Those who know me are familiar with what I like to call my storied past: I was conservative religious pro-life dude who published an ideological 'zine for a bit short of a decade, etc. Calling me an 'activist' might have been a bit of a stretch, but I did door-to-door pamphleteering, wrote rabble-rousing screeds, sent money to Focus on the Family, railed against activist judges, etc.

Over time, I've changed and my beliefs have changed. It's a complex and tangly story, with no easy summaries. Suffice to say, this week's news that Dr. George Tiller was assassinated fills me with a profound sense of sadness, regret, and some anger.

Roughly twenty years ago, I was writing editorials about the evils of abortion and the dark plans that liberals and the Mainstream Media had for the youth of America. I coordinated with the Family Research Council. I interviewed lawyers who fought the ACLU, and I sent out newsletters urging readers to donate to the cause. In high school, my friends and I wanted to protest at an abortion clinic, but our parents put a kibosh on it for fear that the media would attack the Christian group we were a part of. The spirit was willing, one might say, but the flesh was weak.

Tiller the Killer

During those years, Dr. George Tiller occupied a special place in the pro-life ecosystem. As one of the last remaining physicians trained and willing to perform late-term abortions, he was Hitler. I don't mean that in a snarky, ironic post-Godwin sort of way, either. Tiller was, in the lexicon of the movement, an unrepentant mass murder for profit. A man so morally debased, so profoundly selfish and brutal, that nothing could stop him from abusing young women, killing their children with his own hands, and taking their money. Literally.

When discussions of "compromise" or "common ground" came up (and occasionally they did), Tiller occupied the easy-to-dismiss 'evil' role. Again, like Hitler, he was the figure that you could immediately use to define the extreme before returning to the real discussion.

Operation Rescue at that time was a bright light, an organization willing to take risks in a fight that we felt was no different than the abolitionist movement. Passive resistance, protests, blockading, picketing of clinic workers' houses... While some of the tactics might have caused a twinge of discomfort, it had to be put in perspective. Millions of murders a year were legal. Were we afraid someone's feelings would be hurt?

Sure, some people said that there were attempts at bombing abortion clinics. But that was mostly the stuff of urban legend. And in No True Scotsman fashion, we knew that anyone who would do that wasn't a real pro-lifer. Except... Well, couldn't it be justified, if you thought about it? It was a hard question, after all. Saving hundreds of innocents by blowing up a building...? Perhaps...?

No. No, of course not. Innocent bystanders could be hurt. Bombings were unacceptable. And most of them were probably pro-abortion people, trying to make pro-lifers look bad.

But the question hung in the air for those of us immersed in the movement: if we believed that abortion was murder, and we believed that Tiller was, literally, like Hitler, why were we afraid to take the next logical step? In 1993, when a woman shot Tiller twice outside his clinic, the question boiled over again.

Sea change

By that time I was grappling with uncomfortable questions about my own beliefs, and the implications of my own faith-related questions. The attack on Tiller was a bad thing, obviously, but my biggest concern was that it would make it harder to convince people of the moral superiority of the pro-life cause.

Tiller was evil, obviously, but we had to be better than him.

As the years rolled on, I grew more troubled by the 'Movement' and began to drift out of it. While I'd never been a protester and I'd never carried a sign, I had certainly been vocal about my views in print and in person. I grew quieter and kept the complexities of my feelings on the issue to myself--in part because I was no longer quite sure what I believed about the issue.

Dr. George Tiller, however, remained a monster frozen in amber to me: an archetype, not a real person. I knew, peripherally, that Operation Rescue and other pro-life groups continually protested his clinic, stalked his employees, followed them to grocery stores and chanted slogans. Years-long legal fights were started to close his clinic down. In one instance a nurse at his clinic had to quit after activists discovered her husband's place of work and began protesting there. I remember hearing that Tiller kept his home's location a secret, that he drove an armored car and had to maintain a security service. It made sense: Tiller's name was always on the 'hit lists' of 'baby butchers,' and the movement, as it aged, worked hard to keep it there.

Then and now

Years have passed, even since the days of my fuzzy confusion. I look back on my association with the pro-life movement with deep regret; the good is accomplished by the "help women in trouble" faction must be weighed, honestly, against the rhetoric of the activist side of that ideological family. Indeed, the unwillingness to condemn that activist branch is the ongoing shame of the less-radical pro-life contingent.

Last night, I heard that Dr. Tiller had finally been killed. He was shot to death as he handed out church announcements in his own congregation.

Church?

I had never realized he went to church.

For that matter, I never knew much about him at all.

The man who shot him was a pro-life protester, apparently active enough in Kansas pro life circles that others knew of him and had encountered him. He'd been arrested in 1996 for possession of a bomb, and he'd recently posted on the Operation Rescue web site praying that someone would "bring justice" to Tiller. He suggested that activists visit Tiller's church.

According to the Wichita Eagle article about the killing, "Those who know Roeder said he believed that killing abortion doctors was an act of justifiable homicide." Randall Terry, the founder of Operation Rescue, spoke at a press conference today. His statement?

"The point that must be emphasized over, and over, and over again: pro-life leaders and the pro-life movement are not responsible for George Tiller's death. George Tiller was a mass-murderer and, horrifically, he reaped what he sowed....

"Thank you for coming, unless there's any other questions. And I truly am sorry that we had to meet under these circumstances. I like Guinness for those of you who want to have a beer somewhere. I prefer my chicken wings really hot and a little crispy."

Today, Operation Rescue scrambles to clarify that Terry left the organization years ago, and is no longer authorized to speak for them. They note that Tiller's assassin was never an official member of Operation Rescue, and that they condemn murder.

For years, though, they have been happy to explain why Tiller was a mass murderer, a man who had to be be stopped at all costs. An evil, inhuman monster. That's still a common theme in the press releases issued by groups like the American Life League (one of the organizations I worked with when I was younger). Tiller's killing was wrong of course, but...

I remember being there.

I remember being the person whose first concern at the news of a clinic bombing was, "This will hurt our cause."

And I remember thinking--saying to friends--that while I understood murder was wrong, wouldn't killing an abortionist be defending someone from a killer?

I remember the thoughtful consideration the question received. "Well... yes, but..."

It's been a long time since I felt as sick as I do tonight.