10/26/09
THE BEGINNING OF ME ACTUALLY PUTTING MY OWN WORDS INTO THIS BLOG
Elated and relieved, yet sad and deflated
1-30-10
4/4/11
Abortions in Kansas plunge post-Tiller; update on Scott Roeder
Although I believe it was just as wrong for Scott Roeder to murder late-term abortionist George Tiller (pictured right) as it was wrong for Tiller to murder preborn babies, the fact is that abortions have plunged in Kansas in the wake of Tiller’s death. According to the Wichita Eagle on March 31:
Mid- to late-term abortion in KS has declined from about 300 per year to only one in 2010, following the 2009 murder of Wichita abortion provider George Tiller, who specialized in late-term procedures.
According to state records, the one abortion that took place after 22 weeks in 2010 was because the fetus was diagnosed with anencephaly, a fatal condition in which most of the brain – and frequently the skull and scalp surrounding it – fails to develop.
On a wider scale, according to the Wichita Eagle on March 30:
The KS Dept. of Health and Environment released preliminary figures Tuesday that showed 8,338 abortions last year, 12% less than in 2009, and 32% less than in 2000. One possible reason for last year’s decline is the May 2009 killing of physician George Tiller, whose Wichita clinic was known for performing late-term procedures and remains closed.
Meanwhile, I received the following update on Roeder. This was written by someone who visits him who I don’t know, although some of the information is corroborated on Wiki…
Scott Roeder has been moved to a medium security facility in Lansing, KS. He is able to go outdoors, work with an animal training program, apply for a minimum wage job, and be out of his cell for hours a day….
This happened such a short time after Scott was transferred from the infamous El Dorado maximum security prison, where he was in his cell 23 hours a day, could only shower twice a week – escorted and chained, got to go outside only 1 hour in a space the size of a dog run, and was harassed by unsympathetic guards….
Mid- to late-term abortion in KS has declined from about 300 per year to only one in 2010, following the 2009 murder of Wichita abortion provider George Tiller, who specialized in late-term procedures.
According to state records, the one abortion that took place after 22 weeks in 2010 was because the fetus was diagnosed with anencephaly, a fatal condition in which most of the brain – and frequently the skull and scalp surrounding it – fails to develop.
On a wider scale, according to the Wichita Eagle on March 30:
The KS Dept. of Health and Environment released preliminary figures Tuesday that showed 8,338 abortions last year, 12% less than in 2009, and 32% less than in 2000. One possible reason for last year’s decline is the May 2009 killing of physician George Tiller, whose Wichita clinic was known for performing late-term procedures and remains closed.
Meanwhile, I received the following update on Roeder. This was written by someone who visits him who I don’t know, although some of the information is corroborated on Wiki…
Scott Roeder has been moved to a medium security facility in Lansing, KS. He is able to go outdoors, work with an animal training program, apply for a minimum wage job, and be out of his cell for hours a day….
This happened such a short time after Scott was transferred from the infamous El Dorado maximum security prison, where he was in his cell 23 hours a day, could only shower twice a week – escorted and chained, got to go outside only 1 hour in a space the size of a dog run, and was harassed by unsympathetic guards….
2/15/11
South Dakota GOP pushes bill to legalize ‘homicide’ in defense of the unborn By Stephen C. Webster Tuesday, February 15th, 2011
South Dakota GOP pushes bill to legalize ‘homicide’ in defense of the unborn
By Stephen C. Webster
Tuesday, February 15th, 2011
"Justifiable" homicide is usually claimed in self defense cases, and in particular home invasions that end up with a dead burglar. You could say it's one of the many things that's big in Texas.
But in South Dakota, a group of Republican state legislators have crafted a bill that would expand the legal definition of "justifiable homicide" in a way that's plain and unambiguous: they're trying to legalize the murder of abortion doctors.
In House Bill 1171, which cleared committee recently and will go to a full vote by the legislature soon, their redefinition is clear.
It states: "Homicide is justifiable if committed by any person while resisting any attempt to murder such person, or to harm the unborn child of such person in a manner and to a degree likely to result in the death of the unborn child, or to commit any felony upon him or her, or upon or in any dwelling house in which such person is."
It was enough to draw out a feature story from Mother Jones, which noted that along with the principle sponsor, state Rep. Phil Jensen, 22 other state representatives and four state senators were also attached to the text.
Despite appearances, Jensen was not the author of language redefining "justifiable" homicide. The legislature's website noted that the bill had been "extensively amended (hoghoused) and may no longer be consistent with the original intention of the sponsor."
But in a hearing last week, "[a] parade of right-wing groups—the Family Heritage Alliance, Concerned Women for America, the South Dakota branch of Phyllis Schlafly's Eagle Forum, and a political action committee called Family Matters in South Dakota—all testified in favor of the amended version of the law," Mother Jones's Kate Sheppard wrote.
Doctors and clinics that provide reproductive health services have in the past been targeted by conservative extremists. The most recent high-profile assassination, against Dr. George Tiller, happened in May 2009. He was shot in his church, in Wichita, by a man named Scott Roeder.
Tiller was one of the nation's only providers of later-term abortions, which remains a rare and legally restricted procedure. He was also a frequent target of Fox News conservative opinion host Bill O'Reilly, who'd for years referred to Tiller on his show as "Tiller the baby killer."
Roeder was sentenced to life in prison and has since developed a cult following among some extremists online. Though he was said to have been a "lone wolf" -style gunman, his connections to the pro-life movement became abundantly clear.
And today, it seems, from at least one sector of the South Dakota legislature, the message is that the law should make exception for men of his ilk.
There is only one clinic in the state that offers abortion services.
By Stephen C. Webster
Tuesday, February 15th, 2011
"Justifiable" homicide is usually claimed in self defense cases, and in particular home invasions that end up with a dead burglar. You could say it's one of the many things that's big in Texas.
But in South Dakota, a group of Republican state legislators have crafted a bill that would expand the legal definition of "justifiable homicide" in a way that's plain and unambiguous: they're trying to legalize the murder of abortion doctors.
In House Bill 1171, which cleared committee recently and will go to a full vote by the legislature soon, their redefinition is clear.
It states: "Homicide is justifiable if committed by any person while resisting any attempt to murder such person, or to harm the unborn child of such person in a manner and to a degree likely to result in the death of the unborn child, or to commit any felony upon him or her, or upon or in any dwelling house in which such person is."
It was enough to draw out a feature story from Mother Jones, which noted that along with the principle sponsor, state Rep. Phil Jensen, 22 other state representatives and four state senators were also attached to the text.
Despite appearances, Jensen was not the author of language redefining "justifiable" homicide. The legislature's website noted that the bill had been "extensively amended (hoghoused) and may no longer be consistent with the original intention of the sponsor."
But in a hearing last week, "[a] parade of right-wing groups—the Family Heritage Alliance, Concerned Women for America, the South Dakota branch of Phyllis Schlafly's Eagle Forum, and a political action committee called Family Matters in South Dakota—all testified in favor of the amended version of the law," Mother Jones's Kate Sheppard wrote.
Doctors and clinics that provide reproductive health services have in the past been targeted by conservative extremists. The most recent high-profile assassination, against Dr. George Tiller, happened in May 2009. He was shot in his church, in Wichita, by a man named Scott Roeder.
Tiller was one of the nation's only providers of later-term abortions, which remains a rare and legally restricted procedure. He was also a frequent target of Fox News conservative opinion host Bill O'Reilly, who'd for years referred to Tiller on his show as "Tiller the baby killer."
Roeder was sentenced to life in prison and has since developed a cult following among some extremists online. Though he was said to have been a "lone wolf" -style gunman, his connections to the pro-life movement became abundantly clear.
And today, it seems, from at least one sector of the South Dakota legislature, the message is that the law should make exception for men of his ilk.
There is only one clinic in the state that offers abortion services.
Proposed South Dakota abortion law stirs controversy Reuters
Proposed South Dakota abortion law stirs controversy
Reuters
SIOUX FALLS, South Dakota (Reuters) – South Dakota will debate a proposed law on Tuesday that supporters say would protect pregnant women from attack and critics fear could legalize the killing of abortion providers in the state.
The bill, believed to be the first of its kind in the nation, was introduced in late January by Phil Jensen, a Republican legislator from Rapid City.
If passed, it would provide protection to a family member who kills "in the lawful defense of ... his or her husband, wife, parent, child, master, mistress, or servant, or the unborn child of any such enumerated person" by defining the killing as a justifiable homicide.
The bill is expected to come up for debate on the floor of the South Dakota House of Representatives on Tuesday afternoon and Jensen said he is expecting amendments from opponents.
Elizabeth Nash, a policy analyst at the Guttmacher Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based pro-choice group that has been tracking state abortion laws since the early 1970s, said, the proposed law was the first of its kind.
"We have not seen anything like this before," Nash said. "It's really chilling."
Jensen insisted the bill "has nothing to do with abortion" and would merely bar prosecutors from pressing charges against a family member who kills an assailant attacking a pregnant relative.
"Let's say an ex-boyfriend finds out his ex-girlfriend is pregnant with his baby and decides to beat on her abdomen to kill the unborn child," Jensen said. "This is an illegal act and the purpose of this bill is to bring continuity to South Dakota code as it relates to the unborn child."
But Alisha Sedor, the executive director of NARAL Pro-Choice South Dakota, a group that supports a woman's right to abortion, said she was worried the legislation could trigger attacks on abortion providers if it was not amended.
"I don't believe the intent is malicious," Sedor said. "But the potential legal implications of the bill are what make it dangerous. If it passes without an amendment exempting attacks on providers, it could incite violence from individuals who believe their actions will be found justifiable in court."
South Dakota has been at the center of some of the most bitter recent fights between supporters and opponents of abortion, which was legalized in 1973 by the U.S. Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade.
In both 2006 and 2008, state legislators passed laws banning most abortions unless they were necessary to save a woman's life. In both cases, the laws were subsequently overturned by the state's voters at the polls.
(Reporting by Ann Nachtigal in Sioux Falls and James Kelleher in Chicago; writing by James B. Kelleher in Chicago; Editing by Greg McCune)
Reuters
SIOUX FALLS, South Dakota (Reuters) – South Dakota will debate a proposed law on Tuesday that supporters say would protect pregnant women from attack and critics fear could legalize the killing of abortion providers in the state.
The bill, believed to be the first of its kind in the nation, was introduced in late January by Phil Jensen, a Republican legislator from Rapid City.
If passed, it would provide protection to a family member who kills "in the lawful defense of ... his or her husband, wife, parent, child, master, mistress, or servant, or the unborn child of any such enumerated person" by defining the killing as a justifiable homicide.
The bill is expected to come up for debate on the floor of the South Dakota House of Representatives on Tuesday afternoon and Jensen said he is expecting amendments from opponents.
Elizabeth Nash, a policy analyst at the Guttmacher Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based pro-choice group that has been tracking state abortion laws since the early 1970s, said, the proposed law was the first of its kind.
"We have not seen anything like this before," Nash said. "It's really chilling."
Jensen insisted the bill "has nothing to do with abortion" and would merely bar prosecutors from pressing charges against a family member who kills an assailant attacking a pregnant relative.
"Let's say an ex-boyfriend finds out his ex-girlfriend is pregnant with his baby and decides to beat on her abdomen to kill the unborn child," Jensen said. "This is an illegal act and the purpose of this bill is to bring continuity to South Dakota code as it relates to the unborn child."
But Alisha Sedor, the executive director of NARAL Pro-Choice South Dakota, a group that supports a woman's right to abortion, said she was worried the legislation could trigger attacks on abortion providers if it was not amended.
"I don't believe the intent is malicious," Sedor said. "But the potential legal implications of the bill are what make it dangerous. If it passes without an amendment exempting attacks on providers, it could incite violence from individuals who believe their actions will be found justifiable in court."
South Dakota has been at the center of some of the most bitter recent fights between supporters and opponents of abortion, which was legalized in 1973 by the U.S. Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade.
In both 2006 and 2008, state legislators passed laws banning most abortions unless they were necessary to save a woman's life. In both cases, the laws were subsequently overturned by the state's voters at the polls.
(Reporting by Ann Nachtigal in Sioux Falls and James Kelleher in Chicago; writing by James B. Kelleher in Chicago; Editing by Greg McCune)
2/14/11
In Cold Blood: PW Talks with Stephen Singular By Jordan Foster Feb 14, 2011
In Cold Blood: PW Talks with Stephen Singular
By Jordan Foster
Feb 14, 2011
Stephen Singular, author of The Wichita Divide, discusses the killing of abortion provider Dr. George Tiller and the recent Tucson shooting.
What inspired you to write about the rise of domestic terrorism within the antiabortion movement?
Twenty-five years ago I wrote about [Denver radio] talk show host Alan Berg's murder in Talked to Death. The Berg assassination was domestic terrorism because it carried out a racial and religious agenda. There are similarities [with the Tiller case], but I was more interested in the differences. For years I'd wanted to write a sequel to Talked to Death, but the time wasn't right. Then Dr. Tiller was killed. Sometimes a single crime can illuminate an entire war that a nation has been fighting. This was that crime. I didn't want to write the history of abortion in America or a book that simply laid out the two sides of the debate. My book weaves together Dr. Tiller's career and the evolution of [his murderer] Scott Roeder from a seemingly normal Middle American into a domestic terrorist. But to me the heart of the book is Lindsey Roeder, Scott's ex-wife, who watched in horror as he changed, but couldn't help him. Every story needs someone to root for, and for me, that's Lindsey.
You pinpoint the media as "amplifier[s] for the emotional forces building in the society." How have these outlets helped perpetuate the culture of hate?
The point I want to re-emphasize is that the uncertainty and fear that people feel are real. But these are largely personal emotions and it's the individual's responsibility to manage them. The talk shows and Internet groups have essentially stood this equation on its head. "Here are the issues," they loudly repeat, "and here are the people to blame for what you're feeling. If abortion makes you uncomfortable, hate Dr. Tiller." Terrorists call this "target identification." Hating people in public has been the prevailing emotional atmosphere in our country for the past 15 years. Virtually no one in the mainstream supported the cause of the men who murdered Berg. But in 2009, figures as prominent as Bill O'Reilly had no compunction about demonizing Dr. Tiller, repeatedly calling him "Tiller the baby killer."
What similarities do you see between Dr. Tiller's murder and the recent shooting in Tucson, Ariz.?
The biggest similarity, which I first wrote about in Talked to Death, is that these killers had significant psychiatric problems. When those in positions of authority preach the hatred of groups or individuals, this will filter down to everyone else, including the unstable. We like to call it "random violence," but repeatedly demonize and identify a target, and bloodshed will usually erupt. Berg's killer, Scott Roeder, and Jared Loughner of Tucson were all troubled people who lived within an environment of mistrust, if not paranoia. All chose their victims based on the belief that killing was the best way to solve a political or social problem, and then all opened fire.
By Jordan Foster
Feb 14, 2011
Stephen Singular, author of The Wichita Divide, discusses the killing of abortion provider Dr. George Tiller and the recent Tucson shooting.
What inspired you to write about the rise of domestic terrorism within the antiabortion movement?
Twenty-five years ago I wrote about [Denver radio] talk show host Alan Berg's murder in Talked to Death. The Berg assassination was domestic terrorism because it carried out a racial and religious agenda. There are similarities [with the Tiller case], but I was more interested in the differences. For years I'd wanted to write a sequel to Talked to Death, but the time wasn't right. Then Dr. Tiller was killed. Sometimes a single crime can illuminate an entire war that a nation has been fighting. This was that crime. I didn't want to write the history of abortion in America or a book that simply laid out the two sides of the debate. My book weaves together Dr. Tiller's career and the evolution of [his murderer] Scott Roeder from a seemingly normal Middle American into a domestic terrorist. But to me the heart of the book is Lindsey Roeder, Scott's ex-wife, who watched in horror as he changed, but couldn't help him. Every story needs someone to root for, and for me, that's Lindsey.
You pinpoint the media as "amplifier[s] for the emotional forces building in the society." How have these outlets helped perpetuate the culture of hate?
The point I want to re-emphasize is that the uncertainty and fear that people feel are real. But these are largely personal emotions and it's the individual's responsibility to manage them. The talk shows and Internet groups have essentially stood this equation on its head. "Here are the issues," they loudly repeat, "and here are the people to blame for what you're feeling. If abortion makes you uncomfortable, hate Dr. Tiller." Terrorists call this "target identification." Hating people in public has been the prevailing emotional atmosphere in our country for the past 15 years. Virtually no one in the mainstream supported the cause of the men who murdered Berg. But in 2009, figures as prominent as Bill O'Reilly had no compunction about demonizing Dr. Tiller, repeatedly calling him "Tiller the baby killer."
What similarities do you see between Dr. Tiller's murder and the recent shooting in Tucson, Ariz.?
The biggest similarity, which I first wrote about in Talked to Death, is that these killers had significant psychiatric problems. When those in positions of authority preach the hatred of groups or individuals, this will filter down to everyone else, including the unstable. We like to call it "random violence," but repeatedly demonize and identify a target, and bloodshed will usually erupt. Berg's killer, Scott Roeder, and Jared Loughner of Tucson were all troubled people who lived within an environment of mistrust, if not paranoia. All chose their victims based on the belief that killing was the best way to solve a political or social problem, and then all opened fire.
2/12/11
The Turning Tide on Women’s Rights & Abortion - Blog of Author Stephen Singular and Joyce Jacques Singular
The Turning Tide on Women’s Rights & Abortion
If you were the kind of person who believed in conspiracies, you might see the outlines of one in what follows. On May 31, 2009, the radical Kansas anti-abortionist Scott Roeder walked into Reformation Lutheran Church in Wichita and gunned down George Tiller in the foyer, just as the Sunday service was about to start. Dr. Tiller was America’s best-known and most-hated abortion provider (my book about his assassination and the unfolding civil war in our country, The Wichita Divide, will be published in two months). In the immediate aftermath of the murder, anti-abortion groups, politicians, and individuals rushed forward, as they always do in these circumstances, and decried this violent act. No one wanted to say that by killing Dr. Tiller, Roeder had eliminated abortion not just in Wichita and Kansas, but had removed this option for the thousands of women who’d come to his clinic from other states seeking his advice and care. Roeder had effectively lowered the number of abortions in one swath of the country. Other people, who are rarely described as “radical,” were about to intensify their own strategies for accomplishing the same goal -- from coast to coast.
In 2010, state legislatures introduced more than 600 measures to limit access to abortion and 34 of them passed. The 2010 election saw 45 new anti-abortionists win seats in the U.S. House of Representatives. Twenty-nine governors are now strongly anti-abortion, eight more than before the mid-term election. Fifteen states currently have both anti-abortion legislatures and governors, up five from last year. Many of the newly-victorious politicians support laws that require doctors to read material to their abortion patients about fetal development, to show them ultrasound images, and to impose mandatory waiting periods. According to Rep. Joe Pitts (R-Pennsylvania), the House is “more pro-life than it’s ever been.”
The new Congress promised to work on improving the economy, so naturally they’re doing this by targeting abortion and trying to undermine the Obama Administration’s health care reform legislation. Under the umbrella of saving money, the Republican majority in the House is considering the “No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act,” which would abolish tax breaks for private employers who provide health coverage offering abortion services. The bill, sponsored by Rep. Christopher H. Smith (R-New Jersey), would disallow tax credits encouraging small businesses to provide insurance for their workers to buy policies that cover abortions. Many, if not a majority, of employer-sponsored insurance plans do just this. People with their own policies who have enough expenses to claim an income tax deduction could not deduct either the premiums for policies that cover abortion or the cost of an abortion. These restraints go far beyond current law opposing federal money for abortions. The Smith bill would provide federal financing of abortions in cases of “forcible” rape, but not statutory or coerced rape or incest involving those who are not minors. Smith’s office has not yet defined what “forcible rape” actually means.
Another new bill, the “Protect Life Act” sponsored by Rep. Pitts, would prohibit Americans receiving insurance through the new state exchanges from purchasing abortion coverage, even with their own money. And it would allow hospitals to refuse women abortions, even in emergencies, if such care would offend the conscience of the health care providers. The obvious irony is that so many of these politicians have run or positioned themselves as Small Government Conservatives. But when it comes to abortion, they’re all in favor of expanding the feds’ role in the most private area of individual lives.
The above are just a couple of the fronts in the emerging battle. Under current Supreme Court precedent, the government doesn’t bar abortions prior to the point of “viability”: around 22 to 26 weeks after conception. Last year, Nebraska enacted a law directly challenging this standard and the state now bans abortions 20 weeks after conception. The statute includes a very narrow exception for preserving a woman’s physical health or life, but not for severe fetal anomalies. Similar laws are now pending in other states. The end game in all this new legislation, the pro-choice side feels, is to provide the Supreme Court’s conservative majority ammunition to challenge or overturn Roe v. Wade.
For years Dr. LeRoy Carhart traveled to Wichita each month to assist Dr. Tiller at his clinic. Following Tiller’s death, Carhart expanded his own abortion practice in Nebraska, but after last year’s passage of a more restrictive law in the Cornhusker state, Dr. Carhart resettled on the East Coast. Kansas is considering passing a similar law, even though its one abortion doctor is now deceased. With tightening laws and rising sentiment against pro-choice, 87% of American counties have no abortion provider. Because of this and other factors, Planned Parenthood and its hundreds of health centers have played an increasingly significant role in aiding millions of pregnant women, poor and otherwise. The organization offers 1.85 million low-income women family-planning counseling and screening for sexually-transmitted diseases, diabetes, and a variety of cancers; no other group offers this comprehensive care to women on a national level. Planned Parenthood does not receive taxpayer money for abortions, but does fund its own abortion services, so it too has come under attack.
“What is more fiscally responsible,” U.S. Representative Mike Pence of Indiana recently asked his colleagues, “than denying any and all funding to Planned Parenthood of America?”
Rep. Pence has 154 co-sponsors for a bill to prevent the federal government from funding not just Planned Parenthood, but every clinic that provide abortions. Using a more guerilla-like approach, something called “Live Action” has been running a sting operation on Planned Parenthood clinics in six states, trying to connect the staff to child prostitution.
In response to the new proposed legislation, Democrats are trying to fight back, but on the defensive in this new environment.
“We are sending a clear message to House Republicans that their agenda on women’s health is extreme,” said Senator Barbara Boxer of California. “It breaks faith with a decades-long bipartisan compromise, and it risks the health and lives of women. It also punishes women and businesses with a tax hike if they wish to keep or buy insurance that covers a full range of reproductive health care.”
Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-California) has called the latest round of anti-abortion activities the biggest assault women’s rights “in our lifetime.”
Dr. Tiller’s murder seems to have unleashed an entirely new wave of energy for the anti-abortion movement to change laws, shut down woman’s health services, and restrict or prevent abortions. Nothing has been the same since Roeder took the physician’s life.
If you were the kind of person who believed in conspiracies, you might see the outlines of one in what follows. On May 31, 2009, the radical Kansas anti-abortionist Scott Roeder walked into Reformation Lutheran Church in Wichita and gunned down George Tiller in the foyer, just as the Sunday service was about to start. Dr. Tiller was America’s best-known and most-hated abortion provider (my book about his assassination and the unfolding civil war in our country, The Wichita Divide, will be published in two months). In the immediate aftermath of the murder, anti-abortion groups, politicians, and individuals rushed forward, as they always do in these circumstances, and decried this violent act. No one wanted to say that by killing Dr. Tiller, Roeder had eliminated abortion not just in Wichita and Kansas, but had removed this option for the thousands of women who’d come to his clinic from other states seeking his advice and care. Roeder had effectively lowered the number of abortions in one swath of the country. Other people, who are rarely described as “radical,” were about to intensify their own strategies for accomplishing the same goal -- from coast to coast.
In 2010, state legislatures introduced more than 600 measures to limit access to abortion and 34 of them passed. The 2010 election saw 45 new anti-abortionists win seats in the U.S. House of Representatives. Twenty-nine governors are now strongly anti-abortion, eight more than before the mid-term election. Fifteen states currently have both anti-abortion legislatures and governors, up five from last year. Many of the newly-victorious politicians support laws that require doctors to read material to their abortion patients about fetal development, to show them ultrasound images, and to impose mandatory waiting periods. According to Rep. Joe Pitts (R-Pennsylvania), the House is “more pro-life than it’s ever been.”
The new Congress promised to work on improving the economy, so naturally they’re doing this by targeting abortion and trying to undermine the Obama Administration’s health care reform legislation. Under the umbrella of saving money, the Republican majority in the House is considering the “No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act,” which would abolish tax breaks for private employers who provide health coverage offering abortion services. The bill, sponsored by Rep. Christopher H. Smith (R-New Jersey), would disallow tax credits encouraging small businesses to provide insurance for their workers to buy policies that cover abortions. Many, if not a majority, of employer-sponsored insurance plans do just this. People with their own policies who have enough expenses to claim an income tax deduction could not deduct either the premiums for policies that cover abortion or the cost of an abortion. These restraints go far beyond current law opposing federal money for abortions. The Smith bill would provide federal financing of abortions in cases of “forcible” rape, but not statutory or coerced rape or incest involving those who are not minors. Smith’s office has not yet defined what “forcible rape” actually means.
Another new bill, the “Protect Life Act” sponsored by Rep. Pitts, would prohibit Americans receiving insurance through the new state exchanges from purchasing abortion coverage, even with their own money. And it would allow hospitals to refuse women abortions, even in emergencies, if such care would offend the conscience of the health care providers. The obvious irony is that so many of these politicians have run or positioned themselves as Small Government Conservatives. But when it comes to abortion, they’re all in favor of expanding the feds’ role in the most private area of individual lives.
The above are just a couple of the fronts in the emerging battle. Under current Supreme Court precedent, the government doesn’t bar abortions prior to the point of “viability”: around 22 to 26 weeks after conception. Last year, Nebraska enacted a law directly challenging this standard and the state now bans abortions 20 weeks after conception. The statute includes a very narrow exception for preserving a woman’s physical health or life, but not for severe fetal anomalies. Similar laws are now pending in other states. The end game in all this new legislation, the pro-choice side feels, is to provide the Supreme Court’s conservative majority ammunition to challenge or overturn Roe v. Wade.
For years Dr. LeRoy Carhart traveled to Wichita each month to assist Dr. Tiller at his clinic. Following Tiller’s death, Carhart expanded his own abortion practice in Nebraska, but after last year’s passage of a more restrictive law in the Cornhusker state, Dr. Carhart resettled on the East Coast. Kansas is considering passing a similar law, even though its one abortion doctor is now deceased. With tightening laws and rising sentiment against pro-choice, 87% of American counties have no abortion provider. Because of this and other factors, Planned Parenthood and its hundreds of health centers have played an increasingly significant role in aiding millions of pregnant women, poor and otherwise. The organization offers 1.85 million low-income women family-planning counseling and screening for sexually-transmitted diseases, diabetes, and a variety of cancers; no other group offers this comprehensive care to women on a national level. Planned Parenthood does not receive taxpayer money for abortions, but does fund its own abortion services, so it too has come under attack.
“What is more fiscally responsible,” U.S. Representative Mike Pence of Indiana recently asked his colleagues, “than denying any and all funding to Planned Parenthood of America?”
Rep. Pence has 154 co-sponsors for a bill to prevent the federal government from funding not just Planned Parenthood, but every clinic that provide abortions. Using a more guerilla-like approach, something called “Live Action” has been running a sting operation on Planned Parenthood clinics in six states, trying to connect the staff to child prostitution.
In response to the new proposed legislation, Democrats are trying to fight back, but on the defensive in this new environment.
“We are sending a clear message to House Republicans that their agenda on women’s health is extreme,” said Senator Barbara Boxer of California. “It breaks faith with a decades-long bipartisan compromise, and it risks the health and lives of women. It also punishes women and businesses with a tax hike if they wish to keep or buy insurance that covers a full range of reproductive health care.”
Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-California) has called the latest round of anti-abortion activities the biggest assault women’s rights “in our lifetime.”
Dr. Tiller’s murder seems to have unleashed an entirely new wave of energy for the anti-abortion movement to change laws, shut down woman’s health services, and restrict or prevent abortions. Nothing has been the same since Roeder took the physician’s life.
12/27/10
Scott Roeder's Bible study group reportedly focus of feds investigating conspiracy to kill George Tiller By Justin Kendall, Mon., Dec. 27 2010
Scott Roeder's Bible study group reportedly focus of feds investigating conspiracy to kill George Tiller
By Justin Kendall, Mon., Dec. 27 2010
Federal agents are still questioning people to determine if Scott Roeder was really a so-called lone wolf in the assassination of George Tiller. The Star reported over the weekend that the focus of the feds' investigation appears to be members of Roeder's Bible study group. Meanwhile, a grand jury convened in the wake of Tiller's death is still meeting.
Roeder shot and killed Tiller, who was ushering at a Wichita church, in May 2009. Roeder has since been sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for 50 years. But the feds are still trying to piece together whether he acted alone.
The Star reports that at least nine of the Bible study members have been questioned. They're denying any conspiracy. So are militant anti-abortion advocates (and friends of Roeder) like Dave Leach and the Rev. Donald Spitz, who runs the Army of God website.
The Star's story notes the North Carolina case of Justin Carl Moose, who agreed to a plea deal on charges of distributing information on manufacturing and using an explosive, as another example of the escalation of violence against abortion providers.
According to court documents, Moose provided detailed information and instructions on explosives to a person he thought was going to bomb a North Carolina abortion clinic. That person actually was a confidential informant.
Moose told the informant that he was a member of the Army of God, a name associated with an underground network of anti-abortion extremists.
"I have set up groups," the informant said Moose told him. "I have trained people and this is not my first rodeo."
Soon after Moose was charged, Justice Department investigators showed up in Kansas City to conduct more interviews on the Roeder case. So far, none of Roeder's supporters -- many of whom vocally support the killing of abortion doctors as an act of justifiable homicide -- have been subpoenaed by the grand jury.
For anyone interested in the case, MSNBC's documentary The Assassination of Dr. Tiller is required viewing.
By Justin Kendall, Mon., Dec. 27 2010
Federal agents are still questioning people to determine if Scott Roeder was really a so-called lone wolf in the assassination of George Tiller. The Star reported over the weekend that the focus of the feds' investigation appears to be members of Roeder's Bible study group. Meanwhile, a grand jury convened in the wake of Tiller's death is still meeting.
Roeder shot and killed Tiller, who was ushering at a Wichita church, in May 2009. Roeder has since been sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for 50 years. But the feds are still trying to piece together whether he acted alone.
The Star reports that at least nine of the Bible study members have been questioned. They're denying any conspiracy. So are militant anti-abortion advocates (and friends of Roeder) like Dave Leach and the Rev. Donald Spitz, who runs the Army of God website.
The Star's story notes the North Carolina case of Justin Carl Moose, who agreed to a plea deal on charges of distributing information on manufacturing and using an explosive, as another example of the escalation of violence against abortion providers.
According to court documents, Moose provided detailed information and instructions on explosives to a person he thought was going to bomb a North Carolina abortion clinic. That person actually was a confidential informant.
Moose told the informant that he was a member of the Army of God, a name associated with an underground network of anti-abortion extremists.
"I have set up groups," the informant said Moose told him. "I have trained people and this is not my first rodeo."
Soon after Moose was charged, Justice Department investigators showed up in Kansas City to conduct more interviews on the Roeder case. So far, none of Roeder's supporters -- many of whom vocally support the killing of abortion doctors as an act of justifiable homicide -- have been subpoenaed by the grand jury.
For anyone interested in the case, MSNBC's documentary The Assassination of Dr. Tiller is required viewing.
12/26/10
Grand jury weighs whether there was a conspiracy to kill abortion doctor By JUDY L. THOMAS The Kansas City Star
More than 18 months after a Wichita abortion doctor was gunned down in his church, a federal investigation into a possible conspiracy continues in Kansas City.
Federal agents have questioned more people in the past few weeks, while a grand jury convened after the murder of George Tiller is still under way.
The focus, according to those who have been interviewed, still appears to be on a Bible study group that Tiller’s killer attended.
At the same time, abortion-rights advocates are concerned that a recent North Carolina case signals an escalation in the threat of clinic-related violence.
Tiller was shot to death in May 2009 in the foyer of his Wichita church while serving as an usher. Scott Roeder of Kansas City was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for 50 years.
David Lloyd, a Warrensburg attorney who used to attend Roeder’s Bible study group, said an FBI agent called him at the end of November.
“I think they’re just barking up the wrong tree,” Lloyd said. “None of us were involved in any kind of vast conspiracy or whatever it is they’re looking for.”
In October, two of Roeder’s former roommates who were members of the Bible study group told The Kansas City Star that they and several other members had testified before the grand jury in late September. The questions they were asked, they said, focused on whether Roeder had acted alone.
More of Roeder’s former associates say they have been contacted by authorities since then, including two additional members of the Bible study. The group met in members’ homes on Saturdays. Those attending described themselves as Messianic Jews who, unlike mainstream Jews, believe that Jesus was the Messiah.
“They’ve interviewed me at least nine times,” said Roeder’s former roommate, who led the study sessions at their house and testified before the grand jury in September. He asked that his name not be disclosed for fear of repurcussion.
“There wasn’t any conspiracy within the Bible study group,” he said. “We were not part of this pro-life movement. We were never involved in that.”
After Tiller’s death, the Department of Justice announced it was looking into possible federal charges against Roeder, including a violation of the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, or FACE, which was signed into law in 1994 to prevent clinic violence. Federal investigators also said they were looking into whether anyone else played a role in Tiller’s death.
Abortion-rights advocates have been pressing the Justice Department to investigate the possible existence of a network of anti-abortion extremists involved in clinic-related violence, including the murder of Tiller. They point to the recent case of a North Carolina activist as a reason for concern.
In November, Justin Carl Moose signed a plea bargain with federal prosecutors on charges of distributing information on manufacturing and using an explosive.
According to court documents, Moose provided detailed information and instructions on explosives to a person he thought was going to bomb a North Carolina abortion clinic. That person actually was a confidential informant.
Moose told the informant that he was a member of the Army of God, a name associated with an underground network of anti-abortion extremists.
“I have set up groups,” the informant said Moose told him. “I have trained people and this is not my first rodeo.”
Authorities said Moose also used his Facebook page to advocate violence against abortion clinics and their employees and posted instructions on how to make explosives. One Facebook post, according to court documents, said, “End abortion by any means necessary and at any cost. Save a life, shoot an abortionist.”
Soon after Moose was charged, Justice Department investigators showed up in Kansas City to conduct more interviews on the Roeder case. So far, none of Roeder’s supporters — many of whom vocally support the killing of abortion doctors as an act of justifiable homicide — have been subpoenaed by the grand jury.
The Justice Department has remained tight-lipped.
“Our investigation remains ongoing,” said spokeswoman Xochitl Hinojosa. She declined further comment.
This isn’t the first federal investigation into a possible conspiracy of abortion clinic violence. In 1994, then-Attorney General Janet Reno called for an investigation, and a federal grand jury in Alexandria, Va., subpoenaed abortion foes around the country.
The investigation focused on about three dozen activists who advocated killing abortion doctors, including several from the Kansas City area. Many of those who were subpoenaed by that grand jury are now supporters of Roeder.
The grand jury disbanded in 1996 without finding evidence of a nationwide conspiracy.
Kathy Spillar, executive vice president of the Feminist Majority Foundation, said Moose’s case, along with other recent incidents, indicate that the situation is escalating.
“Moose is with the Army of God,” Spillar said. “You’ve got an intersection of Army of God elements purported to have been talking with other anti-abortion leaders, and this intensified targeting and stalking of doctors. It points to how critical this federal investigation is.”
Roeder’s supporters, however, call the investigation a witch hunt and say there’s nothing to uncover.
“Despite the tremendous budget devoted to building any kind of case possible, and especially how rare it is that there is even an illegal action any more, (another grand jury) reminds me of Chicken Little with his warning that the sky is falling,” said Dave Leach, an Iowa anti-abortion activist and friend of Roeder.
The Rev. Donald Spitz, director of Pro-Life Virginia who operates the Army of God website, said he recently discussed the grand jury investigation with Roeder.
“He assures me there’s nothing there,” Spitz said. “And I agree. I think Scott would know better than to involve others.”
Spitz said Roeder wasn’t like Moose in North Carolina, who had been publicly advocating abortion clinic violence.
“We communicated a lot on Facebook,” Spitz said of Moose. “I was telling him, you don’t need to be posting that stuff on bombmaking. If people want that information, they can get it themselves. But evidently, he didn’t listen.”
To reach Judy L. Thomas, call 816-234-4334 or send e-mail to jthomas@kcstar.com
Posted on Sat, Dec. 25, 2010 10:15 PM
Read more: http://www.kansascity.com/2010/12/25/2542215/a-federal-grand-jury-continues.html#ixzz19Efn0kmA
Federal agents have questioned more people in the past few weeks, while a grand jury convened after the murder of George Tiller is still under way.
The focus, according to those who have been interviewed, still appears to be on a Bible study group that Tiller’s killer attended.
At the same time, abortion-rights advocates are concerned that a recent North Carolina case signals an escalation in the threat of clinic-related violence.
Tiller was shot to death in May 2009 in the foyer of his Wichita church while serving as an usher. Scott Roeder of Kansas City was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for 50 years.
David Lloyd, a Warrensburg attorney who used to attend Roeder’s Bible study group, said an FBI agent called him at the end of November.
“I think they’re just barking up the wrong tree,” Lloyd said. “None of us were involved in any kind of vast conspiracy or whatever it is they’re looking for.”
In October, two of Roeder’s former roommates who were members of the Bible study group told The Kansas City Star that they and several other members had testified before the grand jury in late September. The questions they were asked, they said, focused on whether Roeder had acted alone.
More of Roeder’s former associates say they have been contacted by authorities since then, including two additional members of the Bible study. The group met in members’ homes on Saturdays. Those attending described themselves as Messianic Jews who, unlike mainstream Jews, believe that Jesus was the Messiah.
“They’ve interviewed me at least nine times,” said Roeder’s former roommate, who led the study sessions at their house and testified before the grand jury in September. He asked that his name not be disclosed for fear of repurcussion.
“There wasn’t any conspiracy within the Bible study group,” he said. “We were not part of this pro-life movement. We were never involved in that.”
After Tiller’s death, the Department of Justice announced it was looking into possible federal charges against Roeder, including a violation of the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, or FACE, which was signed into law in 1994 to prevent clinic violence. Federal investigators also said they were looking into whether anyone else played a role in Tiller’s death.
Abortion-rights advocates have been pressing the Justice Department to investigate the possible existence of a network of anti-abortion extremists involved in clinic-related violence, including the murder of Tiller. They point to the recent case of a North Carolina activist as a reason for concern.
In November, Justin Carl Moose signed a plea bargain with federal prosecutors on charges of distributing information on manufacturing and using an explosive.
According to court documents, Moose provided detailed information and instructions on explosives to a person he thought was going to bomb a North Carolina abortion clinic. That person actually was a confidential informant.
Moose told the informant that he was a member of the Army of God, a name associated with an underground network of anti-abortion extremists.
“I have set up groups,” the informant said Moose told him. “I have trained people and this is not my first rodeo.”
Authorities said Moose also used his Facebook page to advocate violence against abortion clinics and their employees and posted instructions on how to make explosives. One Facebook post, according to court documents, said, “End abortion by any means necessary and at any cost. Save a life, shoot an abortionist.”
Soon after Moose was charged, Justice Department investigators showed up in Kansas City to conduct more interviews on the Roeder case. So far, none of Roeder’s supporters — many of whom vocally support the killing of abortion doctors as an act of justifiable homicide — have been subpoenaed by the grand jury.
The Justice Department has remained tight-lipped.
“Our investigation remains ongoing,” said spokeswoman Xochitl Hinojosa. She declined further comment.
This isn’t the first federal investigation into a possible conspiracy of abortion clinic violence. In 1994, then-Attorney General Janet Reno called for an investigation, and a federal grand jury in Alexandria, Va., subpoenaed abortion foes around the country.
The investigation focused on about three dozen activists who advocated killing abortion doctors, including several from the Kansas City area. Many of those who were subpoenaed by that grand jury are now supporters of Roeder.
The grand jury disbanded in 1996 without finding evidence of a nationwide conspiracy.
Kathy Spillar, executive vice president of the Feminist Majority Foundation, said Moose’s case, along with other recent incidents, indicate that the situation is escalating.
“Moose is with the Army of God,” Spillar said. “You’ve got an intersection of Army of God elements purported to have been talking with other anti-abortion leaders, and this intensified targeting and stalking of doctors. It points to how critical this federal investigation is.”
Roeder’s supporters, however, call the investigation a witch hunt and say there’s nothing to uncover.
“Despite the tremendous budget devoted to building any kind of case possible, and especially how rare it is that there is even an illegal action any more, (another grand jury) reminds me of Chicken Little with his warning that the sky is falling,” said Dave Leach, an Iowa anti-abortion activist and friend of Roeder.
The Rev. Donald Spitz, director of Pro-Life Virginia who operates the Army of God website, said he recently discussed the grand jury investigation with Roeder.
“He assures me there’s nothing there,” Spitz said. “And I agree. I think Scott would know better than to involve others.”
Spitz said Roeder wasn’t like Moose in North Carolina, who had been publicly advocating abortion clinic violence.
“We communicated a lot on Facebook,” Spitz said of Moose. “I was telling him, you don’t need to be posting that stuff on bombmaking. If people want that information, they can get it themselves. But evidently, he didn’t listen.”
To reach Judy L. Thomas, call 816-234-4334 or send e-mail to jthomas@kcstar.com
Posted on Sat, Dec. 25, 2010 10:15 PM
Read more: http://www.kansascity.com/2010/12/25/2542215/a-federal-grand-jury-continues.html#ixzz19Efn0kmA
11/19/10
Roeder moved to Lansing by Associated Press
WICHITA — The convicted killer of a Kansas abortion doctor has been transferred to a new prison.
Kansas Department of Corrections spokesman Bill Miskell said Friday that Scott Roeder was transferred Nov. 2 from the prison in El Dorado to the one in Lansing. He declined to say why Roeder was transferred.
Roeder was convicted Jan. 29 of first-degree murder for shooting Dr. George Tiller in May 2009 as the doctor served as an usher at his Wichita church. He also was convicted of two counts of aggravated assault for threatening two ushers who tried to stop him after the shooting.
Kansas Department of Corrections spokesman Bill Miskell said Friday that Scott Roeder was transferred Nov. 2 from the prison in El Dorado to the one in Lansing. He declined to say why Roeder was transferred.
Roeder was convicted Jan. 29 of first-degree murder for shooting Dr. George Tiller in May 2009 as the doctor served as an usher at his Wichita church. He also was convicted of two counts of aggravated assault for threatening two ushers who tried to stop him after the shooting.
Killer of Kan. abortion doctor moved to new prison by KSN.com
Killer of Kan. abortion doctor moved to new prison
WICHITA, Kansas (AP) - The convicted killer of a Kansas abortion doctor has been transferred to a new prison.
Kansas Department of Corrections spokesman Bill Miskell said Friday that Scott Roeder was transferred Nov. 2 from the prison in El Dorado to the one in Lansing. He declined to say why Roeder was transferred.
Roeder was convicted Jan. 29 of first-degree murder for shooting Dr. George Tiller in May 2009 as the doctor served as an usher at his Wichita church. He also was convicted of two counts of aggravated assault for threatening two ushers who tried to stop him after the shooting.
WICHITA, Kansas (AP) - The convicted killer of a Kansas abortion doctor has been transferred to a new prison.
Kansas Department of Corrections spokesman Bill Miskell said Friday that Scott Roeder was transferred Nov. 2 from the prison in El Dorado to the one in Lansing. He declined to say why Roeder was transferred.
Roeder was convicted Jan. 29 of first-degree murder for shooting Dr. George Tiller in May 2009 as the doctor served as an usher at his Wichita church. He also was convicted of two counts of aggravated assault for threatening two ushers who tried to stop him after the shooting.
10/26/10
The Assassination of Dr. Tiller (1 of 6)
The following YouTube Video should play all 6 videos of the series in immediate succession.
10/25/10
Kansas City Star - Tiller Documentary to Air Tonight by Aaron Barnhart
One of the more chilling scenes in "The Assassination of Dr. Tiller" is captured in grainy courtroom video from March 2009.
There is George Tiller, the Wichita doctor, on trial for 19 misdemeanors related to his controversial late-term abortion practice.
And there, in the back of the courtroom, seated next to the leader of the anti-abortion group Operation Rescue, is Scott Roeder, the Kansas City man who — two months after Tiller was cleared on all 19 charges — walked into Tiller's church and shot him.
The first documentary film since Roeder was sentenced to 50 years without parole comes from MSNBC anchor Rachel Maddow, whose show at 8 p.m. today will be pre-empted for the film's premiere.
Maddow, who co-created and narrated the film, said she did it to shed new light on the contentious case.
The film, 43 minutes long with commercial breaks, begins as a straightforward true-crime account.
An usher at Wichita's Reformation Lutheran Church, Gary Hoepner, recounts the morning of May 31, 2009, when he saw Roeder raise the gun to Tiller's head and pull the trigger. Wichita homicide chief detective Ken Landwehr, Sedgwick County District Attorney Nola Foulston and a member of Roeder's defense team, Mark Rudy, describe Roeder's prosecution and conviction.
Then the film rewinds to tell the story of the two men and what led them to that fateful day: how Tiller became an abortion provider, locked horns with Operation Rescue, was shot in both arms by Shelley Shannon in 1993 and defied every attempt to shut down his practice.
How Roeder committed to the anti-abortion cause after becoming a born-again Christian, walked away from his wife and child, began to consort with extremists and came to believe that "nothing was being done" to stop Tiller — feelings that exploded after the doctor's acquittal.
But the film deviates often from the true-crime genre to make statements about the relationship between
politics and violence.
Maddow describes "a growing sense of paranoia and anxiety" surrounding Tiller as the protests escalated. Several of Tiller's colleagues, including doctors Susan Robinson and Shelly Sella, discuss the climate around the clinic, as do three former patients of Tiller's who agreed to be interviewed on camera.
Operation Rescue's Troy Newman and Randall Terry, who helped lead the protests in the 1990s, and Mark Gietzen, chairman of the Kansas Coalition for Life, agreed to be interviewed by MSNBC.
According to a news release, Newman agreed to participate, despite reservations about Maddow's pro-abortion-rights views, so that he could tell "the story of the tens of thousands of innocent babies killed by abortion during Tiller's long and checkered abortion career."
But that's not all Newman has to say in the film. He's shown describing at length a citywide leaflet campaign Operation Rescue undertook that linked Tiller with his "collaborators," including area businesses such as cab companies. His account is sandwiched between quotes from Tiller's friends and associates, who call the campaign intimidating and say it led to fears for their own safety as well as the safety of Tiller and his family.
"I don't think they could wake up a day and feel secure in the knowledge that nothing was going to happen to them," says Paul Ryding, who was at church the morning Tiller was shot.
Robinson, another doctor at the clinic, describes Roeder as a "rather dull guy" who was merely "reacting to an atmosphere of hatred." She's echoed by her colleague Sella, who says that "if the climate had not been like that... Scott Roeder would not have killed Dr. Tiller."
In an interview with the Kansas City Star, Maddow, a Rhodes Scholar and progressive political activist, elaborated on what useful information she hoped her film would provide.
"Some folks think that extremely radical political tactics are necessary because of their strongly held views on abortion," she said. "There are consequences for that. And those consequences have very little to do with abortion and everything to do with our tolerance for violence and extremism."
Read more: http://www.kansas.com/2010/10/25/1556821/tiller-documentary-to-air-tonight.html#ixzz17IU0Dtd1
There is George Tiller, the Wichita doctor, on trial for 19 misdemeanors related to his controversial late-term abortion practice.
And there, in the back of the courtroom, seated next to the leader of the anti-abortion group Operation Rescue, is Scott Roeder, the Kansas City man who — two months after Tiller was cleared on all 19 charges — walked into Tiller's church and shot him.
The first documentary film since Roeder was sentenced to 50 years without parole comes from MSNBC anchor Rachel Maddow, whose show at 8 p.m. today will be pre-empted for the film's premiere.
Maddow, who co-created and narrated the film, said she did it to shed new light on the contentious case.
The film, 43 minutes long with commercial breaks, begins as a straightforward true-crime account.
An usher at Wichita's Reformation Lutheran Church, Gary Hoepner, recounts the morning of May 31, 2009, when he saw Roeder raise the gun to Tiller's head and pull the trigger. Wichita homicide chief detective Ken Landwehr, Sedgwick County District Attorney Nola Foulston and a member of Roeder's defense team, Mark Rudy, describe Roeder's prosecution and conviction.
Then the film rewinds to tell the story of the two men and what led them to that fateful day: how Tiller became an abortion provider, locked horns with Operation Rescue, was shot in both arms by Shelley Shannon in 1993 and defied every attempt to shut down his practice.
How Roeder committed to the anti-abortion cause after becoming a born-again Christian, walked away from his wife and child, began to consort with extremists and came to believe that "nothing was being done" to stop Tiller — feelings that exploded after the doctor's acquittal.
But the film deviates often from the true-crime genre to make statements about the relationship between
politics and violence.
Maddow describes "a growing sense of paranoia and anxiety" surrounding Tiller as the protests escalated. Several of Tiller's colleagues, including doctors Susan Robinson and Shelly Sella, discuss the climate around the clinic, as do three former patients of Tiller's who agreed to be interviewed on camera.
Operation Rescue's Troy Newman and Randall Terry, who helped lead the protests in the 1990s, and Mark Gietzen, chairman of the Kansas Coalition for Life, agreed to be interviewed by MSNBC.
According to a news release, Newman agreed to participate, despite reservations about Maddow's pro-abortion-rights views, so that he could tell "the story of the tens of thousands of innocent babies killed by abortion during Tiller's long and checkered abortion career."
But that's not all Newman has to say in the film. He's shown describing at length a citywide leaflet campaign Operation Rescue undertook that linked Tiller with his "collaborators," including area businesses such as cab companies. His account is sandwiched between quotes from Tiller's friends and associates, who call the campaign intimidating and say it led to fears for their own safety as well as the safety of Tiller and his family.
"I don't think they could wake up a day and feel secure in the knowledge that nothing was going to happen to them," says Paul Ryding, who was at church the morning Tiller was shot.
Robinson, another doctor at the clinic, describes Roeder as a "rather dull guy" who was merely "reacting to an atmosphere of hatred." She's echoed by her colleague Sella, who says that "if the climate had not been like that... Scott Roeder would not have killed Dr. Tiller."
In an interview with the Kansas City Star, Maddow, a Rhodes Scholar and progressive political activist, elaborated on what useful information she hoped her film would provide.
"Some folks think that extremely radical political tactics are necessary because of their strongly held views on abortion," she said. "There are consequences for that. And those consequences have very little to do with abortion and everything to do with our tolerance for violence and extremism."
Read more: http://www.kansas.com/2010/10/25/1556821/tiller-documentary-to-air-tonight.html#ixzz17IU0Dtd1
'The Assassination of Dr. Tiller' New documentary looks into whether there were larger forces behind abortion doctor's murder
'The Assassination of Dr. Tiller'
New documentary looks into whether there were larger forces behind abortion doctor's murder
msnbc.com news services
updated 10/25/2010 1:28:13 AM ET
Nearly a year and a half after the murder of Kansas abortion provider George Tiller, msnbc is airing the documentary "The Assassination of Dr. Tiller," detailing events leading to the crime.
Scott Roeder, 52, of Kansas City, Mo. was found guilty of first-degree murder of Dr. George Tiller last January. On the witness stand, Roeder admitted that he shot Tiller in the head, saying it was in defense of the lives of unborn children. Tiller was one of the nation's few late-term abortion providers.
The msnbc documentary includes interviews with eyewitnesses to the murder, trial footage of Roeder on the stand, never-before-seen video of Tiller talking about an attempt on his life, and an interview with Roeder's ex-wife, Lindsey. She traces Roeder's path from his anti-abortion stance to murder: his obsession with Paul Hill, the man convicted and executed for murdering Florida abortion provider John Britton, and his communication with Rachelle Shelly Shannon, the woman in prison for attempting to kill Tiller in 1993.
"It was hard to live with," said Lindsey Roeder in the film.
Despite the verdict against Roeder and his life sentence, Tiller's former co-workers continue to seek justice. In the documentary, they lay responsibility not on Roeder but on anti-abortion activists, who they believe created the "atmosphere of hatred" and have targeted the clinic for years. Doctors and nurses who worked with Tiller recount, on camera, intimidation tactics aimed at anyone associated with the clinic.
"We were under siege the whole time," says Cathy Reavis, a nurse at the clinic.
"The anti-abortionists who don't carry guns definitely incite the ones who do," said Shelly Sella, one of Tiller's fellow doctors.
Reavis specifically singles out Operation Rescue, an activist group who posted clinicians' names, photographs, and profiles online. Operation Rescue filed numerous complaints against Tiller's clinic with the Kansas state board. The group takes credit for bringing Tiller’s abortion practice into the national spotlight, particularly on Fox News' "O'Reilly Factor." Host Bill O'Reilly talked about the doctor numerous time, sometimes calling him as "Tiller the Baby Killer."
Operation Rescue president Troy Newman agreed to be interviewed for the msnbc documentary, despite what the organization fears will be a "heavily slanted" presentation.
After the murder, police discovered a piece of evidence — a slip of paper with Operation Rescue's phone number — in Roeder's vehicle.
Newman flatly denies that the group had any ties to Roeder or the murder. He acknowledges the media attention the group received following this news, but clarifies that the phone number was an informational hotline for the organization and has been widely published online. "We're certainly not suspects in this case," he says.
"We were shocked and horrified about [Dr. Tiller's murder] just like everybody else," Newman says.
For the documentary's co-creator and narrator, Rachel Maddow, the story is more than about a crime against an abortion provider.
"Scott Roeder was linked to a number of different political and protest groups," says the msnbc host . "One of the things that was hard to report on at the time was the widespread evidence of people celebrating the murder — it was all over the Web on Twitter, on Facebook, on blog comments. Those anecdotal observations didn't necessarily fit into the daily news coverage of the murder — but it's one of the things that stuck with me, that made me want to look into the story in more depth."
"Anti-abortion forces have succeeded in restricting the availability of abortion through lots of means short of outright prohibition — everything from punitive regulations... to physical intimidation and harassment of abortion providers," says Maddow
. "Harassment, intimidation, and violence shouldn't be confused with the noble tradition of American protest — they're crimes, and they should be investigated and prosecuted as such."
The investigation may not be over: The Associated Press reported earlier this month that a federal grand jury is looking into whether there is a broader case involving radical anti-abortion activists.
Two of Roeder's former roommates recently told the Kansas City Star that they testified before a grand jury. "They're trying to see if there is any conspiracy," said one of Roeder's former roommates, who declined to be identified.
"The Assassination of Dr. Tiller" airs Monday, Oct. 25, 9 p.m. ET on msnbc.
New documentary looks into whether there were larger forces behind abortion doctor's murder
msnbc.com news services
updated 10/25/2010 1:28:13 AM ET
Nearly a year and a half after the murder of Kansas abortion provider George Tiller, msnbc is airing the documentary "The Assassination of Dr. Tiller," detailing events leading to the crime.
Scott Roeder, 52, of Kansas City, Mo. was found guilty of first-degree murder of Dr. George Tiller last January. On the witness stand, Roeder admitted that he shot Tiller in the head, saying it was in defense of the lives of unborn children. Tiller was one of the nation's few late-term abortion providers.
The msnbc documentary includes interviews with eyewitnesses to the murder, trial footage of Roeder on the stand, never-before-seen video of Tiller talking about an attempt on his life, and an interview with Roeder's ex-wife, Lindsey. She traces Roeder's path from his anti-abortion stance to murder: his obsession with Paul Hill, the man convicted and executed for murdering Florida abortion provider John Britton, and his communication with Rachelle Shelly Shannon, the woman in prison for attempting to kill Tiller in 1993.
"It was hard to live with," said Lindsey Roeder in the film.
Despite the verdict against Roeder and his life sentence, Tiller's former co-workers continue to seek justice. In the documentary, they lay responsibility not on Roeder but on anti-abortion activists, who they believe created the "atmosphere of hatred" and have targeted the clinic for years. Doctors and nurses who worked with Tiller recount, on camera, intimidation tactics aimed at anyone associated with the clinic.
"We were under siege the whole time," says Cathy Reavis, a nurse at the clinic.
"The anti-abortionists who don't carry guns definitely incite the ones who do," said Shelly Sella, one of Tiller's fellow doctors.
Reavis specifically singles out Operation Rescue, an activist group who posted clinicians' names, photographs, and profiles online. Operation Rescue filed numerous complaints against Tiller's clinic with the Kansas state board. The group takes credit for bringing Tiller’s abortion practice into the national spotlight, particularly on Fox News' "O'Reilly Factor." Host Bill O'Reilly talked about the doctor numerous time, sometimes calling him as "Tiller the Baby Killer."
Operation Rescue president Troy Newman agreed to be interviewed for the msnbc documentary, despite what the organization fears will be a "heavily slanted" presentation.
After the murder, police discovered a piece of evidence — a slip of paper with Operation Rescue's phone number — in Roeder's vehicle.
Newman flatly denies that the group had any ties to Roeder or the murder. He acknowledges the media attention the group received following this news, but clarifies that the phone number was an informational hotline for the organization and has been widely published online. "We're certainly not suspects in this case," he says.
"We were shocked and horrified about [Dr. Tiller's murder] just like everybody else," Newman says.
For the documentary's co-creator and narrator, Rachel Maddow, the story is more than about a crime against an abortion provider.
"Scott Roeder was linked to a number of different political and protest groups," says the msnbc host . "One of the things that was hard to report on at the time was the widespread evidence of people celebrating the murder — it was all over the Web on Twitter, on Facebook, on blog comments. Those anecdotal observations didn't necessarily fit into the daily news coverage of the murder — but it's one of the things that stuck with me, that made me want to look into the story in more depth."
"Anti-abortion forces have succeeded in restricting the availability of abortion through lots of means short of outright prohibition — everything from punitive regulations... to physical intimidation and harassment of abortion providers," says Maddow
. "Harassment, intimidation, and violence shouldn't be confused with the noble tradition of American protest — they're crimes, and they should be investigated and prosecuted as such."
The investigation may not be over: The Associated Press reported earlier this month that a federal grand jury is looking into whether there is a broader case involving radical anti-abortion activists.
Two of Roeder's former roommates recently told the Kansas City Star that they testified before a grand jury. "They're trying to see if there is any conspiracy," said one of Roeder's former roommates, who declined to be identified.
"The Assassination of Dr. Tiller" airs Monday, Oct. 25, 9 p.m. ET on msnbc.
10/11/10
Roeder May Face Federal Indictment posted by: Jessica Pieklo - 10-11-2010
Roeder May Face Federal Indictment
posted by: Jessica Pieklo
10-11-2010
Even though Scott Roeder is in prison for the brutal murder of Dr. George Tiller, it looks like the case may not quite be over yet. According to reports, a federal grand jury is investigating a possible broader conspiracy behind the murder. The source, who spoke only on a condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to publicly disclose the investigation said that federal civil rights prosecutors were holding grand jury proceedings in Kansas City, looking into whether a broader case surrounds Dr. Tiller's death.
The investigation is built in part on Roeder's own trial testimony where he testified that he discussed his planned attack with others. Prior to the trial Roeder was in contact with Operation Rescue's senior policy advisor Cheryl Sullenger. Sullenger is no stranger to domestic terrorism. She tried to blow up a clinic 20 years ago.
Roeder also has strong ties to the militia movement, so any investigation would necessarily look into those ties as well. Two of Roeder's former roommates have already testified before the grand jury as well. One of the roommates, Tim Parks, testified that the grand jury was asking him about a Bible study group that Roeder attended, making the other members of that group possible targets as well.
During the trial the U.S. government had sent a civil rights prosecutor down to watch the trial, so the grand jury is a likely outcome of those observations. While it may take a while it is well worth the time, particularly if the prosecutors can establish a link between people like Sullenger and militia members. The fact that the grand jury has been called and is taking testimony also shows that, finally, the federal government is treating crimes against reproductive health care providers as the acts of domestic terrorism that they are.
Read more: murder, kansas, trial, abortion, civil rights, womens rights, tiller, roeder, reproductive justice
posted by: Jessica Pieklo
10-11-2010
Even though Scott Roeder is in prison for the brutal murder of Dr. George Tiller, it looks like the case may not quite be over yet. According to reports, a federal grand jury is investigating a possible broader conspiracy behind the murder. The source, who spoke only on a condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to publicly disclose the investigation said that federal civil rights prosecutors were holding grand jury proceedings in Kansas City, looking into whether a broader case surrounds Dr. Tiller's death.
The investigation is built in part on Roeder's own trial testimony where he testified that he discussed his planned attack with others. Prior to the trial Roeder was in contact with Operation Rescue's senior policy advisor Cheryl Sullenger. Sullenger is no stranger to domestic terrorism. She tried to blow up a clinic 20 years ago.
Roeder also has strong ties to the militia movement, so any investigation would necessarily look into those ties as well. Two of Roeder's former roommates have already testified before the grand jury as well. One of the roommates, Tim Parks, testified that the grand jury was asking him about a Bible study group that Roeder attended, making the other members of that group possible targets as well.
During the trial the U.S. government had sent a civil rights prosecutor down to watch the trial, so the grand jury is a likely outcome of those observations. While it may take a while it is well worth the time, particularly if the prosecutors can establish a link between people like Sullenger and militia members. The fact that the grand jury has been called and is taking testimony also shows that, finally, the federal government is treating crimes against reproductive health care providers as the acts of domestic terrorism that they are.
Read more: murder, kansas, trial, abortion, civil rights, womens rights, tiller, roeder, reproductive justice
10/9/10
The Wichita Eagle - Grand Jury Probing Tiller Death
A federal grand jury is investigating whether last year's murder of a Kansas abortion provider was connected to a broader case involving radical anti-abortion activists, a federal law enforcement official familiar with the case said Friday.
The official spoke to the Associated Press on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to publicly discuss the investigation. The official said several federal civil rights prosecutors were holding grand jury proceedings in Kansas City, looking into whether a broader case surrounded the May 2009 death of George Tiller.
Tiller was among the few late-term abortion providers in the U.S. before he was fatally shot in his Wichita church by anti-abortion activist Scott Roeder.
"Yes, there is a grand jury investigation. I can tell you that there are several attorneys from Washington, D.C., looking into this matter and are looking into the broader case than just the actual incident that occurred in Wichita," the official said.
A spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's Office in Kansas declined comment Friday.
Roeder, who admitted to the shooting, said during his trial in January that he believed the killing was justified to save the lives of unborn children. Roeder, of Kansas City, Mo., was sentenced to life in prison.
At least one Justice Department civil rights prosecutor attended Roeder's trial, along with agents from the FBI. Shortly after Tiller's death, the Justice Department increased security around women's health facilities and opened an ongoing investigation.
In recent days, talk of a sitting grand jury in Kansas City began swirling among some anti-abortion activists who have kept in contact with Roeder, including Jennifer McCoy.
"It won't change things for Scott, and that is what makes me think the problem is the rest of us," said McCoy, who was sentenced in 1997 to 2 1/2 years in prison for arsons at two Virginia abortion clinics. "They have gone in trying to prove some conspiracy that doesn't exist."
McCoy, who said she has not been subpoenaed, now lives in Wichita and befriended Roeder after his arrest in Tiller's death. She said she learned about the grand jury investigation from Roeder.
Tiller's clinic in Wichita has been closed since the doctor's death. The building is for sale.
Read more: http://www.kansas.com/2010/10/09/1533917/source-grand-jury-probing-tiller.html#ixzz17ITOT6Tm
6/4/10
Abortion doctor's killer's petition dismissed The Associated Press
Abortion doctor's killer's petition dismissed
The Associated PressWICHITA, Kan. - A Sedgwick County judge has dismissed Scott Roeder's petition complaining about jail conditions and seeking to be released.
The habeas corpus petition Roeder filed in February after being convicted of killing abortion doctor George Tiller was dismissed at the request of his court-appointed attorney, Michael Brown.
Judge Timothy Henderson ruled after a brief hearing that the petition is moot because it complains of conditions at the Sedgwick County jail. Roeder is now being held at the state prison in El Dorado, and the Sedgwick County court has no jurisdiction in that county.
Henderson also noted Roeder has not exhausted his appeals in the Tiller murder case.
6/2/10
Ms. Magazine - "Not A Lone Wolf" by Amanda Robb
AS SOON AS SCOTT ROEDER WAS NAMED THE SOLE SUSPECT IN THE point-blank shooting death of Wichita, Kan., abortion provider Dr. George Tiller in the vestibule of the Reformation Lutheran Church Tiller attended, a predictable story began to be told. Following the lead of a recent Department of Homeland Security report characterizing right-wing terrorists as lone wolves, the Los Angeles Times, CNN, ABC, NBC and FOX News all ran stories calling Roeder a “lone wolf” gunman.
It is the oldest, possibly most dangerous abortion story out there.
August 13, 1994, The Washington Post: “Many anti-abortion leaders have… denounced Paul Hill [who killed abortion provider Dr. John Britton and his security escort James Barrett]…as a lone, sick extremist.”
October 26, 1998, The Independent (London): “A doctor defiant [is] shot dead for his beliefs by a lone abortion terrorist [referring to James Kopp, who killed Amherst, N.Y., abortion provider Dr. Barnett Slepian].”
But for loners, these guys have a lot of friends. A lot of the same ones, in fact.
Over the past six months, I have interviewed Scott Roeder more than a dozen times, met several times with his supporters at the Sedgwick County Courthouse in Wichita where he was tried and convicted, and permissibly recorded numerous three-way telephone conversations Roeder had me place to his friends. Using information gleaned from these sources, along with public records, it is possible to piece together the close, long-term and ongoing relationship between Roeder and other anti-abortion extremists who advocate murder and violent attacks on abortion providers.
Now, meet Roeder’s anti-abortion associates, beginning with Roeder himself. Scott Roeder, 52, was born in Denver. His family moved to Topeka, Kan., when he was a toddler. He worked for the Kansas City electric company, and at age 28, he married and had a son. For about five years family life was stable, but then in the early 1990s Roeder suddenly could not cope—with anything.
While under financial stress in 1992, Roeder happened upon right-wing televangelist Pat Robertson’s 700 Club on television. He claims he fell to his knees and became a born-again Christian. According to his own recollections and those of his ex-wife, he immediately fixated on what he considered two earthly evils: taxes and abortion.
In very short order, he affiliated himself with Christian anti-government groups such as the Freemen militia and eventually became involved with antiabortion groups such as Operation Rescue and the Army of God, the latter of which openly sanctions the use of violence to stop abortion.
Roeder told me that his first act as an anti-abortion activist was to protest outside a Kansas City women’s clinic. Among the protestors he came to know were Anthony Leake, a proponent of the “justifiable homicide”of abortion doctors, and Eugene Frye, the owner of a Kansas City construction company who, together with another antiabortion activist, had been arrested in 1990 for attempting to reinsert the feeding tube of a Missouri woman in a persistent vegetative state. Frye had also been arrested for blockading abortion clinics during the 1991 Summer of Mercy in Wichita, which was organized by Operation Rescue.
Through Frye, Roeder says, he soon met Rachelle “Shelley” Shannon. She, like Frye, had attended the Summer of Mercy protests; over the next two years she would commit eight arson or acid attacks on abortion clinics in the Pacific Northwest. Then, most horrifically, on August 19, 1993, she would try to murder Dr. George Tiller, succeeding only in shooting and wounding him in both his arms.
Roeder says Frye took him to visit Shannon where she was incarcerated in Topeka. Roeder was instantly smitten with the intense, unrepentant shooter. Frye had made a match. Roeder began visiting Shannon without Frye: Over the years, while she served her 30-year-long sentence for the clinic attacks and the attemptedmurder, Roeder would see her some 25 times. As his marriage
began disintegrating, he even considered asking the raven-haired Shannon about beginning a romance. But, he told me, he did not because of the obvious obstacles involved in dating an incarcerated woman.
Still, Roeder and Shannon stayed close—and he began contemplating killing Dr. Tiller himself. Maybe it would be a car crash; maybe he’d shoot him sniper-style from a rooftop near Tiller’s clinic. Or maybe he would just cut off Dr. Tiller’s hands with a sword. Roeder testified to all of these at his trial.
While protesting at a Kansas City abortion clinic, Roeder also met Regina Dinwiddie, who had been arrested along with Frye during Operation Rescue’s 1991 Summer of Mercy in Wichita. A nurse from Kansas City, she was the first person to face a civil restraining order under the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act because, according to the complaint, she would not stop screaming threats at abortion clinic patients and personnel. The clinic director said Dinwiddie once told her, “Patty, you have not
seen violence yet until you see what we do to you!” Dinwiddie, an admitted member of the violencepromoting Army of God, was also arrested at Operation Rescue’s 1988 Siege of Atlanta. Authorities housed the anti-abortion activists in a separate unit—which became a terrorist seedbed. Also arrested and incarcerated along with Dinwiddie were Shannon, Jayne Bray and James Kopp. Bray is the wife of Michael Bray, the so-called lifetime chaplain of the Army of God, who was, at that time, incarcerated elsewhere for a series of clinic bomb attacks.
Kopp went on to murder New York abortion provider Dr. Barnett Slepian in a sniper attack in 1998 at Slepian’s home, and is the lead suspect in the shooting and wounding of four abortion providers at their homes in upstate New York and Canada between 1994 and 1997. It is widely believed some of those jailed in Atlanta in 1988 were involved in the creation of “The Army of God Manual,” in which they receive “special thanks” under monikers such as “Shaggy West” (Shelley Shannon), “Atomic Dog” (James Kopp), “Kansas City Big Guys,” the “Mad Gluer” and “Pensacola Cop Hugger,” among others.
The how-to manual for would-be terrorists provides instructions on vandalizing clinics, including arson, super-gluing locks, constructing bombs and “disarming the persons perpetrating the [abortions] by removing their hands.” The manual was discovered buried in Shannon’s backyard during a search by law enforcement following her attempted murder of Dr. Tiller in 1993.
Back in 1994, Dinwiddie had enjoyed special fame in anti-abortion circles because Paul Hill had stayed at her house two weeks before he shot and killed Dr. John Britton and his volunteer escort James Barrett outside an abortion clinic in Pensacola, Fla. Shortly after that double murder, Scott Roeder enters our story again: He is invited to Dinwiddie’s along with Frye to meet a special guest, Michael Bray.
Bray is a linchpin among the extremists; his influence over those who commit abortion-related violence is hard to overstate. Author of A Time to Kill—a theological justification for violence—Bray is a convicted clinic bomber (he served from 1985 to 1989 for his crimes). He helped draft and was the first to sign the “Defensive Action” statement endorsing the murder of abortion providers that Hill began circulating in the months before he killed Britton and Barrett. Shannon says she was moved to violence by reading Bray’s writings; according to her diary, when an early arson attempt failed to produce much damage, she wrote to him in despair, and Bray reassured her, “Little strokes fell mighty oaks.” James Kopp first met Bray in 1983 at an extremist religious retreat in Switzerland and, according to law enforcement sources, stopped at Bray’s home in 1998 as he was fleeing the country after murdering Dr. Slepian.
Bray has obviously privately supported violence as a means to stop abortion since the mid-1980s, but by 1991, he and his wife Jayne were open enough to discuss his views with a reporter from The Washington Post.
“Is there a legitimate use of force on behalf of the unborn?” Bray asks rhetorically. “I say yes, it is justified to destroy the [abortion] facilities. And yes, it is justified to… what kind of word should I use here?” “Well, they use ‘terminate a pregnancy,’” Jayne Bray says.
“Yeah, terminate an abortionist,” he says.
When Scott Roeder arrived at Regina Dinwiddie’s house with Eugene Frye in 1994 or 1995 to meet Michael Bray, he was nearly giddy, by his own recollection to me:
Roeder: I think it was right after Paul Hill…I got to meet [Bray] and I heard that he’d been on 60 Minutes. …I just kept asking Mike [Bray] questions because I was so fascinated with him, you know…As a matter of fact, Gene [Frye] had to tell me to quit asking him
questions.
Amanda Robb: [But] did you guys discuss justifiable homicide? If it was justifiable to shoot a doctor?
Roeder: Oh yeah, yeah. We definitely discussed that, and like I say, Michael [Bray], he’s been outspoken, and he’s always said, as long as I’ve known him, he’s always said it’s been justified to do that.
Another admitted Army of God member that Roeder has become close to is Jennifer McCoy. In 1996, she was arrested and pled guilty to conspiring to burn down abortion clinics in Norfolk and Newport News, Va. During her two and a half years in prison, she was in contact with Bray, who honored her in absentia at the White Rose Banquet in Washington, D.C.—an annual event organized by Bray to recognize those jailed for their (mostly violent) antiabortion activities, and attended by many in the extremist network (including McCoy in 1996).
After her release, McCoy began protesting regularly with Operation Rescue in Wichita shortly after its president, Troy Newman, moved the headquarters there in 2002 for the sole purpose of tormenting Dr. Tiller into shuttering his clinic.
As Roeder’s conversations with me have indicated, McCoy has been among his most regular visitors since he was arraigned for Dr. Tiller’s murder, although according to Roeder, they did not know each other before May 2009. But McCoy is close to people Roeder is connected to, people Roeder could try to implicate as co-conspirators and/or accessories, such as Bray or Newman, the latter of whom extremely angered Roeder by denying their acquaintance.
Perhaps this is why McCoy has been more than a supporter; she has been a flatterer and even a fabulist. At one point, according to Roeder, McCoy told him that a 17-year-old woman in Wichita was scheduled to have an abortion but after Dr. Tiller’s murder changed her mind and had the baby. Roeder believed that young woman would testify in court on behalf of his defense that the murder was justified to save lives. But there is no evidence that any woman who was planning to abort her pregnancy before
Dr. Tiller was killed changed her mind afterwards.
In April 1996, Roeder was pulled over by Shawnee County, Kan., deputies for driving without a valid license plate. Instead, Roeder had a tag on his car that read, “Sovereign private property. Immunity declared by law. Noncommercial American.” The kind of plates frequently used by Freemen. And in his trunk he had gunpowder, ammunition and bomb-making materials. Roeder was sentenced to 24 months probation and ordered to stop his association with violence-advocating anti-government groups. He told his son, then 9 years old, that everyone assumed he was going to bomb a federal building (his arrest occurred near the first anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing.) But really, Roeder said, he had been planning to bomb an abortion clinic.
After his probation ended, Roeder resumed his anti-abortion activities; in 2000 he was caught on surveillance cameras on two occasions super-gluing the locks at the Kansas City clinic where he frequently protested with Frye. The clinic’s manager says he reported the incidents to an FBI agent who said he would question Roeder. After that, Roeder disappeared for a while. He would be caught on camera again gluing the clinic’s locks both the week before and the day before he murdered Dr. Tiller in Wichita.
Roeder first stalked Tiller at his Wichita church, Reformation Lutheran, in 2002, the year Operation Rescue moved there. Operation Rescue had already begun demonstrating at the church, and on the group’s website Newman had announced plans to gather at Tiller’s clinic, church and home.
Also that year, Roeder says he went to lunch with Newman and asked him about using violence to stop abortion.
Robb: What did you say to him?
Roeder: Oh, something like if an abortionist—I don’t even know if it was specifically Tiller…was shot, would it be justified? … And [Newman] said, “If it were, it wouldn’t upset me.”
According to Roeder’s trial testimony, he became an active and regular participant in Operation Rescue events. He told me he has donation receipts, event T-shirts and a signed copy of Newman’s 2001 book, Their Blood Cries Out, to prove it. During an Operation Rescue event at Dr. Tiller’s clinic in 2007, Roeder posted on the Operation Rescue website:
“Bleass [sic] everyone for attending and praying in May to bring justice to Tiller and the closing of his death camp. Sometime soon, would it be feasible to bring as many people as possible to attend Tillers [sic] church (inside not just outside) …”
Moreover, when Roeder was apprehended for Dr. Tiller’s murder, news cameras photographed a piece of paper on the dashboard of Roeder’s car: It contained the phone number of Cheryl Sullenger, Operation Rescue’s senior policy advisor, who served two years in prison for conspiring to bomb abortionclinics in 1988. Roeder also told me that Sullenger was present at the lunch
with Newman where they discussed “justifiable” homicide, and that Newman had given Roeder the autographed copy of his book just three months before Roeder killed Tiller when Roeder visited Operation Rescue headquarters. Sullenger was there as well, Roeder said.
Yet Newman has denied any formal link between Roeder and Operation Rescue. He said to me, “I have no recollection of ever meeting Scott Roeder.” Immediately after Roeder killed Dr. Tiller, Newman issued a statement saying, “We deplore the criminal actions with which Mr. Roeder is accused…Operation Rescue has diligently and successfully worked for years through peaceful, legal means [to stop abortion.]” In his writings, though—his book, Their Blood Cries Out, still for sale on the Operation Rescue website—he talks about the bloodguilt of those who condone abortion. The biblical atonement for bloodguilt is death. Scott Roeder, Eugene Frye, Shelley Shannon, Regina Dinwiddie and Michael Bray all know one another.
Jennifer McCoy and Anthony Leake know all of them, too, except perhaps Shelley Shannon.
Troy Newman knows McCoy, Frye and possibly others.
McCoy, Shannon, Dinwiddie and Bray are admitted members of the Army of God.
“We’re like circles that overlap,” McCoy told me in an anteroom in the Sedgwick County Courthouse near where Scott Roeder was being sentenced on April 1, 2010. “We all don’t know each other—we may not agree on a lot of things, like religion, say—but we’re all completely committed to one purpose: stopping abortion.”
“Uh-huh,” Dinwiddie concurred, looking up from the character statement she was getting ready to give on Roeder’s behalf. “That’s right.”
Across from the women was Frye, along with David Leach—who calls himself the secretary general of the Army of God and is another justifiablehomicide advocate. They were working on their statements on behalf of Roeder’s character, too.
They let me sit with them because I said I was Scott’s acquaintance, and also because I’m the niece of Dr. Barnett Slepian, the abortion provider murdered by James Kopp in upstate New York. I was especially close to Bart because he lived with my family
for nearly a decade after my own father died when I was 4 years old. During Roeder’s trial, and again at his sentencing, I explained my presence to his supporters the same way I had explained my interest in him when I had first written to him six months earlier: I really need to understand how someone could be moved to murder to stop abortion.
I feel that I now understand.
Circles that overlap.
One circle encompasses the Army of God, including Bray, Shannon, Leach, Dinwiddie, McCoy and Kopp, the man who killed my uncle.
A second circle includes justifiablehomicide advocates Bray, Shannon, Leach, Dinwiddie, Leake and the murderer Paul Hill, who was executed in 2003 by the state of Florida.
And a third circle holds Operation Dinwiddie and Bray have signed “Defensive Action” (justifiable homicide) statements, stating in part, “We, the undersigned, declare the justice of taking all godly action necessary to defend innocent human life including the use of force.” Leake has said publicly he supports the use of deadly force against abortion providers.
Rescue, Troy Newman, McCoy and Cheryl Sullenger.
Scott Roeder overlaps with all of them (see chart on facing page).
Police, prosecutors and the military define a cell as a circle of individuals— usually three to 10 people—who are joined in common unlawful purpose. A Military Guide to Terrorism in the Twenty-First Century, a U.S. Army training manual, describes a cell as the
“foundation” of most terrorist organizations. Most often, and most effectively, these cells are networked, “depend[ing] and even thriving on loose affiliation with groups or individuals from a variety of locations.”
In international terrorism cases, in organized crime cases, even in drugtrafficking cases, conspiracy charges can be filed when two or more people enter into an agreement to commit an unlawful act. In fact, of the 159 people convicted of international terrorism by
the U.S. since 9/11, more than 70 percent were sentenced for conspiracy (or for “harboring” terrorists). Once a person becomes a member of the conspiracy, she or he is held legally responsible for the acts of other members done in furtherance of the conspiracy, even if she or he is not present or aware that the acts are being committed.
The government does not have to prove that conspirators have entered into any formal agreement. Because they are trying to hide what they are doing, criminal conspirators rarely do such things as draw up contracts. Nor does the government have to show
that the members of the conspiracy state between themselves what their object or purpose or methods are. Because they are clandestine, criminal conspirators rarely discuss their plans in a straightforward way. The government only has to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the members of a conspiracy, in some implied way, came to mutually understand they would attempt to accomplish a common and unlawful plan.
Given the broad latitude in proving conspiracy, you’d think the same legal theory could have been used in prosecuting slayings of abortion doctors. Yet to date, only the individual murderers of abortion providers have been charged and prosecuted. No charges have been brought against any individuals for conspiracy to commit those murders.
Shortly after Roeder’s trial—when I met Michael Bray and he told me he had only met Scott Roeder after he killed Dr. Tiller—Scott Roeder stopped communicating with me. But during one of our last phone calls, I was able to ask Roeder a critical question:
Robb: Wait, just tell me how it works…when the use of force comes up in conversation, it has to come up sometimes.
Roeder: I’ve always said [it] over the years, and I would see what level of comfort they were willing to talk about it. …Michael Bray, he would talk about it forever. He went on 60 Minutes for Pete’s sake. Other people, they might say, “Well, you know, I just don’t think it’s right.” Then I’d explain to them why, and if they’re still not comfortable with it, I would drop it. I wouldn’t keep pushing it. Regina [Dinwiddie] obviously agrees with the use of force, and Gene Frye, I believe, does.
Roeder, his associates and “The Army of God Manual” could not be more plain. The manual ends, “‘Whosoever sheds man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed [Gen: 9-6]… we are forced to take up arms against you.”
Taking up arms. Shedding man’s blood. Bloodguilt.Circles that overlap. In other words, wolves run in packs.
Investigative support and research for this article were provided by the Feminist Majority Foundation’s National Clinic Access Project. Research support was provided by the Investigative Fund of the Nation Institute.
AMANDA ROBB is a writer based in New York. She has been a contributing writer for O (Oprah) magazine, and her work has also appeared in The New York Times, Newsweek, New York, George, Marie Claire, More, Harper’s Bazaar (UK) and other periodicals.
Article reprinted from the Spring 2010 issue of Ms. To have this issue delivered straight to your door, join the Ms. community.
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On the Anniversary of the Death of Late-term Abortionist Dr. Tiller by Jeanne Monahan June 1, 2010
On the Anniversary of the Death of Late-term Abortionist Dr. Tiller
by Jeanne Monahan
June 1, 2010
Yesterday, the day we celebrated Memorial Day, was the one-year anniversary of the murder of late-term abortionist Dr. George Tiller. A troubled man named Scott Roeder walked into Dr. Tillers church in Witchita, Kansas, and shot him in the back of his head during a Sunday morning service. On April 1, 2010, Roeder was sentenced to life in prison without parole.
Dr. Tiller was most known for being one of the few doctors in the country who performed late-term abortions. While most reasonable people (Congress included) agree that a late-term abortion is a deeply violent and unjust act, Scott Roeder’s act of murder was equally as violent, and equally as unjust. The foundation of the pro-life movement is respecting the dignity of every single human person, from conception to natural death. This holds for the unborn baby in the womb as well as for doctors who perform abortions.
On this one year-anniversary let us pray for a renewed commitment for the sanctity of all persons, born and unborn; for Dr. Tiller and his family and friends; for women and families who suffer the consequences of abortion, including the particular violence of late-term abortion; for Scott Roeder and his family; and for our country.
6/1/10
Abortionist Tiller Was Slated To Soon Retire Before His Death
Abortionist Tiller Was Slated To Soon Retire Before His Death
Tiller’s planned retirement proves Operation Rescue’s work was successful. Roeder was wrong.
Wichita, KS – At a fundraising dinner held on May 26, 2010, abortionist LeRoy Carhart told attendees that his employer, George Tiller, was making plans to soon retire prior to his murder by Scott Roeder last year.
The information was reported on a feminist blog site by a woman who attended the event.
“Dr. Carhart confided that Tiller was slated to begin his retirement not long before his death,” the blogger wrote.
Operation Rescue stated publicly in a commentary published on Feb. 2, 2010, that we believed that Tiller may have been planning to retire rather than face the disgrace of being disciplined for illegal late-term abortions by the Kansas Board of Healing Arts, which had filed an 11-count petition against him that was pending at the time of his death.
“Carhart confirms that we were correct in concluding that Tiller was ready to retire,” said Operation Rescue President Troy Newman. “We had worked since 2002, through peaceful, legal avenues to expose the heinous nature of Tiller’s late-term abortion business, bring him to justice, and close his abortion clinic. The fact that Tiller was preparing to quit proves that our efforts were successful. Unfortunately, Tiller’s murder a year ago was a senseless and despicable act that wrongly took a life and denied the people justice under the law. If Roeder had not acted, Tiller would be retired today and his abortion clinic closed without violence. We were right. Roeder was as wrong as it gets.”
The following is an excerpt from OR’s February 2 commentary:
In March, 2009, Tiller was acquitted of the 19 criminal charges during a trial that took the jury less than 25 minutes to decide. But within minutes of that verdict, the Kansas State Board of Healing Arts, newly under the direction of Jack Confer, issued a statement that the Board was proceeding with eleven similar charges that could have led to the revocation of Tiller’s medical license. Confer assured the public that the KSBHA worked under a different burden of proof than the criminal courts and that the outcome of the criminal case would have no effect on the KSBHA’s case.
The timing and content of that release sent a strong message to the community that they could expect a different outcome from the KSBHA case. That message, along with indications that Tiller had taken steps to disband ProKanDo prior to his criminal trial and other intelligence gathered by Operation Rescue, led to the logical conclusion that either Tiller would soon have his license stripped by the KSBHA, or that he would retire in order to avoid the humiliation of revocation. We were cautiously optimistic that Tiller’s infamous late-term abortion mill would be closed within months – through peaceful, legal means.
5/27/10
Not A Lone Wolf Scott Roeder is now serving a life term for murdering abortion doctor George Tiller. But did he really act alone? By AMANDA ROBB
Not A Lone Wolf
Scott Roeder is now serving a life term for murdering abortion doctor George Tiller. But did he really act alone?
By AMANDA ROBB
AS SOON AS SCOTT ROEDER WAS NAMED THE SOLE SUSPECT IN THE point-blank shooting death of Wichita, Kan., abortion provider Dr. George Tiller in the vestibule of the Reformation Lutheran Church Tiller attended, a predictable story began to be told. Following the lead of a recent Department of Homeland Security report characterizing right-wing terrorists as lone wolves, the Los Angeles Times, CNN, ABC, NBC and FOX News all ran stories calling Roeder a “lone wolf” gunman.
It is the oldest, possibly most dangerous abortion story out there.
August 13, 1994, The Washington Post: “Many anti-abortion leaders have… denounced Paul Hill [who killed abortion provider Dr. John Britton and his security escort James Barrett]…as a lone, sick extremist.”
October 26, 1998, The Independent (London): “A doctor defiant [is] shot dead for his beliefs by a lone abortion terrorist [referring to James Kopp, who killed Amherst, N.Y., abortion provider Dr. Barnett Slepian].”
But for loners, these guys have a lot of friends. A lot of the same ones, in fact.
Over the past six months, I have interviewed Scott Roeder more than a dozen times, met several times with his supporters at the Sedgwick County Courthouse in Wichita where he was tried and convicted, and permissibly recorded numerous three-way telephone conversations Roeder had me place to his friends. Using information gleaned from these sources, along with public records, it is possible to piece together the close, long-term and ongoing relationship between Roeder and other anti-abortion extremists who advocate murder and violent attacks on abortion providers.
Now, meet Roeder’s anti-abortion associates, beginning with Roeder himself. Scott Roeder, 52, was born in Denver. His family moved to Topeka, Kan., when he was a toddler. He worked for the Kansas City electric company, and at age 28, he married and had a son. For about five years family life was stable, but then in the early 1990s Roeder suddenly could not cope—with anything.
While under financial stress in 1992, Roeder happened upon right-wing televangelist Pat Robertson’s 700 Club on television. He claims he fell to his knees and became a born-again Christian. According to his own recollections and those of his ex-wife, he immediately fixated on what he considered two earthly evils: taxes and abortion.
In very short order, he affiliated himself with Christian anti-government groups such as the Freemen militia and eventually became involved with antiabortion groups such as Operation Rescue and the Army of God, the latter of which openly sanctions the use of violence to stop abortion.
Roeder told me that his first act as an anti-abortion activist was to protest outside a Kansas City women’s clinic. Among the protestors he came to know were Anthony Leake, a proponent of the “justifiable homicide”of abortion doctors, and Eugene Frye, the owner of a Kansas City construction company who, together with another antiabortion activist, had been arrested in 1990 for attempting to reinsert the feeding tube of a Missouri woman in a persistent vegetative state. Frye had also been arrested for blockading abortion clinics during the 1991 Summer of Mercy in Wichita, which was organized by Operation Rescue.
Through Frye, Roeder says, he soon met Rachelle “Shelley” Shannon. She, like Frye, had attended the Summer of Mercy protests; over the next two years she would commit eight arson or acid attacks on abortion clinics in the Pacific Northwest. Then, most horrifically, on August 19, 1993, she would try to murder Dr. George Tiller, succeeding only in shooting and wounding him in both his arms.
Roeder says Frye took him to visit Shannon where she was incarcerated in Topeka. Roeder was instantly smitten with the intense, unrepentant shooter. Frye had made a match. Roeder began visiting Shannon without Frye: Over the years, while she served her 30-year-long sentence for the clinic attacks and the attemptedmurder, Roeder would see her some 25 times. As his marriage
began disintegrating, he even considered asking the raven-haired Shannon about beginning a romance. But, he told me, he did not because of the obvious obstacles involved in dating an incarcerated woman.
Still, Roeder and Shannon stayed close—and he began contemplating killing Dr. Tiller himself. Maybe it would be a car crash; maybe he’d shoot him sniper-style from a rooftop near Tiller’s clinic. Or maybe he would just cut off Dr. Tiller’s hands with a sword. Roeder testified to all of these at his trial.
While protesting at a Kansas City abortion clinic, Roeder also met Regina Dinwiddie, who had been arrested along with Frye during Operation Rescue’s 1991 Summer of Mercy in Wichita. A nurse from Kansas City, she was the first person to face a civil restraining order under the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act because, according to the complaint, she would not stop screaming threats at abortion clinic patients and personnel. The clinic director said Dinwiddie once told her, “Patty, you have not
seen violence yet until you see what we do to you!” Dinwiddie, an admitted member of the violencepromoting Army of God, was also arrested at Operation Rescue’s 1988 Siege of Atlanta. Authorities housed the anti-abortion activists in a separate unit—which became a terrorist seedbed. Also arrested and incarcerated along with Dinwiddie were Shannon, Jayne Bray and James Kopp. Bray is the wife of Michael Bray, the so-called lifetime chaplain of the Army of God, who was, at that time, incarcerated elsewhere for a series of clinic bomb attacks.
Kopp went on to murder New York abortion provider Dr. Barnett Slepian in a sniper attack in 1998 at Slepian’s home, and is the lead suspect in the shooting and wounding of four abortion providers at their homes in upstate New York and Canada between 1994 and 1997. It is widely believed some of those jailed in Atlanta in 1988 were involved in the creation of “The Army of God Manual,” in which they receive “special thanks” under monikers such as “Shaggy West” (Shelley Shannon), “Atomic Dog” (James Kopp), “Kansas City Big Guys,” the “Mad Gluer” and “Pensacola Cop Hugger,” among others.
The how-to manual for would-be terrorists provides instructions on vandalizing clinics, including arson, super-gluing locks, constructing bombs and “disarming the persons perpetrating the [abortions] by removing their hands.” The manual was discovered buried in Shannon’s backyard during a search by law enforcement following her attempted murder of Dr. Tiller in 1993.
Bray is a linchpin among the extremists; his influence over those who commit abortion-related violence is hard to overstate. Author of A Time to Kill—a theological justification for violence—Bray is a convicted clinic bomber (he served from 1985 to 1989 for his crimes). He helped draft and was the first to sign the “Defensive Action” statement endorsing the murder of abortion providers that Hill began circulating in the months before he killed Britton and Barrett. Shannon says she was moved to violence by reading Bray’s writings; according to her diary, when an early arson attempt failed to produce much damage, she wrote to him in despair, and Bray reassured her, “Little strokes fell mighty oaks.” James Kopp first met Bray in 1983 at an extremist religious retreat in Switzerland and, according to law enforcement sources, stopped at Bray’s home in 1998 as he was fleeing the country after murdering Dr. Slepian.
Bray has obviously privately supported violence as a means to stop abortion since the mid-1980s, but by 1991, he and his wife Jayne were open enough to discuss his views with a reporter from The Washington Post.
“Is there a legitimate use of force on behalf of the unborn?” Bray asks rhetorically. “I say yes, it is justified to destroy the [abortion] facilities. And yes, it is justified to… what kind of word should I use here?” “Well, they use ‘terminate a pregnancy,’” Jayne Bray says.
“Yeah, terminate an abortionist,” he says.
When Scott Roeder arrived at Regina Dinwiddie’s house with Eugene Frye in 1994 or 1995 to meet Michael Bray, he was nearly giddy, by his own recollection to me:
Roeder: I think it was right after Paul Hill…I got to meet [Bray] and I heard that he’d been on 60 Minutes. …I just kept asking Mike [Bray] questions because I was so fascinated with him, you know…As a matter of fact, Gene [Frye] had to tell me to quit asking him
questions.Amanda Robb: [But] did you guys discuss justifiable homicide? If it was justifiable to shoot a doctor?
Roeder: Oh yeah, yeah. We definitely discussed that, and like I say, Michael [Bray], he’s been outspoken, and he’s always said, as long as I’ve known him, he’s always said it’s been justified to do that.
Another admitted Army of God member that Roeder has become close to is Jennifer McCoy. In 1996, she was arrested and pled guilty to conspiring to burn down abortion clinics in Norfolk and Newport News, Va. During her two and a half years in prison, she was in contact with Bray, who honored her in absentia at the White Rose Banquet in Washington, D.C.—an annual event organized by Bray to recognize those jailed for their (mostly violent) antiabortion activities, and attended by many in the extremist network (including McCoy in 1996).
After her release, McCoy began protesting regularly with Operation Rescue in Wichita shortly after its president, Troy Newman, moved the headquarters there in 2002 for the sole purpose of tormenting Dr. Tiller into shuttering his clinic.
As Roeder’s conversations with me have indicated, McCoy has been among his most regular visitors since he was arraigned for Dr. Tiller’s murder, although according to Roeder, they did not know each other before May 2009. But McCoy is close to people Roeder is connected to, people Roeder could try to implicate as co-conspirators and/or accessories, such as Bray or Newman, the latter of whom extremely angered Roeder by denying their acquaintance.
Perhaps this is why McCoy has been more than a supporter; she has been a flatterer and even a fabulist. At one point, according to Roeder, McCoy told him that a 17-year-old woman in Wichita was scheduled to have an abortion but after Dr. Tiller’s murder changed her mind and had the baby. Roeder believed that young woman would testify in court on behalf of his defense that the murder was justified to save lives. But there is no evidence that any woman who was planning to abort her pregnancy before
Dr. Tiller was killed changed her mind afterwards.
In April 1996, Roeder was pulled over by Shawnee County, Kan., deputies for driving without a valid license plate. Instead, Roeder had a tag on his car that read, “Sovereign private property. Immunity declared by law. Noncommercial American.” The kind of plates frequently used by Freemen. And in his trunk he had gunpowder, ammunition and bomb-making materials. Roeder was sentenced to 24 months probation and ordered to stop his association with violence-advocating anti-government groups. He told his son, then 9 years old, that everyone assumed he was going to bomb a federal building (his arrest occurred near the first anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing.) But really, Roeder said, he had been planning to bomb an abortion clinic.
After his probation ended, Roeder resumed his anti-abortion activities; in 2000 he was caught on surveillance cameras on two occasions super-gluing the locks at the Kansas City clinic where he frequently protested with Frye. The clinic’s manager says he reported the incidents to an FBI agent who said he would question Roeder. After that, Roeder disappeared for a while. He would be caught on camera again gluing the clinic’s locks both the week before and the day before he murdered Dr. Tiller in Wichita.
Roeder first stalked Tiller at his Wichita church, Reformation Lutheran, in 2002, the year Operation Rescue moved there. Operation Rescue had already begun demonstrating at the church, and on the group’s website Newman had announced plans to gather at Tiller’s clinic, church and home.
Also that year, Roeder says he went to lunch with Newman and asked him about using violence to stop abortion.
Robb: What did you say to him?
Roeder: Oh, something like if an abortionist—I don’t even know if it was specifically Tiller…was shot, would it be justified? … And [Newman] said, “If it were, it wouldn’t upset me.”
According to Roeder’s trial testimony, he became an active and regular participant in Operation Rescue events. He told me he has donation receipts, event T-shirts and a signed copy of Newman’s 2001 book, Their Blood Cries Out, to prove it. During an Operation Rescue event at Dr. Tiller’s clinic in 2007, Roeder posted on the Operation Rescue website:
“Bleass [sic] everyone for attending and praying in May to bring justice to Tiller and the closing of his death camp. Sometime soon, would it be feasible to bring as many people as possible to attend Tillers [sic] church (inside not just outside) …”
Moreover, when Roeder was apprehended for Dr. Tiller’s murder, news cameras photographed a piece of paper on the dashboard of Roeder’s car: It contained the phone number of Cheryl Sullenger, Operation Rescue’s senior policy advisor, who served two years in prison for conspiring to bomb abortionclinics in 1988. Roeder also told me that Sullenger was present at the lunch
with Newman where they discussed “justifiable” homicide, and that Newman had given Roeder the autographed copy of his book just three months before Roeder killed Tiller when Roeder visited Operation Rescue headquarters. Sullenger was there as well, Roeder said.
Yet Newman has denied any formal link between Roeder and Operation Rescue. He said to me, “I have no recollection of ever meeting Scott Roeder.” Immediately after Roeder killed Dr. Tiller, Newman issued a statement saying, “We deplore the criminal actions with which Mr. Roeder is accused…Operation Rescue has diligently and successfully worked for years through peaceful, legal means [to stop abortion.]” In his writings, though—his book, Their Blood Cries Out, still for sale on the Operation Rescue website—he talks about the bloodguilt of those who condone abortion. The biblical atonement for bloodguilt is death. Scott Roeder, Eugene Frye, Shelley Shannon, Regina Dinwiddie and Michael Bray all know one another.
Jennifer McCoy and Anthony Leake know all of them, too, except perhaps Shelley Shannon.
Troy Newman knows McCoy, Frye and possibly others.
McCoy, Shannon, Dinwiddie and Bray are admitted members of the Army of God.
“We’re like circles that overlap,” McCoy told me in an anteroom in the Sedgwick County Courthouse near where Scott Roeder was being sentenced on April 1, 2010. “We all don’t know each other—we may not agree on a lot of things, like religion, say—but we’re all completely committed to one purpose: stopping abortion.”
“Uh-huh,” Dinwiddie concurred, looking up from the character statement she was getting ready to give on Roeder’s behalf. “That’s right.”
Across from the women was Frye, along with David Leach—who calls himself the secretary general of the Army of God and is another justifiablehomicide advocate. They were working on their statements on behalf of Roeder’s character, too.
They let me sit with them because I said I was Scott’s acquaintance, and also because I’m the niece of Dr. Barnett Slepian, the abortion provider murdered by James Kopp in upstate New York. I was especially close to Bart because he lived with my family
for nearly a decade after my own father died when I was 4 years old. During Roeder’s trial, and again at his sentencing, I explained my presence to his supporters the same way I had explained my interest in him when I had first written to him six months earlier: I really need to understand how someone could be moved to murder to stop abortion.
I feel that I now understand.
Circles that overlap.
One circle encompasses the Army of God, including Bray, Shannon, Leach, Dinwiddie, McCoy and Kopp, the man who killed my uncle.
A second circle includes justifiablehomicide advocates Bray, Shannon, Leach, Dinwiddie, Leake and the murderer Paul Hill, who was executed in 2003 by the state of Florida.
And a third circle holds Operation Dinwiddie and Bray have signed “Defensive Action” (justifiable homicide) statements, stating in part, “We, the undersigned, declare the justice of taking all godly action necessary to defend innocent human life including the use of force.” Leake has said publicly he supports the use of deadly force against abortion providers.
Rescue, Troy Newman, McCoy and Cheryl Sullenger.
Scott Roeder overlaps with all of them (see chart on facing page).
Police, prosecutors and the military define a cell as a circle of individuals— usually three to 10 people—who are joined in common unlawful purpose. A Military Guide to Terrorism in the Twenty-First Century, a U.S. Army training manual, describes a cell as the
“foundation” of most terrorist organizations. Most often, and most effectively, these cells are networked, “depend[ing] and even thriving on loose affiliation with groups or individuals from a variety of locations.”
In international terrorism cases, in organized crime cases, even in drugtrafficking cases, conspiracy charges can be filed when two or more people enter into an agreement to commit an unlawful act. In fact, of the 159 people convicted of international terrorism by
the U.S. since 9/11, more than 70 percent were sentenced for conspiracy (or for “harboring” terrorists). Once a person becomes a member of the conspiracy, she or he is held legally responsible for the acts of other members done in furtherance of the conspiracy, even if she or he is not present or aware that the acts are being committed.
The government does not have to prove that conspirators have entered into any formal agreement. Because they are trying to hide what they are doing, criminal conspirators rarely do such things as draw up contracts. Nor does the government have to show
that the members of the conspiracy state between themselves what their object or purpose or methods are. Because they are clandestine, criminal conspirators rarely discuss their plans in a straightforward way. The government only has to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the members of a conspiracy, in some implied way, came to mutually understand they would attempt to accomplish a common and unlawful plan.
Given the broad latitude in proving conspiracy, you’d think the same legal theory could have been used in prosecuting slayings of abortion doctors. Yet to date, only the individual murderers of abortion providers have been charged and prosecuted. No charges have been brought against any individuals for conspiracy to commit those murders.
Shortly after Roeder’s trial—when I met Michael Bray and he told me he had only met Scott Roeder after he killed Dr. Tiller—Scott Roeder stopped communicating with me. But during one of our last phone calls, I was able to ask Roeder a critical question:
Robb: Wait, just tell me how it works…when the use of force comes up in conversation, it has to come up sometimes.
Roeder: I’ve always said [it] over the years, and I would see what level of comfort they were willing to talk about it. …Michael Bray, he would talk about it forever. He went on 60 Minutes for Pete’s sake. Other people, they might say, “Well, you know, I just don’t think it’s right.” Then I’d explain to them why, and if they’re still not comfortable with it, I would drop it. I wouldn’t keep pushing it. Regina [Dinwiddie] obviously agrees with the use of force, and Gene Frye, I believe, does.
Roeder, his associates and “The Army of God Manual” could not be more plain. The manual ends, “‘Whosoever sheds man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed [Gen: 9-6]… we are forced to take up arms against you.”
Taking up arms. Shedding man’s blood. Bloodguilt.Circles that overlap. In other words, wolves run in packs.
Investigative support and research for this article were provided by the Feminist Majority Foundation’s National Clinic Access Project. Research support was provided by the Investigative Fund of the Nation Institute.
AMANDA ROBB is a writer based in New York. She has been a contributing writer for O (Oprah) magazine, and her work has also appeared in The New York Times, Newsweek, New York, George, Marie Claire, More, Harper’s Bazaar (UK) and other periodicals.
Article reprinted from the Spring 2010 issue of Ms. To have this issue delivered straight to your door, join the Ms. community.
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