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Doctor Who Performed Abortions Is Shot to Death »» The New York Times photo: AP / Orlin Wagner

Shooting of US abortion doctor shocks Obama

Monday, 1 June 2009

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Dr George Tiller who was killed by a gunman as he entered his church in Wichita yesterday while his wife sat in the choir

Violence returned to the abortion debate in the United States yesterday when a doctor who has long been the target of right-to-life activists was gunned down and killed in a church in Kansas where he was an usher.

Lawyers for George Tiller, a 67-year-old doctor who has long been one of only a few in the US willing to perform so-called "late-term" abortions, confirmed that he had been killed in the attack, which happened as he walked into the Reformation Lutheran Church in his home town of Wichita.

It was only two weeks ago that President Barack Obama gave a major speech on the abortion issue at Notre Dame University, one of the leading Catholic campuses in America. He urged both sides in the debate to avoid extremist positions even though their disagreements may be profound. Last night President Obama said he was shocked and outraged over the killing. Dr Tiller's attorney, Dan Monnat, said Tiller's wife, Jeanne, was in the choir at the time.

Ric'sComment: ..........................

Why is it that I do not feel "shock or outrage?"....Yet I felt shock and outrage when I saw videos of late term abortions on live, sentient little babies squirming in obvious agony as they had their  limbs and head cut off with a scalpel so they could pass through the birth canal by abortion doctors such as the one murdered. 

So sorry Dr Tiller. tut tut.http://www.prolifetraining.com/Abortion-Video.htm

May I add?....I feel shock and outrage when I see photos of children killed in raids on "taliban" ordered by this marvellous new president  Obama, continuing Bush's war policy.(Ric)

A public furor over civilian casualties has inflamed tensions between the U.S.-led coalition and Mr. Karzai, who called the latest deaths "unacceptable" shortly before meeting President Obama at the White House.

Last summer, the U.S. military initially disputed claims by Afghan and U.N. officials of up to 90 civilian deaths from a strike in Herat province. After an investigation and widespread protests, the U.S. military put the death toll at 33.

In the latest incident, villagers initially claimed to news agencies that 70 to 100 people or more may have died in the bombing raids late Tuesday in Farah province, a Taliban stronghold that borders Iran and Helmand province, the main source of the country's illicit opium trade.

ICRC spokeswoman Jessica Barry said a Red Cross team sent to investigate found leveled homes and dead bodies, including women and children.

"Their impression was that there were dozens of dead," she told Agence France-Presse. "We can absolutely confirm that there are civilian casualties." One victim was a community volunteer for the Afghan Red Crescent Society, who was killed with 13 members of his family, she said.

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"Here for  the hearts and minds of Afghanis"

Oh yeah? Pull the other leg.

The anatomy of this latest in a string of collateral and bad intelligence-driven killings of Afghan civilians provides a perfect view of the state of the military mission there and its predictable effects on the population, and on the level of acceptance of our presence by Afghans. The airstrikes which destroyed a community of homes was preceded by a typically fierce firefight between Afghan/coalition forces and Taliban combatants who had gotten the better of the skirmish, managed to destroy some vehicles, and had killed a number of soldiers, including one American. It's at that point that reports say that U.S. airstrikes were called in to help in the pursuit of the fighter