<http://www.firstthings.com/blog/6/2009/05/murder-is-wrong-no-excuses-in-killing-of-george-tiller-1243819033>Murder
 
is Wrong: No Excuses in Killing of George Tiller
http://www.firstthings.com/blog.php?blog_link=secondhand-smoke

May 31, 2009 9:14:pm
Wesley J. Smith

<http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_OEoNzDCQX5s/SiMqMNB2X7I/AAAAAAAAAYU/yBQw-K1Sk-E/s1600-h/garrison.jpg>
[]
The inexcusable 
<http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090531/ap_on_re_us/us_tiller_shooting>murder 
of George Tiller, the controversial Kansas doctor who performed late 
term abortions, got me to thinking about one of my biggest heroes, 
the great abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison. Pro lifers believe 
that their cause is a great civil rights issue. Abolition was no less 
so. Garrison's genius was his eloquent and unyielding condemnation of 
that great evil. This is perhaps Garrison's most famous quote, a 
favorite of mine that I sometimes use to close my speeches. 
<http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4h2928t.html>From the opening 
editorial of The 
Liberator<http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4h2928t.html>, January 1, 1831:

I am aware, that many object to the severity of my language; but is 
there not cause for severity? I will be as harsh as truth, and as 
uncompromising as justice. On this subject, I do not wish to think, 
or speak, or write, with moderation. No! no! Tell a man whose house 
is on fire, to give a moderate alarm; tell him to moderately rescue 
his wife from the hand of the ravisher; tell the mother to gradually 
extricate her babe from the fire into which it has fallen; -- but 
urge me not to use moderation in a cause like the present. I am in 
earnest -- I will not equivocate -- I will not excuse -- I will not 
retreat a single inch -- AND I WILL BE HEARD.

But, he was also unequivocal in eschewing violence in the cause of 
overcoming this profound injustice. Thus, the December 4, 1833 
constitution of the <http://afgen.com/slavery2.html>American Anti 
Slavery Society declares:

This Society shall aim to elevate the character and condition of the 
people of color, by encouraging their intellectual, moral, and 
religious improvement, and by removing public prejudice, that thus 
they may, according to their intellectual and moral worth, share an 
equality with the whites, of civil and religious privileges; but this 
Society will never, in any way, countenance the oppressed in 
vindicating their rights by resorting to physical force.

Most people, whatever their views on abortion's legality, view late 
term abortion as an odious wrong. Murdering its most notable 
practitioner was no less odious in that it not only took human life, 
but if it was motivated by the abortion issue, it was vigilantism of 
the worst kind. Let no one justify this terrible crime.


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