GEORGE TILLER was murdered outside of his church in Wichita, Kansas yesterday, targeted by a gunman because he provided late-term abortions. Matthew Yglesias argues that this was "a kind of terrorism that works".
Every time you murder a doctor, you create a disincentive for other medical professionals to provide these services. What’s more, you create a need for additional security at facilities around the country. In addition, the anti-abortion protestors who frequently gather near clinics are made to seem much more intimidating...
Pro-life activists have criticised the media for hyping abortion-clinic terrorism, but the threat of bombing and murder was one of the factors that cut down on the number of abortion doctors and clinics, especially those providing late-term abortions, in the 1980s and 1990s. Only four abortion providers have been killed since 1993. But these murders make less threatening acts, like when the suspect in yesterday's shooting stared down an abortion doctor at his office in 1996, much more potent.
Before Sunday, Mr Tiller was perhaps the most notorious abortionist in America, attacked on Fox News for years and used as a cudgel (unsuccessfully) against Kathleen Sebelius when, as governor of Kansas, she sought appointment as secretary of health and human services. He had been compared to Nazis, nicknamed "Tiller the Killer" and accused of running a "death mill". There is little the government can do to prevent a zealot from terrorising doctors if he wants to. But it might help if the debate over abortion was carried forth in less zealous tones.
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