Morality, the Murder of Dr. Tiller (Update - Gov. Palin's Remarks)

Art: John Brown at Harper's Ferry

Yesterday, Dr. George Tiller, one of the few doctors in the country to perform late term abortions, was murdered by Scott Roeder as Mr. Tiller attended church. Late term abortions are highly controversial as they occur at a point when the foetus is or may be viable outside of the mother's womb. Most states ban them. Dr. Tiller was long controversial for performing such abortions and indeed, drew protests from numerous anti-abortion groups and public criticism from many quarters including, most notably, Bill O'Reilly.

According to reports, Mr. Roeder suffered mental illness and had previous criminal convictions, though not for abortion violence. He had become involved in abortion protests. The NYT reports that someone named Scott Roeder "posted a message on the Operation Rescue blog about Dr. Tiller that read, in part: 'Tiller is the concentration camp ‘Mengele’ of our day and needs to be stopped before he and those who protect him bring judgment upon our nation.'"

Many on the left are using this murder as an excuse to claim that, because people expressed dismay and condemnation of Dr. Tiller, that fanned the violence that led Scott Roeder to murder him. Their goal is to cut off all speech with which they disagree. But no rational person could confuse condemnation with a call to violence. Bill O'Reilly, for example, never crossed the clear line between condemnation and the solicitation of violence. He never mused on the air "who will rid me of this turbulent late term abortion doctor." Indeed, this seems little more than projection on the part of the left - today's repositories of hate speech and vitriolic calls for death to whom they disagree with.

Our nation has the ballot box so that it need not turn to the gun to effect political change. Indeed, the reverse of that was the basis for the American Revoulution. So long as we can vote and change laws in free and fair elections, then there can rarely if ever be justification for resorting to the gun.

That said, abortion is unique. Many people consider it to be murder and thus, an abomination. Others see it differently, and no one wants a return to back alley abortions that endanger the life of women. It is clearly a moral and a social issue.

There is no language within the four corners of the Constitution that would suggest abortion is a federal Constitutional issue, nor is there any evidence that any of the drafters of our Constitution considered abortion when they were in fact drafting the Constituion. Thus, whether to allow abortion and under what restrictions are issues be decided by voters at the state level without interference from the federal government. Nonetheless, an activist Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade pulled abortion out of the states' ballot boxes. In the most devisive and destructive decision of the last century, the Supreme Court announced their policy preference that abortion be treated as a Constitutional Right.

I think that wholly wrong, and I think it clearly contributed to the violence involved in the death of Dr. Tilley. The perception that abortion is a penultimate wrong and that it is beyond the power of the individual to effect that through the ballot box will inevitably produce the frustration that, like the issue of slavery prior to 1861, is more likely to lead to violence. It is one of the reasons that Courts should stay out of the business of deciding social policy as a matter of Constitutional law for the nation.

There is an interesting exchange in the book Shogun where the protagonist, Blackthore, speaking with the daimyo Toranaga, comes out in favor of an attack on a government by its people. Toranaga responds that such an act is treason and never to be tolerated, to which the Blackthrone says, not always - its not treason if you win.

Probably no one exemplifies that truism more than Civil War era abolitionist John Brown. As James Marsden wrote in a comment on a post at Q&O:

In 1859, John Brown was castigated in the South as a murderer who tried to free the slaves at Harper’s Ferry and start an insurrection. He paid with his life. Union troops went into battle 2 years later singing “John Brown Lies a’Mouldering in His Grave.” Today, John Brown is considered a righteous hero for giving his life to end a moral horror called slavery.

So is Roetner a modern day John Brown? Slavery was ensconced in our Constitution in 1859 to the same degree that abortion is today. I would argue that even if you take the view that Roetner is the same as Brown, you have to regard what Roetner did as an evil for which he must be punished to the full extent of the law. To do otherwise, you must both excuse a moral evil - murder - and accept the consequence of a breakdown in the rule of law. You should only do that if you feel the evils so great and the ability to end them so out of reach of the ballot box that you are willing to fight an actual war over the issue. It goes without saying that the majority of us do not feel that way.

Which leads me into a segue to a fascinating post at Q&O that I mentioned briefly above. The author asks, "[h]ow big would a moral outrage have to be before you turned to violence?" The question and the comments garnered to this point are fascinating, and I highly recommend you read the post and give it some thought.

Update: From Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin: "I feel sorrow for the Tiller family. I respect the sanctity of life and the tragedy that took place today in Kansas clearly violates respect for life. This murder also damages the positive message of life, for the unborn, and for those living. Ask yourself, 'What will those who have not yet decided personally where they stand on this issue take away from today's event in Kansas?' Regardless of my strong objection to Dr. Tiller's abortion practices, violence is never an answer in advancing the pro-life message."

Update: I rarely am in full agreement with Megan McCardle, but in this case, our essays on this issue are pretty much interchangable.