In our final episode before the Thanksgiving break, tonight we're bringing you an encore showing of "The Assassination of Dr. Tiller." Rachel Maddow reports on the murder of Dr. George Tiller, an abortion provider in Wichita, Kansas, who was gunned down in his church. This is a gripping and difficult story, required viewing for everyone who wants to understand the extremism and extremists at work in American politics.
We'll be off on Thursday and Friday, then back on Monday and ready to roll.
After the jump, a couple of clips from "The Assassination of Dr. Tiller" that you can't see anywhere else, including the story of the first attempt on his life and what's become of those Dr. Tiller left behind, plus an exclusive interview with a doctor who's now being targeted.
The first attempt on Dr. Tiller's life:
The aftermath of Dr. Tiller's murder:
An exclusive interview with a doctor who's now being targeted.
Leave a Comment:
Hello Rachel!
I Love You and Love your show. I can't wait to see this special tonight. I use to be like those brain washed religious folks, Thank God my eyes were finally open 13 years ago. I wrote a prayer that an unborn baby might just pray, hopefully this will help enlighten some religious folks! I am getting ready to start selling this prayer to all the abortion clinics out there so they can post them in the exact place where those religious people stand and pray(and threaten to kill), and one to hang in the their lobby for their patients to read...I hope you get a kick out of it! Religious people don't know what to think...
I am writing a book called, "Wicked Christianity, America's Religion" It designed to challenge all professing christians on their beliefs-all names included!
An Unborn Baby’s Prayer
God, I don’t understand why those people are praying to You for me to be born and live on this earth? Why do they not want my mother to give me the greatest gift of life, which is death?
Death is the beginning of eternity with You. With You in Heaven is where I want to be. Heaven is the only place that I will find true Love, Joy, and Peace. In Heaven there are no tears, suffering, pain or evil-forever and ever.
So I ask, why don’t those people see my mother as a blessing for allowing me to pass the experience of life and be with You right now in Heaven?
I don’t understand?...those people pray to You many times throughout their lives asking You to rescue them from their life’s trials and sufferings, and for You to keep them and their children safe from the evil in this world. They constantly pray for You to forgive them for their sins..but now they pray for You to let me be born and live on this earth like them...I don't want to live on this earth and go through what they go through, especially when they don’t enjoy going through it themselves.
Why do they pray for You to let me live? As my mother is trying to save me from the evil of this world and from experiencing the trials and sufferings of life? Why can’t they see what a blessing this is for me?
God, don’t they know that it’s not their prayers nor is it my prayer that determines if I live life on earth, or if I get to pass life and be with You in Heaven? At this moment, it’s ultimately You who decides my destiny.
I know my mother will never be allowed to abort me unless You allow her. You are the giver and taker of life! And no one or no thing will ever come in the way of life unless You allow it. You never granted us the power to take a life, it has always been and will always be Your decision.
God, If You choose to take my life right now before I am born then I pray You give my mother true Peace and Joy by fully giving her the understanding that it was You who took my life not her...AMEN
Your convoluted thinking on this appalls me. It is digusting. We have free will and your assumption that God will allow a baby to die (be murdered) because the mother is trying to "save its life" is vile and sick. Why did the woman get pregnant in the first place? Lack of responsibility does not give her license to either "save" this baby or kill it. Abortion is murder..period. I will not waste my time explaining to you why because it would make no difference to you. I would like you to answer this question though. When does the sperm and egg have a right to life? At 3 weeks, 5 months or not until the baby is outside the womb and the cord cut? Does that baby have no right to life until these conditions are met? Can you answer this for me please?
I would like to remind you....again that "abortion is murder...period" is YOUR OPINION! This is about the woman's right to make the decision of what is best for her and the unborn fetus. The woman should not go to you and have you decide the most intimate and pressing matters of her life. These are tough decisions that no one wants to make, but I can absolutely assure you that no one in these types of situations would want someone else deciding for them.
Thank you Rachel! This was a great documentary. It is about time that the silence on this issue was broken with a soft voice and not the shot of a gun. I will patiently wait for the follow up. It is only fitting that Operation Rescue and their affiliates be charged with conspiracy to commit murder. It is time that those who incite this type of violence be brought to justice.
Rachel, thank you for this. It seems that especially during the last 15-20 years, the pro-choice message has become convoluted and vilified like never before. The pro-life movement should be likened to a terrorist organization. Unfortunately, like so many other hypocrisies attached to religion, conservatism, and republicans, the pro-life movement holds some kind of illegitimate, legitimism. The truth is, anyone that is truly a "Constitutionalist"- recognizes the pro-life movement for what it truly is. A concerted effort to subordinate the role of women in our society. In reality the pro-life movement is misogynistic, chauvinistic, and an alarmingly open form of discrimination against women.
Thank you for raising this issue again. Let's keep it up front where it belongs.
R
When someone starts off a sentence with, "The truth is..." you can usually expect the opposite, as is the case here.
No, most people who believe abortion is murder are not attempting to subordinate the role of women, discriminate against women, is misogynistic, chauvinistic, or anything else of the kind. I'm surprised this person didn't accuse them of hating mom and apple pie, too.
Most readers will immediately notice that this poster didn't bother to support these hysterical claims with one iota of evidence. No, this poster stooped to the usual sophomoric, emotional tantrum unfortunately used by both sides of this argument.
Ignore the lunatic fringe!
Rachel,
I lean to the right way more than you do. But I watch your show on a regular basis. Just trying to keep up on "what" the other side has to say.
25 years ago my then fiance and now ex-wife aborted a child. Even though I disagreed with her decision, it was her's to make. We later had 2 children who are both in college as I type.
Not exactly sure what I'm trying to say. But it's wrong for government to tell what a women can or can't do with her body.
I guess I'll find out when I arrive at the "Pearly Gates"!
I met Dr Tiller at a NAF conference and heard him speak. He was a courageous, kind and dedicated doctor, who SAVED many womens lives. My heart goes out to his family and dedicated staff.
Interesting link:
http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/scarce/minn-lawmaker-stopped-gun-abortion-clinic
Hello to Rachel and the gang...
Many thanks for "The Assasination of Dr. Tiller." Obviously, it's very hard to watch on a number of levels. But as usual, an impressive job was the outcome of some obviously vigorous reporting.
One glaring omission (perhaps I missed this detail in your online supplements to that episode): CNN had run an interview with Roeder's ex-wife in which she read a letter she received from from Scott AFTER the crime. Basically, it was the usual 'you're-lazy-and-selfish-and-you're-raising-my-son-to-be-lazy-and-selfish' rant. But then she was asked by the anchor (Anderson Cooper? Soledad O'Brien?...I can't remember), what she would say to Scott if she could talk to him now. Her answer was very revealing. As if talking directly to Mr. Roeder, she said, 'If you're so concerned about the unborn, why did I have to take you to court to get child support from you for our son; if you're so concerned about the unborn, why wouldn't you help me pay for dental work that our own son needed badly.'
This is crucial not only as a testament to Scott Roeder's character. It also testifies to his motives as well; his was not a mission of saving the unborn, but living up to some imaginary level of superiority and demegoguery. The so-called right-to-life movement is made up of individuals who choose to see no one's circumstances or beliefs but their own. Roeder just happened to be such an individual who took that same lack of empathy to criminal extremes.
Anyway, thanks for the episode and thanks for maintaining to the fullest the integrity of what you do! I've been a long-time fan for THAT very reason.
Rachel,
Thanks for this documentary, it was very intriguing.
I think that it is quite noteworthy to notice that the two men featured in this video that led the anti-abortion movement in Kansas at this time were both men (joined along with Bill O'Reilly). To me, this is quite troubling when a man believes he can be a voice for so many women! How could a man ever fully understand this type of decision?
Thanks for this documentary!!
So a man isn't entitled to an opinion about abortion or a child? Potentially his own?
We'd see different decisions from the pro-life crowds if every person judging abortion as murder would be required to post a $213,000 bond, the cost of raising a normal child, and twice that for high-risk fetuses and situations where the mother's health and life are at risk.
I forgot one point. Although I know that this is killing/murdering a baby it is equally as wrong to murder a doctor. These so called "doctors" code is to first "do no harm". Well they are violating the very commandment they are taught in medical school. Heck, even common sense will tell a normal person that is wrong. I am so sorry for that doctors family. Even though he was wrong, those who killed him must be tried and punished if they are found guilty by a jury of their peers.
I would like to remind everyone that what YOU believe is not necessarily true and therefore cannot have the rest of the world judged according to what you personally think. I hate to break it to you but, no one cares what you think, because everyone has there own opinions about everything. Doctors do not make a commandment in medical school. That is YOUR opinion that is factually incorrect. Doctors make a Hippocratic Oath that however contrary to YOUR opinion, is not christian based.
So what you consider "common sense," may be common in the eyes of many fundamentalist, but it is severely flawed and lacks any sort of reason. So, before you accuse legal doctors of being murderers, I want you to think about this. Much of the time, the doctors performing abortions and their patients have decided to sacrifice the potential life of the unborn child in order to save the life of the mother. It is not your place to make judgment calls on the intimate details of other peoples lives.
To be "Pro-Life" is to be anti-rights. I am glad to see you are against the murder of Dr.Tiller, but since so many woman would die through child birth or back-ally abortions, by standing against Pro-Choice you are inevitable supporting murder.
I would also like to add how happy I am for you, that you never were put in the situations that many woman who have abortions are. I hope that if you ever did need to decide, to have an abortion or not, you would have the legal right to make that choice.
Rachel- Thank you for your good work. Towards the end of "The Assasination of Dr. Tiller" You asked a question concerning whether or not the next Scott Roeder is being groomed by pro-life extremists. My question is, how can the next Scott Roeder not be groomed?
There is plenty of pointed propaganda, clarity of message, and information being manufactured by pro-life supporters. Yet, I rarely hear what the real argument is from pro-choice, other than that abortion is legal. In order to argue when one side presents a moral high-ground, unfortunately the other has to make some noise. I say this because I was raised in the religious right. At the age of ten, I was brought to picket events with my grandmother with the Right to Life. I was scared. Scared of the images on picket posters, scared for what they were doing inside that clinic, scared for women entering the clinic and the expressions on their faces, and I was scared for what we were putting them through, we being the crowd of picketers and me being ten years old. In high-school I developed my own opinion as pro-choice, but never had a solid comeback for the argument often held in our home: abortion is wrong. It was only after I had my own abortion in my mid twenties that I learned that most women in my family, my cousins, my mother, my aunts, had also had abortions. What I now know is that abortions happen, whether they are right or wrong or legal or not. One of the clinic staff who worked with Dr. Tiller mentioned in your documentary something to the effect of: no one wants to have an abortion.
Humans choose to terminate their unborn young. It is a fact of society and always has been. What do we do with that? Do we legalize it, regulate it, make it safe, or do we send it to the black market and back to home-remedies that were dangerous for women. As long as rape happens, as drugs are used, as long as human mistakes are made, and yes also, as long is there is conception there will be abortion. Modern medicine allows us the choice to make abortion safe. The reasons behind making that choice are personal and never provable.
What would my grandmother have thought, had she known, that her daughters, grand-daughters, and nieces had abortions? Would we have lost credibility as good people, would we have been seen as less kind or more evil? Why are women and families so silent about something that is so loud? If enough of us were speaking up, the group of protesters outside each clinic would have to argue against themselves. rAnd maybe the ten year old picketers would have the opportunity to hear another point of view.
What if there were a campaign of real faces, those of women and men who have had or condoned abortions? I would put my face up. I would put it up for my mom and my aunts and my cousins and my friends who chose abortions as an unpleasant fact of life. As for the next Scott Roeder? That could have been me had I succumbed to the indoctrination from my family and community. Children don't choose what information they are exposed to, they reverberate the adults around them. In closed communities of any extreme nature, this is dangerous.
I was not yet old enough to menstruate. I did not understand the issues, the science or the morals at stake. But I was coached by picketers to plead with clients arriving at the clinic, my bright young face sending the message. No one showed me images of a botched-home abortion, of the wounds of a rape victim, of the gross defects of a deformed child. The images picketers did display to me were no less violent. At the age of ten, I should not have seen any of that. The child soldier who is to become the next Roeder is somewhere, being shown, being groomed, being provoked with violence that he or she will not know what to do with some day.
First of all congratulations on your fine documentary on the assassination of Dr. Tiller - including using the correct term "anti-abortion" ("anti-choice" would have been OK also) rather than the totally misleading and near-universal "pro-life" label. However, I think you blew a chance to really expose the phony "pro-life" mantle that covers so many of these hate groups. We know very well what are the worst and traditional enemies of life: malnutrition, poverty, disease, lack of health care, ecological dislocations, militarism and war. On these issues, most of the pro-choice people have a good record, while most of the anti-choice people have a dismal record. There are many ways of documenting this, including Congressional votes. It's a shame your fine documentary missed the chance to do that. Nothing would discredit these hate groups more than to pull the undeserved blanket of "pro-life" from under their violent feet. In fact, they are the real "baby-killers" by consistently opposing better life conditions, including nutrition and health, for babies that do not have them.
Hi Rachel,
Thank you so much for this special. I've been involved in women's rights for a long time now and have been horrified at how quickly and violently women's rights have eroded in this country. I hope more news outlets will follow your lead and continue to explore and publicize this alarming issue.
In addition, I hope liberals who are not fully aware that reproductive rights in this country are being violently attacked by domestic terrorists are now motivated to do more to fight back.
Thank you again,
Jackie