Monday, June 8, 2009

Carole Joffe: The Legacy of George Tiller, Rachel Maddow Speaks Out

From: <moderator@PORTSIDE.ORG

http://www.beaconbroadside.com/broadside/2009/06/carole-joffe-the-legacy-of-george-tiller.html

The Legacy of George Tiller

By Carole Joffe:
The Beacon Broadside: June 4, 2009

[Today's blog post is from Carole Joffe, author of Dispatches from the
Abortion Wars: The Costs of Fanaticism to Doctors, Patients, and the Rest of
Us (Beacon Press, forthcoming January 2010) and Doctors of Conscience: the
Struggle to provide Abortion before and after Roe v Wade (Beacon Press,
1996) and professor of sociology at the University of California, Davis.]

"It comes down to who is the patient. Is the woman the patient, or is the
fetus the patient? One or other is the patient. I've never heard a fetus
talk to me. I've heard thousands and thousands of women share their pain,
their desperation, and their hopelessness." These words were spoken to me
some twenty years ago by Dr. George Tiller, as I was researching a book on
abortion providers' experiences before and after Roe v Wade. Tiller, who was
brutally assassinated in his church on May 31, was one of the most
compassionate-- and feminist-- individuals I have ever encountered. "Trust
women" was his well-known motto, prominently displayed at his clinic in
Wichita, Kansas.


He was asked repeatedly by friends how he could continue his work in the
face of the unending violence and legal harassment that he endured in the
years leading up to his murder: his home and office were frequently
blockaded (I recall hearing that he and his wife had to be helicoptered out
of their house to attend a child's wedding, as antiabortion fanatics were
surrounding his home); he was shot in both arms in 1993; and he was
subjected to numerous lawsuits brought by a grandstanding anti-abortion
Attorney General in Kansas and by Operation Rescue operatives, all of which
he ultimately won, but which took a huge toll, financially and emotionally.
His answer was always the same: "Where else can these women go?"


Tiller's answer was not a rhetorical one. He was one of the very few
physicians in the United States who provided abortion care well into the
third trimester of pregnancy. It is this fact that made him so reviled in
antiabortion circles, and unquestionably the most controversial abortion
provider in the country. Operation Rescue relocated their offices to Wichita
a few years ago, with the specific intent of closing him down. Each day, the
women who came to him from all over the U.S., and from abroad as well, had
to go through a gauntlet of protestors holding grotesque posters and
screaming about "Tiller the baby killer."


It is hardly surprising that antiabortion zealots would find Dr. Tiller such
a convenient target, focusing on his late term procedures. What has been
more surprising, and disappointing, to me has been the inadequate coverage
of Tiller's work in most of the mainstream media in the days since his
murder. I myself have spoken to a fair number of reporters, have read
numerous stories from papers across the country, and consumed a great deal
of television and radio reporting on this event. I have been struck that
although all reporters mention that he offered late term abortions, as a way
of explaining his notoriety in antiabortion circles, remarkably few of these
print or radio and television journalists explained why Tiller did this, and
who actually were the recipients of these procedures. The fact that so many
of those reporting on Tiller were so oblivious of the circumstances of his
patients is in itself a powerful indication of the marginality of both
abortion providers and patients in American culture.


In simplest terms, many of those who came to George Tiller's clinic for late
second or third trimester abortions were women (and their partners) who were
carrying much wanted pregnancies that had gone horribly wrong. These were
women in many cases who had already set up cribs and had baby showers. Some
of these women had fetuses with heartbreaking anomalies, that were
discovered only later in pregnancy, such as anencephaly, a lethal birth
defect in which most of the brain and parts of the skull are missing. Other
women had themselves become very ill in the course of a pregnancy, such as
the onset of cancer, which demanded a course of chemotherapy. Tiller,
himself a practicing Christian, had set aside a space in his clinic-- a
Quiet Room-- for grieving parents, who could if they wished, be counseled by
a chaplain on staff, and participate in a baptism or other blessings for the
lost pregnancy.


In a perceptive piece written immediately after Tiller's death, the
journalist Michelle Goldberg points out the irony that many of the
procedures that he performed, for wanted pregnancies that had gone terribly
wrong, "are as far away from the much-reviled concept of 'abortion on
demand' that one could get... Almost anyone of childbearing age could end up
needing Tiller's services."


To be sure, not all of the abortions that Tiller performed were for
difficult medical situations. Some were for wrenching social situations.
Tiller was commonly referred to as "Saint George" within the abortion
providing community, not only because he persisted in his practice for so
long in the face of constant threats, but because he took on cases no one
else would. To relate just one of numerous instances I have heard, a clinic
director in the deep South was faced with a situation of a young girl,
brought to the clinic by her mother: "a very pregnant eleven years, blond,
blue eyes, and small... too far in the pregnancy for us to help." The girl
had been raped by a relative. The solution chosen was a familiar one in the
abortion providing world. The clinic staff donated money to the indigent
family for travel expenses, sent them off to Wichita, and Tiller performed
her abortion for free.


Why did Dr. Tiller receive a constant stream of referrals from his
colleagues across the country? Why are there only one or two other doctors
remaining in the U.S. who have a practice similar to his? The answer lies in
a combination of highly restrictive state laws and hospital regulations
governing later abortions, inadequate training opportunities for these more
complex procedures, and, of course, the kind of unbearable scrutiny that
likely awaits anyone willing to undergo this work.


In the wake of this horrific murder, many have rightly called for a more
widespread condemnation of the violence that has plagued the abortion
providing community for years. As Gloria Feldt, former president of Planned
Parenthood aptly put it, "George Tiller needs more than candlelight vigils,"
and his death demands "massive outrage" from all sectors of society,
particularly political leaders.


But I also believe that another response to this killing must be to demand
that the mainstream medical community acknowledge the reality that there
will always be some women who need abortions later on in pregnancy. Local
medical institutions must make provision for these cases-- especially since
these women can no longer be sent off to Kansas, out of sight and mind of
"respectable" doctors and hospitals. In the abstract, late term abortions
are understandably distasteful to many. When considered in the context of
real women's lives, however, these procedures are essential. This is what
George Tiller understood. This will hopefully be his legacy.

***

----- Original Message -----
From: "AlterNet Headlines" <alternet@mail.democracyinaction.org>

RACHEL MADDOW: RIGHT-WING TERRORISM MUST BE STOPPED
By Rachel Maddow, MSNBC
The tactics of anti-choice extremists are designed to change
policy by terrorizing Americans. How do we stop them from
committing violent acts?
http://www.alternet.org/rights/140501/rachel_maddow%3A_right-wing_terrorism_must_be_stopped/

No comments:

Post a Comment