Monday, June 01, 2009

On the Murder of George Tiller

Late-term abortionist Dr. George Tiller, age 67, was gunned down at Reformation Lutheran Church in Wichita, Kansas at about 10:00 a.m. on Sunday the 31st. Based on witness descriptions, police tracked down and arrested Scott Roeder, about whom the media are, at this writing, furiously speculating. Meanwhile, Wichita police Detective Tom Stoltz has stated: "We will investigate this suspect to the Nth degree -- his history, his family, his associates -- and we are just in the beginning stages of that."

The murder of George Tiller is just that: murder. There can be no justification for it, regardless of what he has done. Murder is murder, whether committed by an abortionist or a cold-blooded shooter; the murderer needs to prosecuted and, if found guilty, punished accordingly. If the motive here is because Tiller was an abortionist -- and it is universally assumed that that was the motive -- then, besides incurring eternal punishment for himself, (failing repentance) the shooter has accomplished nothing more than the false martyrization of Tiller and, under the present political circumstances, has let the pro-life movement in for an era of persecution.

But there is another lesson in this: the lurking possibility of sudden death that could strike any of us at any time. We are prone to entertain the notion that we have all the time in the world, and that we can do whatever we want now and repent on our deathbed; but how do we know we are going to get a deathbed, or any sort of warning? The thread of our life may suddenly be cut, without any chance to settle our affairs, or make up for the smallest misdeed, or even to say we are sorry to God; then, without warning, we are stripped of everything and standing before Him in judgment. What will we then say to the One Who sees everything, hears everything, knows everything? What are the odds George Tiller expected to be gunned down while ushering at his church on the feast of Pentecost? What are the odds any of us expects the time and manner of death that are in store for us?

One can only hope that George Tiller was given, and took advantage of, the opportunity to repent of his evil deeds before his death, even though to our eyes it appears he had no such opportunity. But we dare not presume on such a grace for ourselves. This is why Scripture warns us that if today we hear His voice, we had better not harden our hearts.

3 comments:

  1. Whenever an abortionist kills a patient, the response of the abortion lobby is to dismiss the death as an aberration. These deaths happen about ten times a year. (That the CDC admits to.)

    No matter how heinous the malpractice -- having a "hand holder" assist with general anesthesia, shoving a hemorrhaging patient out the door in a wheelchair to bleed to death, massively overdosing a patient then leaving her unattended to lapse into a coma -- we're told that we're not to let these "few bad apples" color our opinion of abortion practitioners in general. Think of the hundreds of abortionists who didn't kill patients this year!

    But when an abortionist gets shot, the perspective changes. Suddenly the act of JUST ONE PERSON is a reflection of the roughly 160 million other people who object to abortion. His actions are representative. All those antichoicers are JUST LIKE HIM. We're not to look at the actions of the 160 million prolifers who have done nothing violent. We're only to look at this one guy. He's representative.

    Ten dead patients a year aren't a sign that abortionists are sloppy.

    One dead abortionist every ten years, however, is a sign that prolifers are violent.

    Which is just the sort of logic I'd expect from the movement that asserts that you honor motherhood by killing babies.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Granny Grump always puts things into proper persepctive!
    She's the best commenter ever!

    ReplyDelete
  3. The analysis posted by the Western Confucian is also very relevant: if we were as violent as e.g. drug dealers, shooting abortionists would make no news whatsoever.

    ReplyDelete