Vol. 73/No. 24 June 22, 2009
A defense guard of dozens organized by the National Organization for Women (NOW) in Kansas stood outside the church to secure the service against antiabortion rightists who had harassed a vigil for Tiller the night he was killed.
Tiller was shot to death in the foyer of his church on May 31. That same day Scott Roeder was arrested; a few days later he was charged with first-degree murder.
A day before the shooting a clinic worker found Roeder attempting to glue the clinic’s locks and chased him away. She wrote down Roeder’s license plate number and reported the incident to the FBI. An agent reportedly said nothing could be done until a grand jury was convened.
Roeder also has connections with organized rightist outfits such as Operation Rescue, the Freemen, and David Leach’s Des Moines newsletter Prayer and Action News, which describes the killing of abortion providers as “justifiable homicide.”
Marla Patrick, state coordinator of Kansas NOW, told the Militant that more people had volunteered for the “wall of martyrs” defense guard than had been expected. Eighty T-shirts with the NOW insignia on the front and the phrase “Attitude is Everything: Dr. George Tiller, 8/8/41-5/31/09” printed on them had been prepared for the defense guard. Many of those attending the funeral were from the Wichita area, along with others from neighboring states and as far away as New York and California.
Chaimi Winegarner, 23, a student from Wichita, said, “I’ve always supported the right for a woman to choose. I’ve gone to the clinic with my friends as a support system. Every day people are outside the clinic with signs and pictures of fetuses and they come up to your car screaming, ‘You’re going to hell.’ I don’t let them faze me. I’ve always admired the strength and the courage every day that man showed for a cause that he believed in.”
‘Stand up for my rights as a woman’
Magda Garrett, 50, a Wichita social worker, explained, “I just joined NOW this week after Doctor Tiller was killed. I’ve sat on the sidelines on the whole abortion thing. Now I feel compelled to stand up for my rights as a woman. And I have a 13-year-old daughter. I want her to have the choice.”
In response to the announcement of the decision to close Doctor Tiller’s clinic, Dr. LeRoy Carhart, who had worked with Tiller, said he was exploring every option to keep late-term abortion services available to women who need them.
A statement from Troy Newman, president of Operation Rescue, said that he hoped “threats to open another third-trimester abortion clinic in Kansas will not come to fruition.”
Antiabortion groups say they are emboldened by Tiller’s killing and the closing of his clinic. Kansas Coalition for Life president Mark Gietzen said that outfit might turn its attention to abortion clinics in the Kansas City area and North Dakota. Gietzen’s group has organized harassment of clinic workers and patients outside Tiller’s center since 2004.
During the service for Tiller there was a heavy presence of police and U.S. marshals at and around the church, and posted at windows of nearby buildings. A police helicopter circled overhead.
A group of rightists organized by Fred Phelps’s Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kansas, were kept a block away from the College Hill United Methodist Church, site of the funeral. They held signs that read, “God sent the shooter,” with a background of simulated splattered blood. Some residents of the neighborhood gathered to protest the presence of the rightists.
The Wichita Eagle reported that as of June 6, 45 vigils had been scheduled in 24 states to honor Tiller, including actions in Jacksonville, Florida; Santa Monica, California; Milwaukee and Madison, Wisconsin; Portland, Oregon; Baltimore; Rochester, New York; Denver; and Washington, D.C.
Rebecca Williamson and Lisa Rottach from Des Moines, Iowa, contributed to this article.
Related articles:
Fight to defend abortion rights!
Buffalo, New York: turning point in abortion rights fight
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