The Witchita Eagle, apparently relaying an article from the Kansas City Star, is reporting today that Scott P. Roeder, Dr. George Tiller’s suspected killer, was arrested Sunday about three hours after the shooting. Mr. Roeder is expected to be charged today. If the shooting wasn’t already tragic enough, the sloppy choice of words in the article adds further insult to injury. Says the The Eagle in its first line,
The suspect in custody in connection with the slaying of abortion doctor George Tiller was a member of an anti-government group in the 1990s and a staunch opponent of abortion.
Now, that’s interesting. I mean the first line, which gives us the “hook” that the suspected killer of an abortionist is “a staunch opponent of abortion.” We’ll leave the connection between “anti-government” and anti-abortion for now.
Note that there’s no mention of whether Mr. Roeder is a great lover of English peas, votes consistently Libertarian in national elections, is left-handed, or prefers Bach over Beethoven. No, he’s “a staunch opponent of abortion.” (Read the entire Eagle article. Mr. Roeder appears to have been a passionate anti-abortionist. But passionate views do not always translate into killing someone.)
To me, this type of verbiage trivializes the tragedy of Dr. Tiller’s death and the deaths of the pre-born babies, some sources are saying as high as 60,000, Dr. Tiller orchestrated over the course of his career. My fear is that all of these preventable tragedies will get lost in the heat of the moment, in the heat of human passion, when article writers, bloggers, and commentators do not stick to these core issues but stray off in some sort of self-righteous judgment.
As an example, note how in a commentary Mike Hendrick at the Kansas City Star even calls vitriolic pro-lifers “accomplices”:
However, the motive for the crime we can all surmise, given the vitriolic rhetoric aimed at Tiller these past couple of decades by anti-abortion activists.
And if we’re right about that, then we know the identities of his accomplices.
They include everyone who has ever called Tiller’s late-term abortion clinic a murder mill.
Whoever called Tiller “Tiller the Killer.”
Groups that fomented hate toward a man who, rightly or wrongly, believed he was serving a noble purpose by being one of the few doctors in the country who performed late-term abortions.
Hate. Not heated opposition. Not strong disagreement.
But blind hatred.
Dr. Tiller was killed. A suspect has been captured. If he is guilty, he should be brought to justice; if not, he should be released. And the peaceful, non-violent debate over abortion should go on.
Focus, people, focus.
[...] over at Reproductive Health Reality Check. As we’ve noted from other groups before (Kansas City Star, National Abortion Federation, Planned Parenthood, NARAL Pro-Choice America), the radical [...]