# Doctor who performed abortions shot to death. **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [May 31, 2009, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctor-who-performed-abortions-shot-to-death/498280 "2009-05-31T19:55:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 27
**Author:** ![flonks](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/3ab097/32.png) [@flonks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flonks)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2009, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctor-who-performed-abortions-shot-to-death/498280/521 "2009-06-03T20:42:17Z")
> [@SteveG1](#): > > I make that decision for myself. I choose for myself, what to accept and what to reject, based on my own experiences, knowledge, and available information. Are you saying I have to blindly accept and respect every hair brained bit of nonsense that comes along? So yes, for me, I decide what makes sense and what is bullshit. Nobody does it for me, nobody will decide for me or tell me what is or isn’t bullshit. > > Bullshit is bullshit, no matter who believes it, no matter how many believe it. There is a difference between - Agreeing to disagree. Not accepting the others opinion, but accepting the fact that the oponent has a different opinion - Saying that the opponent is ignorant because he thinks differently Nobody forces you to belief something in particular. ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2009, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctor-who-performed-abortions-shot-to-death/498280/522 "2009-06-03T21:05:07Z")
> [@Bambro](#): > > Way Out Nut Job Conspiracy Theories? Close enough. Whacked-Out Nut-Job Conspiracy Theorists. ---
**Author:** ![SteveG1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@SteveG1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SteveG1)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2009, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctor-who-performed-abortions-shot-to-death/498280/523 "2009-06-03T21:24:29Z")
> [@flonks](#): > > There is a difference between > > - Agreeing to disagree. Not accepting the others opinion, but accepting the fact that the oponent has a different opinion > - Saying that the opponent is ignorant because he thinks differently > > Nobody forces you to belief something in particular. Taking item 1, if they appear to have put some thought into it, or have some sort of logic/demontrable facts/anything at all, then there can be agreement or disagreement. If they appeal to some invisible and supernatural power as the ultimate authority, that is not logic or evidence. That becomes a case of proving the unprovable, or disproving the unprovable. Your faith may not be mine. I don’t have to believe it just because you say so. Besides, I’ve heard people say some damn stupid shit, claiming “it’s in the Bible” and it wasn’t (not that it matters either way). I’ve heard some stupid shit based on “God says” (oh yeah? when? on the phone, or was it twitter?). You don’t use God as a “automatic win” with me. Maybe “my God” thinks “your God” is the false one. Maybe “my God” says you’re a heritic or something. Any asshole can yell “God says”, and they often do. Taking item 2, what’s wrong with that? Ignorance is a lack of knowledge about something. Ignorance is not stupidity in and of itself. However, when it comes to willful ignorance, the deliberate disregard of evidence, facts, logic etc, then it is stupidity. There ARE people who are not worth arguing with, because they or their ideas are simply too stupid to accept, and they will not change one bit of their thought anyway no matter what. I have better things to do. A person can have, like I said, any opinion they want. It’s their right. That does not mean I am required to respect it, or to pretend I respect it. I am free to believe it’s the stupidest damn thing that ever came down the pike. You are not automatically entitled to respect any more than I am. The freedom of belief cuts both ways. I don’t have to believe or respect any of the horse shit people are trying to pass these days under the “flag” of religion. To be snarky about it, MY religion rejects much of it anyway. When people try to put their OWN relgion into law, we have a problem. “God commands” or “the Bible says” is not a reason to enact or enforce a secular law. Finally, the shooter the OP is about, is a murderer. He killed someone for not believing or acting as he thought the guys should. Does he get a pass for that because “his opinion differed”? It was more of a “follow my crackpot mutation of a religion or die”. Is that to be respected too? After all, that was what - a difference of opinion. Shit no. Fuck that. ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2009, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctor-who-performed-abortions-shot-to-death/498280/524 "2009-06-03T22:49:24Z")
> [@SteveG1](#): > > Bullshit is bullshit, no matter who believes it, no matter how many believe it. Exactly. Far too many people appear to believe that “Everybody is entitled to their opinion” means the very same thing as “Everyone’s opinion is to be considered intelligent and well-formed.” No, an ill-thought opinion deserves no respect at all. IMHO 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2009, 11:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctor-who-performed-abortions-shot-to-death/498280/525 "2009-06-03T23:15:20Z")
> [@flonks](#): > > Who decides whose opinion is bullshit? Is it like, believers talk bullshit in the eyes of atheists, and atheists talk bullshit in the eyes of believers. > > Seems to be complicated. Not really. The believers have no evidence for their claims - their _ **wildly contradictory** _ claims, which often outright contradict known facts - while all the observed evidence favors atheism. Atheism is clearly in the right, no matter how much the believers pout and want to cling to their fantasies. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Second\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2009, 12:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctor-who-performed-abortions-shot-to-death/498280/526 "2009-06-04T00:15:14Z")
I notice that after 11 pages of this, at least one of our “concern troll” righties (and possibly more) has yet to show up and denounce or approve of this right wing terrorist attack on American soil. > [@](#): > > But Warren Hern, a Colorado physician and close friend of Tiller who said he was now “the only doctor in the world” who performed very late-term abortions, said Tiller’s death was predictable. > > “I think it’s the inevitable consequence of more than 35 years of constant antiabortion terrorism, harassment and violence,” he said. "I get messages from these people saying, ‘Don’t bother wearing a bulletproof vest, we’re going for a head shot.’ " Article from LA Times [Web post on Tiller may be suspect's](http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-tiller1-2009jun01,0,7068875.story?page=2) There have been over 150 right wing attacks on abortion providers over the years. [http://www.religioustolerance.org/abo\_viol.htm](http://www.religioustolerance.org/abo_viol.htm) These right wing death squads are in America and have been since the labor movement was targeted after the Civil War. Yet some claiming to be responsible “conservatives” have failed to condemn this latest terrorist murder, perhaps because they feel good about it, or agree with it, or cannot muster the courage to say that murdering people for doing legal things that they think are wrong is tearing at the fabric of civilization. Failure of people with a platform to denounce a murder is likely to be interpreted by a significant portion of the public that such a murder is alright. It isn’t. Right wing murder squads are a sign of collapsing civilization. But since the righties don’t denounce it when it is one of their’s, can we at least rely on them to start denouncing when the chicken’s come home to roost and one of their own is slaughtered in a premeditated fashion? They could probably whip up a full scale bloody civil war then. ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2009, 12:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctor-who-performed-abortions-shot-to-death/498280/527 "2009-06-04T00:48:43Z")
Friend, they were in America even before the Civil War. Apparently there’s no hate good enough unless it’s a religious hate. ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Fight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/90ced4/32.png) [@Cat\_Fight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Fight)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2009, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctor-who-performed-abortions-shot-to-death/498280/528 "2009-06-04T01:36:31Z")
> [@RedFury](#): > > For such a radical Pinko-Commie as I’ve often been labeled here, I find it rather odd that although, in general, I strongly favor woman’s rights and specifically, the right to abort, I don’t quite understand the callousness of some of the posters here towards the act itself. > > Not a religious man myself as some of you might know, but I do not think religion is the sole ingredient that makes some of the participants on either side of this debate rather irrational. That said, other than strongly disagreeing with **Starving’s** denouncement of Dr Tiller (whom I think facts show was a certain asset to his community and the families he _obviously_ helped in what were surely some of their most trying times), I do also have to say, that for the most part I agree almost completely with his views vis-a-vis both the seriousness of the act itself, and, what to me seems an obvious fact as well. And that is that _at some point_ you’re making a conscious decision to kill a potentially imperfect human being, but a _human being_ none the less…IOW, just like any of us. That alone gives me quite a bit of pause w/regards to some of the almost gleeful comments I’ve read here about the procedure itself. > > Abortion _as form_ of birth control! Please, tell me we can do at least a bit better that _that_! I’d say more but surely the thread’s already been Goodwinized to bits. > > For now, suffice it to say that we are not exactly talking about lancing a boil… Who are you talking about here? The millions of women who actually get abortions? The women who have had more than one in 30+ years of having sex? You sound like one of those people who thinks women should have to wait several days (often at a hotel away from home) between the consultation and the procedure, so they can ‘reflect’ on their decision… because until someone explains to them what’s going to happen, they can’t possibly have even considered it! They’ve certainly never seen any sort of televised or written arguments _against_ abortion, weighed any pros and cons, and feel no angst over their decision. They need people like you to explain how seriously they should be treating it. If you read ‘glee’ into anyone’s abortion experiences, it is likely relief and lack of remorse (god forbid). Anything beyond that is likely slightly ironic, to balance out the idea that women who get abortions shouldn’t feel anything but grief and failure and light a candle every day for ‘what could have been.’ As I mentioned previously, just admitting you’ve had an abortion is still quite taboo, despite its legality and frequency, and some people get pissed off. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2009, 2:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctor-who-performed-abortions-shot-to-death/498280/529 "2009-06-06T14:37:54Z")
> [@Phred Phelps](#): > > A late term abortion in Tiller’s 275th trimester at the hands of the LORD of hosts is what we call it. That line is too good to waste ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2009, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctor-who-performed-abortions-shot-to-death/498280/530 "2009-06-06T15:20:55Z")
Good point. Would that someone would see fit to make it applicable to the Right Reverend Mr. Phelps. ---
**Author:** ![E-Sabbath](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e19adc/32.png) [@E-Sabbath](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-Sabbath)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2009, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctor-who-performed-abortions-shot-to-death/498280/531 "2009-06-06T20:26:08Z")
And yes, Westboro picketed the funeral. ---
**Author:** ![Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ccd318/32.png) [@Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paul_in_Qatar)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2009, 4:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctor-who-performed-abortions-shot-to-death/498280/532 "2009-06-07T04:49:26Z")
A dog barks. That is all a dog can do. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2009, 1:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctor-who-performed-abortions-shot-to-death/498280/533 "2009-06-08T13:07:49Z")
According the 1010 WINS news, the shooter is making calls from prison saying there are other people set to kill other “abortion doctors.” He is also complaining about prison conditions. ---
**Author:** ![E-Sabbath](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e19adc/32.png) [@E-Sabbath](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-Sabbath)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2009, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctor-who-performed-abortions-shot-to-death/498280/534 "2009-06-08T13:50:33Z")
He wants his sleep apnea machine. It is very sad. ---
**Author:** ![buttonjockey308](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bcef8e/32.png) [@buttonjockey308](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/buttonjockey308)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2009, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctor-who-performed-abortions-shot-to-death/498280/535 "2009-06-08T18:41:56Z")
> [@E-Sabbath](#): > > He wants his sleep apnea machine. It is very sad. And he should get it, if by “sleep apnea machine” you mean an IV pump with sodium thiopental, pavulon and potassium chloride. That’ll fix the the problem right up. ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Fight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/90ced4/32.png) [@Cat\_Fight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Fight)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2009, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctor-who-performed-abortions-shot-to-death/498280/536 "2009-06-08T19:37:36Z")
> [@E-Sabbath](#): > > He wants his sleep apnea machine. It is very sad. Oooh, sorry. My religion doesn’t believe in sleep apnea machines. The air pressure and face mask prevent God’s love from circulating in people’s airways and could even suck up their souls by accident (just like sneezing). ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2009, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctor-who-performed-abortions-shot-to-death/498280/537 "2009-06-08T19:43:08Z")
Your religion is silly. God’s love enters the body through the anus. Though I’m guessing the suspect’s anus may also be blocked at the moment. ---
**Author:** ![Lynn\_Bodoni](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e47c2d/32.png) [@Lynn\_Bodoni](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lynn_Bodoni)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2009, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctor-who-performed-abortions-shot-to-death/498280/538 "2009-06-09T17:52:19Z")
> [@E-Sabbath](#): > > He wants his sleep apnea machine. It is very sad. Actually, this is a genuine medical need, not any sort of luxury. I have no idea how these things are handled in prison, though. And I don’t have any sympathy for him, I just think that if we imprison someone, we incur a duty to make sure that he does actually have adequate nutrition and health care. I don’t think, though, that we have to provide a prisoner with the brand of peanut butter that he prefers, he’ll just have to adjust to eating generic creamy style rather than premium chunky style, to use an example that sticks out in my mind. ---
**Author:** ![Orbifold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/779978/32.png) [@Orbifold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Orbifold)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2009, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctor-who-performed-abortions-shot-to-death/498280/539 "2009-06-09T22:44:56Z")
[Dr. Tiller’s clinic will be permanently closed.](http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/10/us/10abortion.html?_r=2&hp) A victory for terror, it would seem. Perhaps Mr. Roeder could be required to drive three hours out of his way, forced to walk past screaming protesters and assorted maniacs, and told over and over that he’s a sinner and that he’s going to hell before he gets his sleep apnea machine. Sadly, I’m sure the irony would be lost on him. We probably can’t expect an assassin to have enough empathy to connect the dots on this one. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2009, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctor-who-performed-abortions-shot-to-death/498280/540 "2009-06-09T23:20:33Z")
I wish I was an OB GYN with the requisite credentials and abilities just so I could resume operating the clinic myself. I would enjoy taunting the protesters on my way into the building every day. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctor-who-performed-abortions-shot-to-death/498280.md?page=26) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctor-who-performed-abortions-shot-to-death/498280.md?page=28)