Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, August 25, 1993 TAG: 9403170002
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A11 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Cal Thomas
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
So what are we to make of the killing of Florida abortionist David Gunn in March and the wounding last Thursday of Wichita abortionist George Tiller? By the same logic, the violence would be the result of the pro-choice rhetoric of President Clinton and his administration. Or will pro-choicers claim it is the residual effect of the Reagan-Bush years?
President Clinton was quick to denounce the shooting of Dr. Tiller as ``reprehensible.'' During the presidential campaign, Clinton said he wanted to reduce the number of abortions because there were too many (even though he signed pro-choice fund-raising letters at the time). But since taking office he has issued orders and supported legislation that have expanded the number of abortions performed.
I spoke with Luhra Tivis about the Tiller shooting. Tivis worked in Tiller's clinic between May and November of 1988 and, since her experience there, has had a change of heart about abortion. While she said she doesn't condone violence, she labeled Tiller's shooting as one event on a ``slippery slope.'' ``Once you make murder legal in some instances like abortion and euthanasia,'' she told me, ``you start sliding down to the situation ethics of justifying murder to remove any inconvenient person. [Now] killers are shooting at killers.''
This, of course, is not a justification for murder or attempted murder. What Tivis is saying is that when the value of life is diminished in one category, it quickly is diminished in others. Dr. Jack Kevorkian is the predictable result of a society that has ceased to value all human life as unique and sacred.
Isn't it just as wrong and reprehensible to shoot an abortionist as it is to end the life of a baby in the womb, no matter the legality of the situation? But perhaps many people would find reprehensible what goes on inside Tiller's abortion clinic.
Tivis told me that when she worked at Tiller's clinic she was in charge of ``selling'' abortions. ``Women were treated abruptly and received no counseling until after their baby had been killed,'' Tivis said. According to Tivis, Tiller allegedly used ``dishonest sonogram methods, often diagnosing third-trimester readings as second trimester.'' His fees then, she said, were between $1,850 and $3,500. ``He always emphasized money,'' said Tivis. She claimed that, by her calculation of the number of abortions performed times the average fee, the doctor probably netted $750,000 the year she worked there.
Tivis said that while she was there she never saw Tiller perform viability tests on fetuses, though many clinics that referred women to him believed he did. Tivis described what goes on inside Tiller's clinic to the Kansas Legislature two years ago as ``nauseating business'' and wrote the legislators a letter that stated allowing Tiller to operate his abortion clinic was ``a blot'' on that body.
Of course, it is good for this president, or any president, to denounce violence. It would be nice if this president would live up to his campaign promise to do what he could to reduce the violence against the unborn inside abortion clinics.
Los Angeles Times Syndicate
by CNB