George Tiller was a husband, a father, a grandfather, an uncle, a brother, a son, a member of the Lutheran faith...but none of these are what he's known for. What he's notorious for (among the abortion debate) is being a late term abortionist. He was one of only 3 abortionists in the United States that would perform abortions beyond 21 weeks gestation. When I first came across this information, it made me physically ill. Until I started that research, I didn't even know that late term abortions were legal ANYWHERE.
The information I've found on him seems to go from one end of extreme to another. One site will say "He was an American hero!", the next calls him "Tiller the baby killer" claiming that he would abort healthy, viable children for reasons so petty as the mother wanted to attend a rock concert. It's taken me a long time to come to my own conclusion.
My conclusion is this: George Tiller was first and foremost, a human being. Would I call him an American hero? No. Would I call him a cold blooded killer? No. As a mother, I couldn't read through many of his patient's stories without crying and wondering how in the world these women handled the cards they were dealt. These were stories of women in their third trimesters of very WANTED pregnancies, who found out that their child was suffering in one horrible way or another...women who were faced with the choice of terminating their pregnancy or giving birth to a child and then watching it die right before their eyes, as it suffered doing so.
It is a very sad thing that late term abortions are necessary, but they are. Do I believe in a woman terminating a 3 trimester pregnancy because she changes her mind about being a mother? Of course not. In fact, I don't support an abortion at ANY gestational age for that reason. But the fact is, women typically receive three ultrasounds during a normal pregnancy...because the first two or normal, because there's no reason to worry, because there are questions on whether or not excessive ultrasounds are safe for an unborn child, and even because often, 3 ultrasounds per pregnancy are all an insurance company will cover. Unfortunately, many of the terminal anomalies that these women were faced with, only show themselves at a later stage of pregnancy.
The service that George Tiller provided was a service that was NEEDED. I can't imagine how he handled performing the abortions, or looking at the tiny bodies, or even facing devastated parents day after day. He was stronger than I am. Now that he is gone, I can only hope that all of the awful things that the pro-life side says about him weren't true. I really do hope that he didn't perform partial birth abortions on live babies. I really do hope that he didn't mistreat patients. I REALLY hope that he was telling the truth when he said that the lethal injection of digoxin to the baby's heart really was painless for the baby. That is what I'm CHOOSING to believe. I am CHOOSING to believe that he was a good man that was only trying to help women who were in hopeless situations. I'm choosing to believe that this was the most humane thing that could happen to these children. I'm choosing to believe that these women really DID want to be mothers. And I'm choosing to believe that all of the wonderful things people have to say about him online are true.
After all, the man is gone. Murdered at his place of worship (If you're really pro-life, why don't you value ALL life?). Now all we can do is draw our own conclusions, because he was the only one that could answer all of our questions. The staff that worked with him, the patients who were awake for their procedures, his family...they may have many answers...but when it comes down to it, only HE knew the truth of it all.
