TillerIf you haven’t heard by now, the famous late-term abortionist from Wichita, Kansas, George Tiller, was murdered on Sunday while attending a religious service at his local Lutheran church.  It is very likely that he was murdered because of his profession.  Indeed, this was no accidental murder.  He was sought out specifically.  Given how infamous he is for killing late-term babies, it is almost certain that his killer was motivated by his own pro-life ideology.  Given the fact that I am pro-life, and regularly discuss abortion on this blog, I feel it necessary to weigh in on this issue.

First, let me say that I condemn the murder of Mr. Tiller by his assailant.  While I think Mr. Tiller was deserving of death for the thousands upon thousands of babies he murdered over the years, his death should have been administered at the hands of the proper, governing authorities—not a citizen vigilante.  Of course, at this time in our history, what Mr. Tiller did is considered legal, and thus the governing authorities do not consider what he did to be murder, and thus would not execute him for any crime.  While this is a travesty of justice, it is no justification for citizens to take the law into their own hands, setting themselves up as judge and executioner.  We need to work within our unjust legal system to outlaw abortion just as the abolitionists worked within an unjust legal system to ultimately outlaw slavery.  We are not to take the law—or the lack thereof—into our own hands.

Some abortion-choice advocates are claiming that such actions are the logical outflow of pro-life ideology.  I beg to differ.  While each is regrettable, only eight abortion doctors have been killed by pro-lifers over the last 30+ years.  Most pro-lifers unequivocally condemn such actions.  Most pro-lifers value all life, including the lives of the abortionists.  Many Catholic pro-lifers oppose executing abortion doctors for their moral crimes, even if the law permitted it!  The fact of the matter is that most pro-lifers believe it is wrong for any citizen to murder another citizen for having murdered someone else.  Most pro-lifers believe the best way to protect the unborn is to work within our legal system to change existing abortion law.  Killing abortion doctors is not part of our strategy.

Other abortion-choice advocates are claiming that the pro-life rhetoric such as “murder,” incites this kind of violence against abortion doctors, and even those women who obtain abortions.  Again, this is evidently false given the data.  If there was a tight correlation between pro-life rhetoric and violence, we would expect every abortion doctor to be dead!  The fact that only eight have been killed in more than 30 years shows that there is virtually no connection between the two.  Furthermore, if by calling abortion “murder” we are directly promoting and responsible for the murder of abortionists, wouldn’t the same be true of calling anything murder?  When a 25 year old man intentionally kills another 25 year old man, we describe his act as murder.  Does that make us morally responsible, then, if another citizen murders the murderer in response?  Surely not!  Likewise, identifying abortion as murder does nothing to directly or indirectly promote vigilantistic murder.