for those members of the church where this murder took place, as they try to recover from the shock of having their place of worship violated. And for the family of the accused murderer, as they try to deal with the allegations against their loved one.

It is just so good to be among Christians who are so clearly expressing the love of Jesus towards those in pain.

****

Oh my Jesus, save us from the fires of Hell and lead all souls to Heaven, especially those most in need of Thy Mercy.

I suspect this is sarcastic snark, so I will note that when I offered this prayer of deliverance for all on another Tiller thread here it was met with, well, a bunch of snark.

To another point here about calling Tiller evil, I agree. None should call another person evil. As Chesterton wrote:

"In Christian morals, in short, it is wicked to call a man "damned": but it is stricly religious and philosophic to call him damnable.

Thanks, Your Name. Let me offer a counterexample to the "Hitler believed he was right therefore how is Tiller different from Hitler?" line of argument you advanced.

I love animals, and despise animal abuse, but I find the actions of groups such as People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals to be deeply wrong and troubling, and not just because those actions are often outside of the law.

In some cases, PETA's "undercover investigations" have turned up examples of egregious abuses of lab animals by lab technicians. Is it worthwhile to expose abuses of animals? Certainly. Ought it to be done outside the law by people who are convinced that they are on a crusade against evil? Need I say, probably not?

Let's use another example of things PETA does. PETA was infamous a few years back for its acts of terrorism against women wearing fur coats. Throwing paint on a woman wearing a fur coat is an act of terrorism. It might not be morally equivalent to murder but it is still intended to terrorize, and it is an attempt to advance what is purported to be an ethical agenda through a lawless and reprehensible act.

Alicia,

Thanks for your post re. PETA. I agree entirely.

Alicia,

Let me amend that: I'm not sure I want to call throwing paint on people wearing fur is terrorism; maybe it is. But it seems to me, despite being a very bad thing, to be less than terrorism.

Otherwise, very nice to be able to agree with your post.

I am not assuming anything, even if no crime has been committed a political "fix" can still be put in.

So, you don't have any evidence that Dr. Tiller committed a crime, but you think that there was a fix when he wasn't found guilty of the crime you don't know he committed. Thanks for clarifying that. Apparently you want to define your own crimes.

From A Man for All Seasons:

More: Yes. What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?
Roper: I'd cut down every law in England to do that!
More: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country's planted thick with laws from coast to coast -- man's laws, not God's -- and if you cut them down -- and you're just the man to do it -- do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake.

Re: Babies without Brains and the Neccessity of Dr. Tiller:

Perhaps you might consider checking out this blog?

http://babyfaithhope.blogspot.com/

It chronicles the short, but happy life of one anacephalic baby. Would she really have been better off if she'd been dismembered before birth?

What Dr. Tiller did was not a necessary evil. It was plain evil. It is also evil to gun down a man in cold blood. There are no heroes in this story.

churchmouse -

Tiller was a member of a Lutheran Church. There was a memorial for him in Boston held in an Episcopal one.

I wonder how many people love the doctrine of Hell because it makes them feel so good about themselves. Who didn't think that The Inferno was the best part of Dante's Divine Comedy.

Churchmouse, Tiller himself wasn't an Episcopalian. He was an ELCA Lutheran.

quote: "Churchmouse, Tiller himself wasn't an Episcopalian. He was an ELCA Lutheran."

I'm a confessional Lutheran, so I don't follow the ELCA too closely. But last I heard they were in the process of merging with the Episcopalians, which is why the ELCA now has bishops. As a whole, the ELCA isn't as apostate and off the deep end crazy as are many in the ECUSA. However, the fact that Tiller was a member in good standing at an ELCA church (any church worth its salt would have asked him to repent and excommunicated him had he refused) tells you a lot about how close some in the ELCA are to the ECUSA.

rr

rr, why don't you just write "I'm a stupid Lutheran"?

1. The ELCA is a confessional denomination.
2. The ELCA has had bishops for decades.
3. The ELCA is not merging with the Episcopalians. (They practice altar-pulpit fellowship with each other, as the ELCA does with several other denominations).

RR,

Episcopal Church = / = Anglican Communion. The majority of laity and clergy in most Anglican provinces, and a significant minority in America (including my priest in Boston) are pro-life, and abhor the pro-choice inclinations of Jefferts-Schori and her cabal as much as you do. The problem is strictly with American (and maybe Canadian) Anglicans, and not with all of them either.

The Catholic and Orthodox churches have had individual priests and bishops before who taught seriously immoral things- most notably antisemitism (NOT saying that any of the popes ever endorsed pogroms, they did not AFAIK). And yet somehow those churches were able to overcome the failings of those individual clerics. So too will we.

Connie,

Why don't you just write "I'm not a real Lutheran" or "I prefer Lutheranism lite, the watered down version with a twist of heresy." Being a confessional Lutheran actually means adhering to the confessions instead of the Gospel of what is happening now among theological modernists.

1. The ELCA has played fast and loose with the Lutheran confessions and the Bible for as long as it has existed. It is a liberal/mainline denomination and its leadership is a lot more interested in following what is fashionable in those circles (which get their cues from the secular left and are often their lapdogs) than the confessions or the Scriptures.
2. By practicing altar-pulpit fellowship with the Episcopalians, the ELCA has in fact joined itself with the ECUSA. The two bodies may well have decided to maintain separate administrative structures, but altar-pulpit fellowship is a union of sorts. It's no accident that the ELCA has these kinds of agreements while the LCMS and WELS practice closed communion.

BTW, I'm with the LCMS-hardly some small little sect. It's far from a perfect denomination, but at least the Lutheran confessions, the Bible, and especially the Gospel mean something in it. Unfortunately, that isn't the case for many (though not all) congregations in the ELCA, especially the one that allowed Tiller to remain a member in good standing.

rr

RR,

DOn't be absurd. The Catholic Church, if I recall correctly, allows Nestorian (=Assyrian) Christians to receive communion at Catholic churches, on the grounds that they both believe in the shared understanding of the Eucharist. Does that make the Catholic Church a bunch of Nestorians?

Shared communion =/= union.

"This is about the loss of a man (Tiller) who was a saint and a martyr," she said in an interview before the service.”

“Abortion is a blessing and our work is not done.”

Madness.

Call for a New Thread,

Well, now socially conservative Anglicans have another option: they can join one of the Anglican-but-not-Episcopal bodies affiliated with the Provinces of Nigeria, Rwanda, or the Southern Cone. The good Archbishop Venables is not going to endorse abortion anytime soon.

Alicia,

here is the kink in your argument....the entire time you are arguing law and that at the last second you switch to morality or ethics. just because the law condones what tiller did, doesn't mean that everyone has to close their eyes and pretend there was no moral dimension to it.

" I would like to see unequivocal condemnation of it by those who consider themselves prolife and anti-terrorist, not what appears to me to be pro forma condemnation of the murder followed by rationalization and justification based upon the verdict that George Tiller was "an evil abortionist."

pro-choicers are always encouraging pro-lifers to see nuance. well here is a chance for them to return the favor. it was wrong to take the guys life but he still spent his days doing evil.

Hector, I'm not thinking only of "socially conservative" Episcopalians, but of people who believe the orthodox Christianity that C. S. Lewis was identified with.

Admirers of Lewis came into the ECUSA about the time the denomination was becoming identified with figures such as the occult-prone Bishop James Pike.

The ECUSA had a great chance, really to turn away from its modishness (wryly described even by Harper's magazine circa 1979), its heresy, etc.

Instead it has moved farther and farther from orthodoxy. So I am interested in those "C. S. Lewis Episcopalians" like myself, people who were in the ECUSA for a time largely thanks to the influence of Lewis (also folk like Charles Williams and Dorothy L. Sayers), likely having left the evangelical orbit. Did they enter one of the continuing Anglican minority denominations, become Orthodox or Roman Catholic, or like me go into the LCMS?

"One can't say that a person who vivisected infants in utero evil?"

Note well "...because their deeds were evil."

Deeds, not people.

But to answer your question, yes, one CAN say that a person is evil. It's just that no one really has the qualificatin to do so, and the doing so is itself an evil deed.

cecelia,

not condemning him, only God can judge souls. condemning his work...yes! that is the question. that is the title of the post. whether the church should honor his work.

"But on the assumption that his church did not outright condemn all abortion, what if he was acting in good faith according to HIS religion? On what basis do you then condemn him as evil?"

based on the nature of the act, people condemn his work. it doesn't matter what his church teaches. i am sure there were "churches" that supported anti-semitism in 1940s germany...that doesn't exonerate any of their members. the fact that they call themselves christian and you are willing to accept that is a scandal for you and them. you are saying that this is reasonable. by not unequivocally condemning abortion your are saying that the Jesus who says whatever you do to the least of your breathren you do to me...has no problem with abortion. everyone doesn't have a right to define christianity to be whatever they want it to be. if they did, there would be no need for revelation. gnosticism is not christianity.

Max Schadenfreude is right. We are all sinners, we are all evil. As we say before receiving the Holy Communion, "I confess that Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God, who camest into the world to save sinners, of whom I am first". That puts me ahead of the head honcho of the Episcopal Divinity School in the wickedness stakes. It also puts me ahead of Dr Tiller and his murderer, and ahead of Pvt. William Long and his murderer.

MQ: "There's hardly a mention of abortion in the Bible, and the only mention there is makes it clear that it is not murder."

There's no mention of abortion in the New Testament because CHRISTIANS DIDN'T DO IT. Sacrificing/aborting children was something PAGANS did!

There's no mention of abortion in the New Testament because CHRISTIANS DIDN'T DO IT. Sacrificing/aborting children was something PAGANS did!

Nonsense. You really think abortion just plain stopped as Christianity spread across the Roman Empire? Talk about naive.

But high-five for knocking the "pagans"!

Most stories we're hearing are that they were done only when the baby would die instantly or the mother's life was endangered. It's not that unusual to portray the recently dead in a favorable light, this happened to even Deng Xiaoping.

He apparently did only abort when the mother was at risk or the baby had a condition. However not all these conditions were fatal. His cite reported included spina bifida, Down's syndrome, and hydrocephalous. As well as treatable heart conditions.

Rod linked to something about how liberals most value harm avoidance, liberty, and equality. By this perspective he could indeed be deemed a hero as even the non-lethal conditions named contain some suffering for the child or parents. However from a Christian perspective total freedom and avoidance of pain is not the highest sign of virtue. It is strange for any Christian church to celebrate those values.

Still this is a harder hill for Pro-Lifers. The idea that a life with spina bifida is worth living is one I think many ordinary people just can't or won't ever understand. That a baby having to go through surgeries in infancy can still be a baby worth something is an anomalous view that is respected, but not generally embraced. Certainly not by doctors. (In one case intended as sympathetic to Tiller the doctor's told the woman that they would categorically not do surgery on the baby if she let it be born. This is actually not Tiller's fault and does make me think we made him too central to the whole thing)

BobN wrote:
June 3, 2009 2:37 AM

“There's no mention of abortion in the New Testament because CHRISTIANS DIDN'T DO IT. Sacrificing/aborting children was something PAGANS did!

Nonsense. You really think abortion just plain stopped as Christianity spread across the Roman Empire? Talk about naive.”

In fact, as Christianity spread across the Roman Empire, abortions DID stop. Slowly, over many years, abortion and the common practice of abandoning infants came to be regarded as evil as pagan ideals were replaced by Christian ideals.

What is naive is to believe that abortion would have “just plain stopped” with the spread of Christianity. Cultural ideals can take centuries to become pervasive.

I love how some comments on this thread brought out the the so-called "confessional" Lutherans to smear the name of ELCA. I am still trying to figure out how you folks know the hearts of almost 5 million people in the US.

It is in pulpit and altar fellowship with mainline Protestant bodies but not with Lutheran bodies that seriously adhere to the Lutheran Confessions.

The ELCA is not in fellowship with LCMS or WELS or the even smaller Lutheran groups who find WELS to be too liberal because LCMS and WELS refuse to be in fellowship with the ELCA. Both of these groups are so allergic to any sort of fellowship with those they consider too liberal that they won't even use the same hymnal that the ELCA uses, a hymnal that LCMS helped develop.

Half a century ago, WELS broke with LCMS because it claimed that LCMS was far too liberal and they just couldn't continue fellowship with such a group. WELS has not changed its mind about this and quit using the same hymnal that LCMS uses a couple of decades ago. The Church of the Lutheran Confession, the largest of the even more conservative Lutheran bodies doesn't publish its own hymnal to show how awful the liberalism of LCMS and WELS are, but they appear to prefer The Lutheran Hymnal, which was published when WELS and LCMS were in fellowship and CLC congregations were mostly part of WELS.

In religion or politics, you can always find someone who disapproves of how much you are willing to compromise with the rest of the world. I don't want to meet the person who is the person who is the last one, the most radical, the most reactionary.

quote: "I love how some comments on this thread brought out the the so-called "confessional" Lutherans to smear the name of ELCA. I am still trying to figure out how you folks know the hearts of almost 5 million people in the US."

None of the confessional Lutherans on this thread have said anything about the hearts of all of the members of the ELCA. Indeed, it was correctly pointed out that some faithful Lutherans do remain in the ELCA, though they are a minority.

The problem is that some practices tolerated in the ELCA and especially the doctrinal stances that the ELCA has taken as a denomination on a whole host of issues runs counter to the Lutheran confessions, the Scriptures and the Gospel. For example, the ELCA ordains women, which is contrary to the Scriptures. The ELCA also isn't exactly known for firm orthodoxy when it comes to abortion or sexual morality (especially homosexual behavior) either. Also, by entering into full communion with bodies that are Reformed, the ELCA has made a mockery of what the Lutheran confessions (not to mention theologians such as Martin Luther and Martin Chemnitz) teach about communion. Finally, the ELCA has compromised Lutheran soteriology (remember the Gospel is actually important to Lutheranism) by its participation in the "Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification" with the Roman Catholic Church.

Again, there are faithful Lutherans in the ELCA. But as a body, it has clearly departed from confessional Lutheranism.

rr

Aicia,

Re: What would you say of a Muslim cleric who condemned suicide bombings of Jews in Israel, but added, "Israel equals Nazi Germany" or "Jews are evil," (or descendants of pigs and monkeys)?

Nonsense. It's perfectly possible to be an anti-Semite and not support killing Jews. General Franco was a quintessential anti-Semite, for example, but he refused to take part in the Holocaust, and in fact Spain was something of a refuge for French Jews during the war.

Not to mention that comparing Jews to abortion doctors is despicable, and rather anti-Semitic in itself.

Hector, thanks for your response. I don't agree that it is anti-semitic to use that example. But, again, I think the point I was attempting to make is being misunderstood, or misread.

The point is, to restate it, when someone who considers himself prolife (such as Rod Dreher) labels George Tiller "an evil abortionist" he is using the kind of reductive language that makes it easier to justify Tiller's murder. What if, on the other hand, Rod had posted something like "I find what Tiller did as a doctor performing late-term abortions utterly abhorrent, but I recognize that he may have been acting in accordance with his own ethical standards, and it is not for me to judge him for that. And I utterly repudiate his murder"?

I hope this clarifies the point I was trying to make in my previous post.