On May 31, 2009,
George Tiller, an American physician from
Wichita, Kansas
Wichita ( ) is the List of cities in Kansas, most populous city in the U.S. state of Kansas and the county seat of Sedgwick County, Kansas, Sedgwick County. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the population of the city was 397, ...
, who was one of the few doctors in the United States to perform
late terminations of pregnancy, was murdered by Scott Roeder, an
anti-abortion extremist.
Tiller was shot to death at pointblank range during a Sunday morning service at his church, Reformation Lutheran Church, where he was serving as an
usher. Tiller had previously survived a murder attempt in 1993 when
Shelley Shannon shot him in the arms.
Roeder was arrested within three hours of the shooting and charged with
first-degree murder
Murder is the unlawful killing of another human without justification or valid excuse committed with the necessary intention as defined by the law in a specific jurisdiction. ("The killing of another person without justification or excuse ...
and related crimes two days later. In November 2009, Roeder publicly confessed to the killing, telling the Associated Press that he had shot Tiller because "preborn children's lives were in imminent danger."
Roeder was found guilty of first-degree murder and two counts of aggravated assault on January 29, 2010,
and sentenced on April 1, 2010, to life imprisonment without any chance of parole for 50 years. This sentence was later reduced to allow for the possibility of parole after serving 25 years.
Shooting and aftermath
George Tiller was shot dead on May 31, 2009, during worship services at the Reformation Lutheran Church in Wichita, where he was serving as an usher. The church is a congregation of the
Evangelical Lutheran Church in America
The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) is a mainline Protestant church headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. The ELCA was officially formed on January 1, 1988, by the merging of three Lutheran church bodies. As of December 31, 2023, it ...
. Tiller was shot in the head at point blank range; he was wearing
body armor
Body armour, personal armour (also spelled ''armor''), armoured suit (''armored'') or coat of armour, among others, is armour for human body, a person's body: protective clothing or close-fitting hands-free shields designed to absorb or deflect ...
, as he had been since 1998, when the FBI told him he was being targeted by anti-abortion militants.
After threatening two others who tried to prevent his departure, the gunman fled in a car. Witnesses described the vehicle as a powder-blue 1993
Ford Taurus
The Ford Taurus is an automobile that was manufactured and marketed by the Ford Motor Company in the United States from 1985 to 2019. From 1985 to 2009, Ford marketed the Taurus alongside its rebadged variant, the Mercury Sable. Four generati ...
.
Calling the murder "an abhorrent act of violence",
U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder announced,
Wichita had no abortion provider until 2013, when Trust Women Foundation opened a clinic in the city.
Perpetrator
Scott Philip Roeder (born February 25, 1958 from
Merriam, Kansas
Merriam is a city in Johnson County, Kansas, United States, and part of the Kansas City Metropolitan Area. As of the 2020 census, the population of the city was 11,098. Merriam is included in the Shawnee Mission postal designation. It is al ...
,
) was arrested in
Gardner, Kansas, away in
suburban Kansas City three hours after the shooting.
He was charged on June 2, 2009, with first-degree murder and two counts of aggravated assault.
Roeder was formally charged before a
Sedgwick County district judge on June 2. He said very little during the hearing, where he asked for a public defender and did not enter a plea.
Prosecutors said the killing did not meet Kansas' standards for capital murder, which would have carried a possible death sentence.
Prior to the shooting, Roeder was not among the people monitored as potential threats by some abortion rights groups, including the state chapter of the
National Organization for Women
The National Organization for Women (NOW) is an American feminist organization. Founded in 1966, it is legally a 501(c)(4) social welfare organization. The organization consists of 550 chapters in all 50 U.S. states and in Washington, D.C. It ...
.
It has been reported that neither the
FBI
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic Intelligence agency, intelligence and Security agency, security service of the United States and Federal law enforcement in the United States, its principal federal law enforcement ag ...
nor local police arrested him in the days leading up to the murder despite reports and evidence offered to both that he vandalized a women's clinic the week before and the day before.
In a telephone call to the press from prison, Roeder admitted that he had shot and killed Tiller, and declared that he felt no remorse.
Known employment and psychiatric histories
In the six months before Roeder's arrest, he said, he had worked for an airport shuttle service, a party-rental shop, a convenience store and a property management enterprise.
After his arrest, Roeder's ex-wife, Lindsey Roeder, claimed that Roeder had been
mentally ill
A mental disorder, also referred to as a mental illness, a mental health condition, or a psychiatric disability, is a behavioral or mental pattern that causes significant distress or impairment of personal functioning. A mental disorder is ...
and that at about the age of 20 he was diagnosed with possible
schizophrenia
Schizophrenia () is a mental disorder characterized variously by hallucinations (typically, Auditory hallucination#Schizophrenia, hearing voices), delusions, thought disorder, disorganized thinking and behavior, and Reduced affect display, f ...
, but she offered her own diagnosis of
bipolar disorder
Bipolar disorder (BD), previously known as manic depression, is a mental disorder characterized by periods of Depression (mood), depression and periods of abnormally elevated Mood (psychology), mood that each last from days to weeks, and in ...
.
[ Interview with Lindsey Roeder.] Roeder claimed to be the father of a young child and asked for time for visitation, but the mother of that child did not wish such visitation.
The 2005
Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania, officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a U.S. state, state spanning the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern United States, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes region, Great Lakes regions o ...
family court which ruled on Roeder's custody petition regarding a daughter born in 2002 took formal notice that Roeder had been diagnosed with possible schizophrenia and was not on medication.
The
Associated Press
The Associated Press (AP) is an American not-for-profit organization, not-for-profit news agency headquartered in New York City.
Founded in 1846, it operates as a cooperative, unincorporated association, and produces news reports that are dist ...
quoted Roeder's brother, David, who said that Scott had had mental illness from time to time:
Anti-government activism
Roeder had been a member of the anti-government
Montana Freemen group. He was stopped in
Topeka, Kansas
Topeka ( ) is the capital city of the U.S. state of Kansas and the county seat of Shawnee County. It is along the Kansas River in the central part of Shawnee County, in northeastern Kansas, in the Central United States. As of the 2020 cen ...
, in April 1996 while displaying a placard reading "
Sovereign Citizen" in lieu of a license plate. He had no driver's license, vehicle registration or proof of insurance. Police officers searching his car discovered explosive charges, a fuse cord, a pound of gunpowder and nine-volt batteries in the trunk. He was charged, represented by a
public defender
A public defender is a lawyer appointed to represent people who otherwise cannot reasonably afford to hire a lawyer to defend themselves in a trial. Several countries provide people with public defenders, including the UK, Belgium, Hungary and Si ...
, convicted in June of all four counts and sentenced to 24 months probation. In July 1997, his probation was revoked for failure to pay taxes and provide his social security number to his employer as well as other probation violations. He was sentenced to 16 months in prison to be followed by 24 months parole supervision. He filed notice of appeal and was represented by a state-funded appellate attorney who challenged the basis of the original search that found the bomb components. The
Kansas Court of Appeals
Kansas ( ) is a landlocked state in the Midwestern region of the United States. It borders Nebraska to the north; Missouri to the east; Oklahoma to the south; and Colorado to the west. Kansas is named after the Kansas River, in turn named a ...
overturned this conviction in March 1998, ruling that the search of Roeder's car had been illegal and remanded the case to the trial court. Roeder was released after serving eight months.
According to the
Anti-Defamation League (ADL), Roeder belonged to the
sovereign citizen movement
The sovereign citizen movement (also SovCit movement or SovCits) is a loose group of anti-government activists, conspiracy theory, conspiracy theorists, vexatious litigants, tax protesters and financial scammers found mainly in English-speakin ...
, which believes that virtually all existing government in the United States is illegitimate. The ADL's National Director
Abraham Foxman stated that "Roeder's attachment to extreme causes extended beyond anti-abortion extremism. His extremism cross-pollinated between anti-government extremism and anti-abortion activism and led to violence and murder."
After being charged with murder, Roeder frequently called an
Associated Press
The Associated Press (AP) is an American not-for-profit organization, not-for-profit news agency headquartered in New York City.
Founded in 1846, it operates as a cooperative, unincorporated association, and produces news reports that are dist ...
reporter from the county jail. He complained about being treated like a criminal and about his having been characterized in other media as having been anti-government. Roeder told the reporter, "I want people to stop and think: It is not anti-government, it is anti-corrupt-government."
Lindsey Roeder statements
Lindsey and Scott Roeder were married in 1986, and were together for ten years.
Immediately after his 2009 arrest, she stated that the explosives which led to his 1996 arrest had been intended for detonation at an abortion clinic.
On June 2, 2009, Lindsey Roeder gave an interview to
Anderson Cooper
Anderson Hays Cooper (born June 3, 1967) is an American broadcast journalist and political commentator who anchors the CNN news broadcast show ''Anderson Cooper 360°''. In addition to his duties at CNN, Cooper serves as a correspondent for ''6 ...
of
CNN
Cable News Network (CNN) is a multinational news organization operating, most notably, a website and a TV channel headquartered in Atlanta. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable ne ...
about when and why her husband became
radicalized:
Anti-abortion militancy
David Leach, publisher of ''Prayer & Action News,'' a magazine that opines that the killing of abortion providers would be
justifiable homicide
The concept of justifiable homicide in criminal law is a defense to culpable homicide (criminal or negligent homicide). Generally, there is a burden to produce exculpatory evidence in the legal defense of justification.
In most countries, ...
, told reporters that he and Roeder had met once in the late 1990s and that Roeder at that time had authored contributions to Leach's publication. Leach published the
Army of God manual, which advocates the killing of the providers of abortion and contains bomb-making instructions, in the January 1996 issue of his magazine.
A Kansas acquaintance of Roeder's, Regina Dinwiddie, told a reporter after Tiller's murder (speaking of Roeder), "I know that he believed in justifiable homicide." Dinwiddie, an anti-abortion militant featured in the 2000
HBO
Home Box Office (HBO) is an American pay television service, which is the flagship property of namesake parent-subsidiary Home Box Office, Inc., itself a unit owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. The overall Home Box Office business unit is based a ...
documentary ''Soldiers in the Army of God'', added that she had observed Roeder in 1996 enter Kansas City Planned Parenthood's abortion clinic and ask to talk to the physician there; after staring at him for nearly a minute, Roeder said, "I've seen you now," before turning and walking away.
Roeder's former roommate of two years, Eddie Ebecher, who had met Roeder through the Freemen movement in the 1990s, told a reporter after Tiller's murder that he and Roeder had considered themselves members of the Army of God. Ebecher said Roeder was obsessed with Tiller and discussed killing him, but that Ebecher warned him not to do so. Ebecher, who went by the ''
nom de guerre
A ''nom de guerre'' (, 'war name') is a pseudonym chosen by someone to use when they are involved in a particular activity, especially fighting in a war.
In Ancien régime, ''ancien régime'' Kingdom of France, France it would be adopted by each n ...
'' "Wolfgang Anacon," added that he believed Roeder held "high moral convictions in order to carry out this act. I feel that Scott had a burden for all the children being murdered."
In 2007, someone who identified himself as Scott Roeder posted on the website of the anti-abortion group
Operation Rescue that "Tiller is the concentration camp '
Mengele' of our day and needs to be stopped before he and those who protect him bring judgment upon our nation." This was reported by the ADL's Center on Extremism, noting that Roeder called for "the closing of his death camp."
After Tiller's murder, officials from Operation Rescue, which had long opposed Tiller's abortion practices but denounced his shooting, said Roeder was not a contributor or member of the group.
The cell phone number for Operation Rescue's senior policy advisor, convicted clinic bomb plotter
Cheryl Sullenger, was found on the dashboard of Scott Roeder's car.
At first, Sullenger denied any contact with Roeder, saying that her phone number is freely available online. Then, she revised her statements, indicating that Roeder's interest was in court hearings involving Tiller.
Roeder reportedly attended the 2009 trial in which Tiller was acquitted of violating state abortion laws; Roeder called the trial "a sham" and felt the justice system failed in letting Tiller go free. On May 30, one day before Tiller was killed, a worker at a Kansas City clinic told the
Federal Bureau of Investigation
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic Intelligence agency, intelligence and Security agency, security service of the United States and Federal law enforcement in the United States, its principal federal law enforcement ag ...
that Roeder had tried gluing the locks of the clinic shut, something Roeder was suspected of doing there before years earlier.
The ''
Kansas City Star
''The Kansas City Star'' is a newspaper based in Kansas City, Missouri. Published since 1880, the paper is the recipient of eight Pulitzer Prizes.
''The Star'' is most notable for its influence on the career of President Harry S. Truman and a ...
'' reported that a man of Roeder's description had glued the locks shut at the Central Family Medicine clinic in Kansas City on May 23 and 30.
Reactions to Tiller's killing
President
President most commonly refers to:
*President (corporate title)
* President (education), a leader of a college or university
*President (government title)
President may also refer to:
Arts and entertainment Film and television
*'' Præsident ...
Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II (born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who was the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the first African American president in American history. O ...
said, "I am shocked and outraged by the murder of Dr. George Tiller as he attended church services this morning. However profound our differences as Americans over difficult issues such as abortion, they cannot be resolved by heinous acts of violence."
[
A number of other organizations also condemned the murder. Cardinal Justin Rigali of the ]U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops
The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) is the episcopal conference of the Catholic Church in the United States. Founded in 2001 after the merger of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops (NCCB) and United States Catholic Co ...
stated,
Tony Perkins, President of the Family Research Council, condemned the killing, saying,
The American Jewish Congress stated in a press release that Tiller's murder "exemplifies criminal anarchy, not legitimate protest. Dr. Tiller's murder was not just a terrible crime against an individual. It was also a crime against our democracy... Murder is not a debating technique. It is never, and must never be, an accepted way of advancing a point of view." The National Council of Jewish Women also condemned the murder, with President Nancy Ratzan stating that "Dr. Tiller devoted his life to ensuring that women did indeed have choices when confronted with an unintended or untenable pregnancy. His murder – his assassination – is intended to terrorize not only all involved with providing abortions but anyone even remotely associated with abortion rights." The Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism also condemned Tiller's murder.
Other reactions included:
*David N. O'Steen, director the National Right to Life Committee
The National Right to Life Committee (NRLC) is the oldest and largest national anti-abortion organization in the United States with affiliates in all 50 states and more than 3,000 local chapters nationwide.
Since the 1980s, NRLC has influenc ...
released this statement on May 31, 2009:
* Operation Rescue released this statement on May 31, 2009:
*Mary Kay Culp, director of Kansans for Life, said that the organization "deplores the murder of Dr. George Tiller, and we wish to express our deep and sincere sympathy to his family and friends. We value life, completely deplore violence, and are shocked and very upset by what happened in Wichita today."
*Randall Terry
Randall Allen Terry (born April 25, 1959) is an American politician and activist. Terry founded the anti-abortion organization Operation Save America, Operation Rescue. Beginning in 1987, the group became particularly prominent for blockading th ...
, the founder of Operation Rescue, condemned the victim rather than the murderer:
* Wiley Drake, vice-presidential candidate for the America's Independent Party ticket in 2008 and the second vice president of the Southern Baptist Convention
The Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), alternatively the Great Commission Baptists (GCB), is a Christian denomination based in the United States. It is the world's largest Baptist organization, the largest Protestant, and the second-largest Chr ...
in 2006–2007, asked on his radio show, "Would you have rejoiced when Adolf Hitler died during the war? ... I would have said, 'Amen! Praise the Lord! Hallelujah! I'm glad he's dead.' This man, George Tiller, was far greater in his atrocities than Adolf Hitler, so I am happy; I am glad that he is dead."[
*Anti-abortion militants The Army of God, a group that promotes "]leaderless resistance
Leaderless resistance, or phantom cell structure, is a social resistance strategy in which small, independent groups ( covert cells), or individuals (a solo cell is called a " lone wolf"), challenge an established institution such as a law, econ ...
" as its organizing principle, issued a statement calling Tiller's presumed killer an "American hero." Donald Spitz from that group stated, "I believe what he (Scott Roeder) did was justified manslaughter to save those unborn children from the baby murderer Dr. Tiller".
*Pointing out what he saw as a philosophical problem with "non-violent" right-to-lifism, ''Reason'' columnist Jacob Sullum wrote "if you honestly believe abortion is the murder of helpless children, it's hard to see why using deadly force against those who carry it out is immoral, especially since the government refuses to act." William Saletan, Jacob Appel, Colby Cosh, and Damon Linker similarly questioned the anti-abortion movement's consistency in condemning Tiller's murder.
Some commentators argued that the treatment of the murder, by both the White House
The White House is the official residence and workplace of the president of the United States. Located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue Northwest (Washington, D.C.), NW in Washington, D.C., it has served as the residence of every U.S. president ...
and the media, was absurdly disproportionate. The day after the murder, two soldiers were attacked at an Army recruiting center in Little Rock
Little Rock is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of municipalities in Arkansas, most populous city of the U.S. state of Arkansas. The city's population was 202,591 as of the 2020 census. The six-county Central Arkan ...
, Arkansas: one died; the other suffered injuries. Comparing this incident with the Tiller murder, Michelle Malkin wrote,
James Taranto of ''The Wall Street Journal
''The Wall Street Journal'' (''WSJ''), also referred to simply as the ''Journal,'' is an American newspaper based in New York City. The newspaper provides extensive coverage of news, especially business and finance. It operates on a subscriptio ...
'' found fault with this view, claiming that its proponents failed to acknowledge that the crimes were different in nature and, therefore, in public import. Although equally "abhorrent",
Taranto also felt that the President's sentiments on the cases could be read quite differently: although his condemnation of the Tiller killing was worded far more strongly, it was only to the soldiers and their kin that condolences and sympathy were proffered, in spite of the fact that Tiller's wife was present at her husband's death. "If anything", Taranto opined, the statement was somewhat "cowardly", and the pains to which he went to appease the anti-abortion movement were duly noted.
Another response to Malkin's charge of "disparate treatment of the two brutal cases" has been that the true disparity was the mass media's downplaying of Roeder's Christianity. In this view, major media outlets "relegate Mr. Roeder's religious motivation to the margins, while all play up Mr. Muhammad's connections to Islam."
Fox News Channel
The Fox News Channel (FNC), commonly known as Fox News, is an American multinational conservative news and political commentary television channel and website based in New York City, U.S. It is owned by Fox News Media, which itself is ow ...
commentator Bill O'Reilly has also been accused of demonizing Tiller. O'Reilly was found to have mentioned Tiller by name on ''The O'Reilly Factor
''The O'Reilly Factor'' (originally titled ''The O'Reilly Report'' and also known as ''The Factor'') is an American cable television news and talk show. ''The O'Reilly Factor'' first aired in the United States on Fox News Channel on October 7 ...
'', his show on the Fox News Channel, 42 separate times prior to Tiller's death, referring to him specifically as a "baby killer" in 24 instances. O'Reilly said he was not responsible for Tiller's death and defended his campaign against Tiller, saying:
In 2009, Congressman Keith Ellison
Keith Maurice Ellison (born August 4, 1963) is an American politician and lawyer serving since 2019 as the 30th attorney general of Minnesota. A member of the Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party (DFL), Ellison was the U.S. representative for fr ...
said, "There is no room in America to 'justify' murder in the name of ideological differences. I condemn the act committed against Dr. Tiller as well as those who take comfort from his death."
On June 9, U.S. Representative Louise Slaughter sponsored a House resolution condemning the murder of Tiller, which was unanimously passed.
Several anti-abortion
Anti-abortion movements, also self-styled as pro-life movements, are involved in the abortion debate advocating against the practice of abortion and its Abortion by country, legality. Many anti-abortion movements began as countermovements in r ...
groups claimed to have received death threats
A death threat is a threat, often made Anonymity, anonymously, by one person or a group of people to kill another person or group of people. These threats are often designed to intimidate victims in order to Psychological manipulation, manipulat ...
in the aftermath of the shooting, some of them threatening "vengeance" against the anti-abortion movement.
Although most anti-abortion activists avoided Tiller's funeral, 17 members from the Westboro Baptist Church
The Westboro Baptist Church (WBC) is an American unaffiliated Primitive Baptists, Primitive Baptist church in Topeka, Kansas, that was founded in 1955 by pastor Fred Phelps. It is widely considered a hate group and a cult, and is known for Prot ...
picketed the funeral. The church members held signs that read "God sent the shooter", "Abortion is bloody murder", and "Baby Killer in Hell".
Trial of Scott Roeder
On June 2, 2009, the District Attorney of the 18th Judicial District of the State of Kansas filed charges on behalf of the State of Kansas against Scott Roeder consisting of one count first-degree murder and two counts of aggravated assault. A preliminary hearing was held in Wichita on July 28, 2009.
Judge Warren Wilbert ruled on January 8, 2010, that he would allow Roeder's defense team to argue for a voluntary manslaughter
Voluntary manslaughter is the killing of a human in which the offender acted in the heat of passion, a state that would cause a reasonable person to become emotionally or mentally disturbed to the point that they cannot reasonably control thei ...
conviction, which in Kansas is defined as killing with "an unreasonable but honest belief that circumstances existed that justified deadly force."
Jury selection was scheduled to begin Monday, January 11, 2010, but was delayed after prosecutors challenged the judge's decision to allow the defense to build a case for a lesser charge. Selection proceedings began in closed session on January 12, 2010. Judge Wilbert had ordered jury selection closed to the public and press citing fears jurors would be less than truthful if questioned in public. The Kansas State Supreme Court overturned his order, although parts of the questions to individual jurors remained private.
The court heard opening statements on January 22, 2010.
The defense had asked the court to hear the testimony of the former Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline and Barry Disney, a current member of that office. Both had previously tried to convict Tiller of providing illegal late-term abortions. The judge, upon previewing the testimony of Kline, disallowed his testimony pointing out such abortions are legal in Kansas and citing the possibility of prejudicing the jury.
Scott Roeder took the stand in his own defense on January 28, 2010. At the outset, he admitted to killing Tiller, defending his act as an attempt to save unborn children and giving his views on abortion. Under questioning by his attorney, he attempted to describe abortion practices in detail but was repeatedly halted by objections based on his lack of medical expertise.
Following Roeder's testimony on the stand, Judge Wilbert ruled that the jury would not have the voluntary manslaughter option.
On January 29, 2010, the jury returned a verdict of guilty on all three charges after less than 40 minutes of deliberation. Roeder's attorneys appealed the conviction, arguing that the jury should have been given the voluntary manslaughter option. The Kansas Supreme Court heard the appeal on January 29, 2014, and rejected it, upholding Roeder's conviction, on October 24, 2014.
On April 1, 2010, in Wichita, Kansas, Sedgwick County District Judge Warren Wilbert sentenced Roeder to a "Hard 50", meaning life in prison with no possibility of parole for 50 years, for the murder of Tiller, the maximum sentence available in Kansas, plus an additional two years for the two counts of aggravated assault. Since then, the U.S. Supreme Court has altered the rules regarding when mandatory minimum sentences such as the "Hard 50" may be imposed, and on October 24, 2014, the Kansas Supreme Court called for re-sentencing. According to the U.S. Supreme Court's decision, the "hard 50" can still be imposed, but the finding that the circumstances of the crime justify the sentence must be made by a jury, rather than by the judge.
On November 23, 2016, Roeder was re-sentenced to life in prison but is now eligible to apply for parole after serving 25 years rather than after 50 years. As before, besides the sentence for murder, Roeder was also sentenced to two additional years for aggravated assault because he had threatened to shoot two church ushers while fleeing the murder. Sedgwick County District Attorney Marc Bennett said that prosecutors made the decision not to convene a new jury or ask for the reinstatement of the "hard 50", because of Roeder's age, his worsening health, and the likelihood that he will die in prison before the 25 years pass. The prosecutors also consulted Tiller's family, who said that they were comfortable with the reduction.
Further threats from prison
In 2013, Roeder was placed in solitary confinement for 45 days for issuing further threats of violence during a telephone interview with anti-abortion activist David Leach. He referenced the work of Julie Burkhart, Founder and CEO of Trust Women Foundation to open an abortion providing facility in Wichita.
Aftermath
The National Network of Abortion Funds established the George Tiller Memorial Abortion Fund.
Tiller's murder was covered by and alluded to in film and television from 2013 documentary '' After Tiller'', which follows the lives of four other late-term abortion providers after Tiller's murder, to the anti-abortion movie '' Unplanned'' (2019). It also inspired an episode of the television legal drama ''Law & Order
''Law & Order'' is an American police procedural and legal drama television series created by Dick Wolf and produced by Wolf Entertainment and Universal Television, launching the ''Law & Order'' franchise.
''Law & Order'' aired its entire ...
'', "Dignity
Dignity is a human's contentment attained by satisfying physiological needs and a need in development. The content of contemporary dignity is derived in the new natural law theory as a distinct human good.
As an extension of the Enlightenment- ...
". In that episode, an anti-abortion activist murdered a doctor who performed late-term abortions in New York. The defense said it was a justifiable homicide
The concept of justifiable homicide in criminal law is a defense to culpable homicide (criminal or negligent homicide). Generally, there is a burden to produce exculpatory evidence in the legal defense of justification.
In most countries, ...
, since the murderer did it to prevent the doctor from performing a late-term abortion on a specific woman; hence, he did it in defense of another human being. In the end, the jury decided that the defendant was guilty of murder in the first degree. The episode's reception was polarized: the anti-abortion blogosphere
The blogosphere is made up of all blogs and their interconnections. The term implies that blogs exist together as a connected community (or as a collection of connected communities) or as a social networking service in which everyday authors can pu ...
appreciated the episode's handling of the abortion issue as a whole, while many pro-abortion rights sources condemned the episode.
References
External links
More news coverage at Kansas.com/tiller
Stories, videos and photo galleries related to George Tiller and Scott Roeder, from ''The Wichita Eagle'' ALERT: LINK IS DEAD
(The State of Kansas vs. Scott P. Roeder), FindLaw
FindLaw is a business of Internet Brands that provides online legal information in the form of state laws, case law and codes, legal blogs and articles, a lawyer directory, DIY legal services and products, and other legal resources. The compa ...
, June 2, 2009
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