Pharyngula

Posted by: MAJeff, OM | May 31, 2009 6:13 PM

Done!

Posted by: northern virginia | May 31, 2009 6:28 PM

I'll second that.

Posted by: Natasha Fairweather | May 31, 2009 6:37 PM

Medical Students for Choice is a good option for Canadians - they have chapters all throughout the US and Canada. Some of the other options are US-specific, which is fine of course. I just wanted to mention that for any Canucks reading.

Posted by: puseaus | May 31, 2009 6:43 PM

Small amount donated. Wish I was in the position to donate a complete public health care system to all Americans. That would be including an efficient mental health care system to deal with those cases of insanity. Gotta have a dream!

Posted by: Eduardo Padoan | May 31, 2009 7:06 PM

And if you was baptized on a Catholic church, send them a letter with a copy of the donation receipt.

Posted by: Sabazinus | May 31, 2009 7:13 PM

Donation made to Planned Parenthood.

Posted by: Randomfactor | May 31, 2009 7:45 PM

$50 to Planned Parenthood of Kansas

Posted by: strange gods before me | May 31, 2009 8:09 PM

the real moral issue is about whether a bag of cells is an actual life which has full human rights, and the answer attacked by hard logic is for the most part, no, for the first 6 months. It is not about women's choice, at least not for me. For me, it is about what medical procedures should a free society allow, and what shouldn't. And I'm overall very much in favor of abortion given considered circumstances...

Crossposted:

Even if the fetus is a person at some point, it does not follow that it then has the right to use the woman's body for its own purposes. Let's say I need a kidney or I will die. Do I have the right to use the force of the state to remove your kidney and give it to me? No. No person has the right to force another person to give use of their body.

A fetus takes calcium out of a woman's bones, utilizes a vast share of her metabolic processes, weakens her immune system, alters her hormones and thus her mood and mind, and damages her reproductive system on the way out, all this assuming there are zero complications.

All that's fine if she wants to have that baby. But if she does not, then she is a victim of force and the state has no business preventing her from ending her victimhood. Rather, she is entitled to the protection of the state when she walks past protestors on the sidewalk outside the abortion clinic.

And restricting abortion does not lower the number of abortions, but it does raise the number of women's deaths. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/12/world/12abortion.html

Posted by: (((Billy))) The Atheist | May 31, 2009 9:02 PM

I added a link to Feministe on my post regarding this murder. I will be making a contribution when I get paid, but figured I also needed to help spread the word. Great idea in his memory.

Posted by: Frik | May 31, 2009 9:24 PM

While I don't believe that abortion doctors should be murdered, I think pro-choicers are making a bad move in getting behind Tiller. Tiller performed late term abortions, some of which may have been illegal, past the date of viability. Unless the woman or her unborn child is dying, I don't see why late term abortions need to be legal. And furthermore, I find it disgusting that anyone would perform one, unless it was to save a life.

Posted by: Bill O'Reilly Says | May 31, 2009 9:41 PM

BILL O'REILLY SAYS: "If you have a society that's not the same in 2008 that it was in 2000 -- and let's take the abortion issue. More and more and more, Planned Parenthood and the abortion zealots have made inroads. Now, 12-year-olds can have abortions and then their parents are not told."

"Now, a guy in Kansas, George Tiller, OK, can kill a baby -- kill a baby -- a half-hour before the baby's supposed to be birthed for no reason whatsoever other than the mother has a pain in her foot. OK? Mother's health: pain in the foot, migraine headache, whatever it may be. So, anybody looking at this says, 'You know, the spectrum has gone too far to the left and I'm gonna readjust my opinion to try to get it under control.'"

Posted by: Mary Kay | May 31, 2009 9:57 PM

As I've stated in the other two threads, not a single fact is known about Tiller's killer, yet all of you have jumped to an unsubstantiated conclusion.

You're all being irrational about this. What will it take for you to get that?

Posted by: MAJeff, OM | May 31, 2009 9:59 PM

Good to see MaryKay continuing to troll and ignoring that they arrested an operation rescue member.

Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM | May 31, 2009 10:01 PM

MaryKay, what part of ignoring the news aren't you understanding. The guy was part of operation rescue. You lose. So STFU.

Posted by: Cerberus | May 31, 2009 10:02 PM

#19

This.

Also, fuck you.

Posted by: Cerberus | May 31, 2009 10:11 PM

Mary Kay-

I'm terribly sorry.

How would you recommend we respond to the deliberate targeted terrorism against us? Some light jazz, a calm reflection of how wonderful and sainted pro-life terrorists are?

Or the traditional, where we beat our breasts and cry how woeful it was to be born women and we look eversomuch forward to sucking our god/husband's fat cock in total subservience and lack of attention to any such needs penetrate our Stepford Wife robot skulls?

Please, do elaborate, and be specific, I wouldn't want to displease the people willing to kill a man just so we know they think we're all sluts who deserve to die if we ever get pregnant.

Posted by: crowepps | May 31, 2009 10:15 PM

Unless the woman or her unborn child is dying, I don't see why late term abortions need to be legal. And furthermore, I find it disgusting that anyone would perform one, unless it was to save a life.

By simultaneously claiming that you are ignorant of the facts and also disgusted by those who provide the necessary solution you are making a statement that is intellectually dishonest. If you educate yourself on the actual facts about complications of pregnancy and flawed neonatal development you will see why late term abortions need to be legal - to prevent suffering and save lives.

Posted by: CulturalIconography | May 31, 2009 10:25 PM

A donation to Planned Parenthood; hope it provides some small assistance to them.

I noticed that Operation Rescue released a statement strongly condemning the murder, without the usual stupid "Well, we're sorry he's dead, but if he wasn't an 'abortionist', he wouldn't have been killed" BS. It's too bad they are only moved to statements after the fact; maybe if they trained their disciples that murdering an abortion provider is just plain wrong, illegal, morally reugnant and, oh, I don't know, just a wee bit hypocritical?

It wouldn't make any difference, though, would it? Never mind...

Posted by: Mary Kay | May 31, 2009 10:34 PM

When this thread started, the suspect had not been identified.

The only basis I can see is that SR supposedly posted on the Operation Rescue website. That does NOT make him "an active member of Operation Rescue" any more than my posting on this website makes me "an active member of Pharyngula."

Thank you for proving my original point.

PS Rudeness simply demonstrates an inability to have a discussion with others.

Posted by: Dianne | May 31, 2009 10:41 PM

Mary Kay has about 0.05 of a point in that the current suspect is just that: a suspect. He hasn't been convicted and should be considered innocent until proven guilty like any other suspect of any other crime. That having been said, the chances of Dr. Tiller's killer being someone other than a rabid "pro-lifer" are so low as to be not worth mentioning. But this particular suspect hasn't yet been convicted nor, as far as I know anyway, has he confessed.

Posted by: CalGeorge | May 31, 2009 11:06 PM

Here's an interesting headline, from LifeNews.com:

George Tiller Shooting Suspect Caught, No Connection With Pro-Life Groups

Wichita, KS (LifeNews.com) -- Authorities have apprehended a Kansas man suspected of killing late-term abortion practitioner George Tiller on Sunday morning at his church. Police have identified the man as 51-year-old Scott Roeder of Merriam, Kansas and he has been detained but has not yet been officially charged.

As has been the case with most previous incidents of abortion-related violence, Roeder appears to have an affiliation with extremist political groups but not with the mainstream pro-life movement.

...

http://www.lifenews.com/state4189.html

Truly deluded.

Posted by: Sniper | May 31, 2009 11:49 PM

I donated to Medical Students for Choice. They allow you to donate in memory of someone; I made mine out for Dr. Tiller.

Posted by: phylosopher | June 1, 2009 12:17 AM

IN addition to donating, I think this would be a very good time to email President Obama, and your Senators and Congress person to pass FOCA now.

Posted by: Michael Hawkins | June 1, 2009 1:22 AM

This is a problem Obama has raised more than a few times: misframing positions. It is true that many anti-abortion adovocates are horribly demeaning and unfair to women. However, we all know their motivations are not to hold women down or to deny them rights. It's like when Fox Noise says Obama is pro-abortion. He isn't. We all know he isn't. They're framing his position in an unfair way that doesn't get to the heart of anything he believes. Just the same, calling anti-abortionists also anti-women is unfair. We all know their arguments do not center around denying women their rights. They believe differentiated cells constitute human life.

The rational among can surely agree that these people hold silly views that are unsupported by any degree of common sense or scientific evidence. However, if we're rational enough to agree on that, shouldn't we also be rational enough to recognize that anti-abortionists are not also anti-women's rights by default?

Posted by: Susan | June 1, 2009 2:24 AM

Thanks for linking, PZ. I've made several donations, and signed up for continuing monthly donations to a group helping local women. I hope Dr. Tiller's death results in millions and millions of dollars donated in his memory, to help the women he cared about.

Posted by: Jadehawk, OM | June 1, 2009 2:46 AM

Just the same, calling anti-abortionists also anti-women is unfair. We all know their arguments do not center around denying women their rights. They believe differentiated cells constitute human life.

except that they don't, and there's bucketloads of evidence for that, starting at the fact that many don't want the women persecuted for murder; the fact that anti-abortionists are ok with their own abortions; that there isn't a massive drive to "cure" miscarriages (comparable to the existing efforts to defeat SIDS and other sources of infant mortality)

at best, you can say that those people have talked themselves into believing this, but on a deeper, intuitive level still don't ACTUALLY believe it.

Posted by: Azkyroth | June 1, 2009 3:13 AM

And furthermore, I find it disgusting that anyone would perform one, unless it was to save a life.

Saving a life is practically the only reason anyone DOES perform one. This is common information.

Posted by: funda62 | June 1, 2009 4:25 AM

Done and thanks for the reminder to give back. Sad we had to be reminded in this way.

Posted by: Mrs Tilton | June 1, 2009 6:18 AM

Good idea. I'm about to toddle over to the Planned Parenthood site to make a donation. In Mary Kay's name.

Posted by: Oded | June 1, 2009 8:17 AM

The issue is fundamentally about whether the right of controlling one's own fucking body that is inherent in even the most basic understanding of human rights will be respected by the legal system, or, more neutrally, it's about whether women are human. The only reason that stuff about the status of a fetus comes up is that the anti-choicers try to muddy the waters with it.

I disagree strongly. Not about the anti-choicers trying to muddy the waters, that's obvious - but that the status of the fetus has no role to play. It should obviously be illegal for a mother to kill a new born baby. It should be equally obvious that it should be illegal for a mother to kill her baby a day before birth. However, at some point, it becomes stupid to give any rights to the fetus, because that is all it is, just a bag of cells, and far better off to give rights to the woman. For me, this IS an issue about the rights of the fetus - and in my opinion, for most of the time, it doesn't have any. You could say I'm "pro-choice" or "on your side".

I might be misunderstanding you and I will concede this - perhaps the public "issue", and the issue fundamentalists really care about, is they consider the woman to have no rights over the baby, and in a pragmatic way, you are right that woman's right is the real "issue" and the whole fetus thing is a sideshow. Perhaps I'm not in tune enough to American culture to realize that this is what the whole debate is really about, and I suppose that "pro-choice" be appropriate if this is the case...

Posted by: Aquaria | June 1, 2009 9:00 AM

However, we all know their motivations are not to hold women down or to deny them rights

BULLSHIT.

Sorry for shouting, but that's just fucking bullshit.

These people do want to deny women rights. Do you think they're going to sit on their laurels if they (horrors!) ban abortion again (never mind how abortion won't go away, it'll just be a lot uglier)?

Go research some of the things the death cultists actually state about contraception. They want to get rid of it, too. All of it. They hate Griswold v. Connecticut, as much as they hate Roe v. Wade. They want women punished for having sex. They use dog-whistle terms like every woman "being responsible" or "accepting consequences" for her actions. But it's pretty clear what they mean. They use the same terms when they talk about things that are crimes, or that they consider sin.

if that's not enough to make you want to vomit, think about what would happen if these vampires get their way. Think about what it would really, truly mean if abortion and contraception were illegal. Think about what that would do to women, and their opportunities.

And I mean really think about it.

Posted by: amphiox | June 1, 2009 9:58 AM

I've said this before, but the issue of fetal rights/recognition/status/definition is a strawman.

OF COURSE a fetus has value, OF COURSE a fetus deserves some rights, some protection, some legal status.

BUT, the issue in abortion is whether or not a fetus' status is such that it OVERRIDES a pregnant woman's basic human rights.

This is the anti-abortion position in a nutshell. Either 1) pregnant women are not fully human during the duration of their pregnancy, and thus not deserving of the same human rights that other people have, and they themselves had, prior to becoming pregnant, or 2) the fetus is actually MORE human than any other human being, and deserving of MORE protection OVERRIDING even the regular human rights of an adult human being.

Posted by: Schauzermom | June 1, 2009 12:23 PM

Thanks for the heads up on pro-choice charities. Here's $50 to Medical Students for Choice in memory of Dr. Tiller, and a big FUCK YOU to Randall Terry and the enforced-pregnancy jihadists.

Posted by: D'oh! | June 2, 2009 7:23 PM

Just FYI:

Medical Students for Choice reports receiving a record number of donations over the last two days, all given in Dr. Tiller's name.

Posted by: Alvin | January 3, 2010 4:42 AM

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