George Tiller needs more than candlelight vigils | Salon Life

By Gloria Feldt June 1, 2009

George Tiller needs more than candlelight vigils

The doctor's murder is domestic terrorism, and if our leaders don't
act boldly, there will be more violence

I am done with candlelight vigils.

It is good and necessary that people gather together at a candlelight
vigil to honor the memory of Dr. George Tiller, murdered in cold blood
today at his Lutheran church by an assailant believed to be Montana
"Freeman" Scott Roeder. Tiller was a compassionate and courageous
doctor who provided abortion services to women in some of the most
distressing circumstances imaginable, when their pregnancies had gone
horribly, tragically wrong. He provided services when no one else
would, and he was stubborn enough to fight against everyone who tried
to stop him. So it is right that people express their grief in public
ceremonies.

But I myself am done with candlelight vigils. I have participated in
too many of them, from 1993 with the murder of Dr. David Gunn in
Pensacola through the seven doctors, patient escorts and staff
murdered over the horrifying five-year period thereafter. I can never
forget the day before New Year's Eve in 1994. I was, at the time, CEO
of Planned Parenthood in Arizona, talking on the phone to Pensacola
patient escort June Barrett -- who had been wounded when her husband
and the clinic's Dr. John Britton were murdered by anti-abortion
zealot Rev. Paul Hill -- when I received another urgent call from a
friend whose granddaughter worked in Planned Parenthood's Brookline
clinic. The young woman had just witnessed the murder of two
co-workers by John Salvi.

Each time, we held vigils all over the country. We wept and we pledged
to continue our work. Which we did, increasingly, in isolation. We
were the ones who had been wronged, and yet we were labeled
controversial, to be shunned rather than supported. The murders were
only the tip of the iceberg, among over 6000 cases of violence,
vandalism, stalking, bombings, arson, invasions and other serious
harassment.

Later, during the nine years I served as president of Planned
Parenthood Federation of America, we dramatically beefed up our own
security while figuring out how to make our health centers
nevertheless welcoming to patients and workers alike. In fact, we got
so adept at the task that during post-911 anthrax scares, we provided
federal government agencies with model protocols for dealing with such
threats. But though self-sufficiency is valuable, a just society
should offer much more succor to citizens who are attacked.

That's why today, after what happened to George Tiller, I know that
the only thing that will assuage my personal grief over his shocking
loss is for leaders across our nation to join me in expressing outrage
at this heinous crime, this domestic terrorism. And yes, they need to
call it out in exactly those terms. That's what it is.

I want to hear massive outrage on the part of the community. I want it
to start with President Obama. His statement today is a good
beginning.

But that's not nearly enough. He must immediately outline an action
plan to increase federal protection for providers and clinics and call
for stringent enforcement of the Federal Access to Clinic Entrances
Act. He has an opportunity to make a speech that addresses women's
moral right to reproductive self-determination as passionately as his
brilliant speech about race did during the primary. He can and should
lead the nation to a larger and more productive conversation about the
complex choices women make, and why women deserve the respect,
equality and justice inherent in the right to choose to have, or not
have, a child. He should bring together pro-choice and anti-choice
leaders and get them to issue a joint statement decrying Tiller's
murder as well as all such violent opposition to one another's
efforts. Now that would be real common ground.

But even if the president did all of that, I would still not be ready
for another candlelight vigil. The change we need in our culture's
attitudes toward women's reproductive justice has to happen both
top-down and bottom-up.

When it comes to decrying Tiller's unspeakable murder, I want to hear
it from Congress. I want to hear it from clergy, the medical
profession, the media and civic leaders: "This kind of violation will
not be tolerated. Period." I want to see leaders and people at the
grassroots joining hands together in support of those who provide
women with reproductive health services, including abortion. I want
them to put the yellow armband on, to assume Tiller's name as so many
took on the Obama's middle name, Hussein, when he was disparaged
during the election. Doctors have a special responsibility. David Toub
M.D, MBA, who provided abortions when he was a practicing physician in
Philadelphia, told me, "This could have been any of us who provide or
provided abortion services. I'm just as annoyed by some of my own
colleagues and the American Medical Association who marginalized us
and even looked down at anyone involved in providing abortion."

The silence overall from leaders so far has been deafening, as
attorney and longtime Arizona volunteer for reproductive rights causes
Leon Silver pointed out. And if our leaders remain silent, I can tell
you with perfect assurance what will happen next. There will be more
violence.

Dr. Tiller's friends, family, patients, colleagues and the many
pro-choice activists who have supported him over the years need the
vigil in Wichita and those springing up elsewhere to mourn the
67-year-old doctor's death and celebrate his exceptional life. The
larger community of reproductive health professionals and activists,
including those who bravely escort women safely into and out of health
facilities for abortions, need to cry and hug and lift one another up
on the wings of their convictions that they are doing God's work,
saving women's lives in the fullest sense of the word. I am with them
in spirit.

But when it comes to changing a culture that has marginalized abortion
by shaming women and hounding, even murdering, the doctors and clinic
staff who provide safe abortions, when it comes to changing a culture
bent on shaming women who are, in all good conscience, making the most
moral of personal decisions -- candlelight vigils alone will never be
enough.


About the writer

Gloria Feldt is the author of "The War on Choice: the Right Wing
Attack on Women's Rights and How to Fight Back," and former president
of Planned Parenthood Federation of America. She blogs on politics,
leadership, and women at her website, GloriaFeldt.com, and is
currently at work on a book about women's relationship with power.

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