Pro-Lifer Laments His Role in Abortion Doctor's Death

by Karen Hatter | June 2, 2009 at 01:44 pm

524 views | 58 Recommendations | 23 comments

Frank Schaeffer accepts responsibility for the role he and his father, the late Francis Schaeffer, played in the radicalization of the pro life movement, sharing the blame, in addition to his father, with others of the pro life movement for the murder of Dr. George Tiller.

Dubbed Tiller the Baby Killer by elements within the pro life movement, Dr. Tiller was murdered while attending church in Wichita, Kansas on Sunday, May 31, 2009.

Mr. Schaeffer's father was the author of A Christian Manifesto, which advocated the use of force if all else failed in rolling back Roe vs Wade, the landmark abortion rights court decision.

Citing his father's comparison of America to Hitler's Germany due to legalized abortion, he states his father believed methods that could be considered morally jusitified for removing Hitler should be considered justified for ending abortion.

Mr. Schaffer states he left the movement he helped his father create in the mid 1980s.

Click here to read How I (and Other "Pro Life" Leaders) Contributed to Dr. Tiller's Death .

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Rhonda J Mangus

at 15:55 on June 2nd, 2009

Thanks for this, Karen.

albertacowpoke

at 16:21 on June 2nd, 2009

Killing an abortion doctor doesn.t sound very pro life to me. Sounds more like an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth to me.

Barbara McPherson

at 16:27 on June 2nd, 2009

There may be numerous reasons why a late term abortion is necessary. It should always be a decision made by the pregnant woman. It is her that bears the child and labours to deliver it.

Amy Judd

at 16:48 on June 2nd, 2009

I agree with Barbara here - there may be reasons others are not aware of that might make a late-term abortion a possible option.

Roy C

at 17:03 on June 2nd, 2009

There is only one medical reason that I have ever heard of: taking the life of a fetus in a case of multiple pregnancies when the fetus is dying and its death would cause the death of the other fetuses.

What other reason could there possibly be to take the life of a human being in the third trimester when it has a very good chance of surviving outside of the womb?

And, Roe vs Wade allows the state to say no.

Killing this guy was wrong and illegal.

Third trimester abortions other than for a legitimate physical medical reason are just as wrong and still legal.

Amy Judd

at 18:26 on June 2nd, 2009

Just playing devil's advocate here, but what about if a woman didn't know she was pregnant and found out late in her pregnancy and wanted to terminate as she didn't want children? Does anyone think that is a viable reason?

(I am not advocating this at all, just merely asking questions).

Yellow Guitar

at 14:10 on June 3rd, 2009

Hey Amy,

Here's the problem I have with that line of logic (and I know there's more than logic involved here but...) - a woman in the late stages of pregnancy already has children whether she wants it or not. Making the choice now is like slamming the barn door when the horses are long gone. A woman may have the right to make that choice, but it's the wrong choice, and this needs to be said in no uncertain terms.

Having said that, I'm glad I will never have to make that terrible choice. I would do everything in my power to help a woman bring her baby to term, but ultimately the choice is hers' to make. My issue is with the fact that given the absence of any clear laws in the matter here in Canada, I am being forced to pay for a procedure that I don't in any way support. If my wife and I decided to abort a pregnancy (and we would decide this together as we would any other major life decision) we should be expected to pay for this option ourselves, unless of course there are valid life-threatening medical concerns about my wife's health.

Pythiian1

at 17:09 on June 2nd, 2009

I'd venture to echo Barbara and Amy on this extremely sensitive issue of choice insofar as these decisions are made by women with specific reason or condition that no one outside of their families and doctors could possibly know.

Roy C

at 18:02 on June 2nd, 2009

How do you know that, Pythian? What possible reason could be so unknowable and such a secret? Sounds like an excuse to do the left-wing "we don't condemn and judge people" thing, unless the act or actor is centrist or right-wing, and then the left goes to town.

I have had courses in Public Health and abortion and pre-natal care and I have never heard of a reason that is medically sound outside of the one I cited.

If you can name one reason for an abortion in the third-trimester that would be legitimate in your mind, then, please, give voice to that reason.

Depression, Down's Syndrome, nothing I know of would justify a late-term abortion. But, as I have just said, if you know of one other than the one I mentioned, please do inform me as to what it is.

cyn.khoo

at 00:22 on June 3rd, 2009

"Such a secret"? It's not exactly the kind of thing you discover/decide then go home and tweet about. The last time I checked, medical history and complications weren't something you shared with just anyone, let alone strangers who know neither you nor your situation and yet condemn you for making a personal choice that affects only you and yours.

Also, what about the woman? She doesn't even seem to be considered at all in your comments. What if the pregnancy threatens her life and they tried to push through it but the situation just got worse, until they had no choice? In a lot of cases it's because they don't find out until towards the end that the fetus has a fatal disease that would give them, at most, a very short, painful, hospital-filled lifespan. Were your courses so thorough that they taught you EVERYTHING about birth and all its possible risks and mutations, so that you know more than someone who has presumably taken so many more courses that they got a medical degree out of it, and still more than someone actually experiencing said condition?

Any given person doesn't just WANT an abortion, you know. They don't do it for kicks, just like nobody goes through open heart surgery for kicks, yet gets it done. As an article I read pointed out, which I think a lot of people including myself forget, abortion is an intensely personal thing. You can have no idea of the emotional, physical, psychological, social, medical, physiological, or ethical/moral issues involved, unless you yourself have been born and raised a girl then a woman in this world, gotten pregnant, then for one reason or another had to face the issue of abortion and then decide either way.

There are many women who have begun telling their stories behind the reasons they found it necessary to see Dr. Tiller. Here's just one link: http://www.salon.com/mwt/broadsheet/feature/2009/06/01/late_term_abortion/

On another note, I've asked myself the same thing many times about left-wingers and right-wingers, and each time I've come to the same conclusion. It seems that most of the time left-wingers judge and condemn, it's because those under "attack" were judging and condemning others first, for things that they had no business in. But most of the time right-wingers judge and condemn, it's for people exercising what should be considered their own individual freedoms (religion, sexuality, gender roles, etc.), whose actions don't affect anyone but themselves. Left-wingers judge and condemn judging and condemning. Right-wingers simply judge and condemn independent choices and actions. Just think about it: most of the major social fights between left- and right-wing people begin with the right wanting to stop or restrict some aspect of a person's personal life or human rights. Then the left mobilizes to retain whichever aspect of personal freedom or rights is being attacked by the right. That's somewhat of a gross over-generalization, but it's the clearest way I can think of right now to get the main point across.

Karen Hatter

at 20:27 on June 3rd, 2009

Well stated, Cyn.khoo.

Amy Judd

at 13:41 on June 3rd, 2009

Roy, I'm sorry, but just because you have had course in public health, abortion or pre-natal care doesn't mean that you can speak on this issue any more than any of us can, and doesn't mean that there are reasons outside of the one you have heard of for a possible late-term abortion.

I even replied to your comment above to try and generate some legitimate discussion by asking a question but no one wanted to reply to that, so please don't bait pythiian1 and single them out just because you don't like their political views.

Roy C

at 17:43 on June 2nd, 2009

Blaming O'Reilly is a great way to project your own father-complexes. Yes, Tiller is a baby-killer for O'Reilly, and I would not have used that term, but that is not a call to an act of violence.

Most of the organized religions do think that late-term abortions are not good, even those that accept abortion. Yes, whether we are talking Louis Farakhan or the Dalai Lama or a Hindu, most of the world's religions do not accept late-term abortions apart from exceptional circumstances, yet most do accept abortion in the first trimester and some into the second. Even the medieval Church accepted first-trimester abortions.

Farrakhan's position:

“ You condemn murder on the streets”. Farrakhan said,” but you don’t condemn the quiet murder that goes on in abortion clinics throughout America”.

The Muslim position is derived from Aristotle and was the church's position as well for centuries.

Islam

Although there are different opinions among Islamic scholars about when life begins and when abortion is permissible, most agree that the termination of a pregnancy after four months - the point at which, in Islam, a fetus is thought to become a living soul - is not permissible.[6] Many Islamic thinkers contend that in cases prior to four months of gestation, abortion should be permissible only in instances in which a mother's life is in danger or in cases of rape.[6]

Among Muslims, abortion is Haram or forbidden in most cases but is acceptable depending on the circumstances around the pregnancy. In the case where the mother's life is threatened by the pregnancy, Muslim jurists agree that abortion is allowed based on the principle that "the greater evil [the woman's death] should be warded off by the lesser evil [abortion]." In these cases the physician is considered a better judge than the scholar.[29]

Islamic scholars differ on when life begins. The medieval scholar Al-Ghazali writes that life occurs "when semen is injected into the womb where it merges with the ovum and becomes predisposed to receive life."[30] 120 days is often seen as the point at which a fetus becomes fully human.[6] This has been described as an angel coming and "breathing life into the fetus." Before this time, the fetus lacks a human soul, and is considered on the same level as plants and animals.[31] Hanafi, Shafi and Zaydi schools of thought permit abortion before the fourth month.[31]

Muslims universally agree that the mother's life takes precedence over the life of the fetus. This is because the mother is considered the "original source of life," while the fetus is only "potential" life.[32]

Some Muslim scholars also argue in favor of abortion in early pregnancy if the newborn might be sick in some way that would make its care exceptionally difficult for the parents (eg. deformities, mental retardation, etc). Some scholars argue that abortion is allowed for important reasons in the first 40 days. Sheikh Nasr Farid Wasil extends this period to 120 days.[33] Ikrima Sabri, the Grand Mufti of Palestine, gave a ruling that Muslim women raped by Serb men during the Kosovo War could take abortifacient medicine.[34][35]

Yellow Guitar

at 21:08 on June 2nd, 2009

Thanks Roy. This puts good light on the issue from a number of important viewpoints.

The last piece about the Serbian rape of Kosovo (I was working there in 2001 when the smoke had cleared) raises the spectre of war being fought in the womb itself. Both the conception of the new life, and the subsequent abortion are, in the coldest of terms, acts of war. What a sad sad place this world can be.

Karen Hatter

at 18:04 on June 2nd, 2009

As one of the founders of the radical pro life movement, Mr. Schaeffer offers a rare look into the cultivation of the mindset of intolerance toward the doctors and workers at the hands of the pro life movement, with the doctors and staff acting within the law, whether those pro life advocates agree or not.

Special attention should be paid to his admonition that there is danger when advocates cross the line, as a result of incendiary rhetoric, becoming fanatics rationalizing murder as they proclaim themselves pro life.

Roy C

at 18:51 on June 2nd, 2009

Mr. Schaeffer is, indeed, guilty. The anti-abortion movement was way, way, out of line.

O'Reilly is not guilty of inciting violence. And, if you think that O'Reilly is guilty, then there are many like him on the left, including Al Sharpton , Farrakhan calling abortion "an act of murder", his comments about Jews, members of La Raza, and even Bill Ayers who are also guilty using this standard.

In fact, as President Cossiga of Italy said about the murder of the prime minister of Italy, Aldo Moro, by left-wing Marxist Brigati Rossi, it was the rhetoric and theories of Marxism by university professors and others that were responsible for Aldo Moro's kidnapping and death.

And maybe the whole critique of the right, coming from the left, would have more credibility if the left was ever accountable for their own historic acts of inhumanity by the same standard.

Karen Hatter

at 20:24 on June 3rd, 2009

Regarding abortion, Roy, the major distinction to be made regarding Bill O'Reilly is Mr. O'Reilly stands alone in promoting incendiary rhetoric by his coverage of Dr. Tiller on Fox News for four years, consistently railing and name calling, accusing him, by name, of murder.

Anyone declaring their belief that abortion is murder, in a general sense, differs greatly from an extended campaign detailing the perceived sins of a specific individual, in this case, the late Dr. Tiller.

Blue Crush

at 18:03 on June 2nd, 2009

When a woman terminates a pregnancy after 15 weeks (after you can feel movement), there are more than likely medical reasons for doing so. Anyone that's had a baby within their womb would realize that. And amniocentesis isn't done until 18 weeks.

Roy C

at 18:42 on June 2nd, 2009

Really? You are saying that is what you would do. I have heard and known about cases where the abortion was done very late and the only thing wanted was a termination of a pregnancy.

In fact, the woman had to leave Italy because by then doing an abortion was illegal in Italy, but not yet in the UK.

So, it does happen.

Roy C

at 18:28 on June 2nd, 2009

QueensHart

at 18:44 on June 2nd, 2009

Incendiary rhetoric ? If someone kills anyone from Fox News that the loons from the left wing love to batter all the time, will they be sorry? I don't think so.

This is all such NEW DISPLACED RAGE being inflamed with the rage that pro abortionists FEEL about their opponents, the ones they hate. Kinda like that expression my Granny used to say about the pot calling the kettle black.. It is still freedom of speech when they talk, but if people disagree with them, it's incendiary rhetoric.

If only we had a human scale to measure the hearts of those who spew incendiary rhetoric !!

Ahh bull. Mr. Schaeffer is a loon . .(why he was in the movement to begin with and now at the opposite end of the complex).

The temperature was raised on President Bush unbelievably. I see big brother coming now.

NOTHING BILL O REILLY SAID CAUSED THIS MAN TO KILL THIS DOCTOR.

James M. Henderson, Sr. (not verified)

at 21:39 on June 3rd, 2009

Schaeffer is a useless diversion wrapped in fairly wasted skin. His father never advocated violence of the sort he now accepts blame for. Jeepers, Frankie, go back and read your dad's books. What he did advocate was to remove oneself from conflict for so long and so often as was possible and necessary. Only when armed action was the only remaining alternative did the dad express spiritual support for armed action. In fact, the elder Schaeffer's reasoning matches our Declaration, which justified armed rebellion only when abuses that could be suffered had been suffered for as long as they could be.

Dragging out Frankie Schaeffer to prove a point related to Christian responsibility for the Tiller murder is considerably less justified than say dragging out Jeffrey Dahmer to prove the connection between serial murder and homosexual criminals.

former Canadian (not verified)

at 04:31 on June 4th, 2009

Isn't it rather sad that we in the modern world use the words "pro Choice" for the killing of a viable baby? Think about it....I do not condone murder of anyone, including abortion doctors. Having said that, what have we become as a society when we value our vacations and "things" more than children? All I can say is shame on us!

Karen Hatter

at 09:45 on June 9th, 2009

My thanks to all who stopped by to read and offered something substantive to the comments thread.

It may be necessary, in referencing those who oppose abortion, to make a distinct delineation between those who would be called pro lifers and those who would be more correctly called anti abortionists, as those who seek to use violence with the intent to do fatal injury are denying life to their target.