Assasination of Dr Tiller

[Avatar]

The law has definitions for what is immoral or unjustified, but those are not the only defintions of what is unjustified or immoral. It is a bad idea to equivocate the law with morality. Many immoral things can be done which are entirely legal.

Agreed. It all depends on what you consider moral.

Oh, btw RR, WF wasn't saying that anything in Malik's post suggested people arm themselves and kill abortionists. What he's saying is that extremist language (like baby-killer) is working it's way into mainstream anti-abortion thought/speech.

Now granted, Malik probably doesn't consider it extremist. As far as he's concerned, it's a simple statement of fact, possibly used to try and make people think in terms other than "embryo" which is dehumanising.

Of course, as always, it depends on your viewpoint. I'm not sure that anything we know now is going to convince me that an unborn child is exactly the same as an adult. (I don't even believe that post-birth children are exactly the same as adults, but that's not the point.)

--A

[wayfriend]

Except the parts when I asked him to explain how does saying "Tiller was a baby killer" explain why abortion is wrong.

And when I asked how does adding "That's how he made his money" advocate anything about the pro-life position.

If killing babies isn't immediately obviously wrong to you, then I don't know what I could possibly say to convince you that it's wrong.

If making money killing babies isn't immediately obviously wrong to you, then I don't know what I could possibly say to convince you that it's wrong.

Almost half the people here think that having an abortion is not wrong. And this is about having an abortion. Calling it simply "killing babies" is a misrepresentation, which I already pointed out.

Yes, I think killing babies is wrong in general. I don't think that the specific subcase of having an abortion is necessarilly wrong. So your misrepresentation of the issue didn't trick me into saying all killing of all babies is okay.

All of which is besides the point, because saying it is wrong isn't saying anything about why it is wrong. Which is my other point. You and I both think that people should be able to discuss why the right to abortion is right or wrong. But this doesn't have anything to do with that discussion.

If we were having an argument about gun control, and I started pointing at people with submachine guns and saying "Look, he has an illegal weapon", you would not think I was making very much of an argument, would you?

People get away with abortion because they think unborn babies are less than human.

So you say. I know it's not true. Because I don't have to put words into other people's mouths to have that be true. So that's another imaginary leg your argument rests on.

[Cail]

There's nothing untrue about it. You have rationalized to yourself that a 20-plus week fetus isn't a baby. That is the lower limit (at the moment) for viability outside the womb. By any medical criteria you can produce, it's a baby. Calling Tiller a baby killer may be emotionally charged, it may be incendiary to people who believe he should be allowed to do what he does, but what it isn't is inaccurate.

If this were a case of a "standard" abortion doctor, then you'd have a pretty good argument. Given the nature of Dr. Tiller's practice, you don't.

[Avatar]

Yeah, I pretty much agree. I'd even go so far as to call a viable foetus a baby. But as you point out, it is inflammatory to people who think he should be allowed to do it, whether morally supporting the idea, or merely legally supporting it. Because according to the law, it's legal.

Personally, I'm against late-term abortions for various reasons. But morals aside, what he did was permissable by law.

(Oh, and for those arguing the motives of the killer, that has to be speculation...but I can see how calling the victim a baby-killer might be seen to imply that what the killer did was somehow justified. I doubt even right-leaning media are using the term. (And I mean media, not pundits or whatever.)

--A

[Cail]

But this gets back to the slavery issue. Slavery was legal, but it was still slavery. Similarly, late-term abortions may be legal, but that doesn't change the fact that babies are getting killed legally. Whether it's inflammatory or not is utterly immaterial; it's the truth. It's an ugly truth. By euphemizing it, we minimize what it is (to make an analogy, it's like calling "torture", "enhanced interrogation").

And no one is excusing Roeder based on how Tiller made a living.

[Avatar]

Sure, I realise nobody is excusing him. My point is just that demonising him, (even if the terminology is accurate it's still casting him in a very negative light) gives a pall of, if not respectability, then acceptance, to the act.

Nobody would hold a young girl criminally culpable for stabbing her molestor to death while he slept, right? And we probably wouldn't hold her father morally wrong if he killed the molestor, right? He'd probably go to jail, but almost everybody would be sympathetic to him to some extent.

Similar type of thing. He killed somebody, but he only killed somebody who was doing something terribly morally wrong. So it gains, (in those terms), a type of understanding. If, obviously, you think that what he was doing was morally wrong.

--A

[Cail]

I'm not sure I get that. Slave owners were slave owners, regardless of the fact that what they were doing was perfectly legal. Calling Tiller a baby killer isn't demonizing him. It's stating fact.

[lucimay]

hahaha. that sort of depends on your perspective don't it?

you think its a baby. someone else doesn't. you think he's a baby killer,
someone else thinks he's a doctor performing legal medical proceedures.

it's just easier to debate the issue if we attempt to extract the emotionally charged rhetoric. (at least i find it easier)

not that I'M gonna debate the issue. i'm sooooo not.

[wayfriend]

There's nothing untrue about it. You have rationalized to yourself that a 20-plus week fetus isn't a baby.

You once complimented me for my post wherein I explained why a fetus is a human being. So if you recall that, you know this statement here isn't true. Many people, and the supreme court and Roe v Wade, don't rationalize abortion as being okay because fetuses aren't a baby.

There's Calling Tiller a baby killer isn't demonizing him. It's stating fact.

It's demonizing him AND stating a fact (in a misprepresentational way).

demonize: to represent as evil or diabolic

But my question is, how does stating that "fact" in any way convince people that abortion is wrong? It doesn't. In fact, it can't. Because abortion being wrong is the premise you need to accept in order to say it.

So why are you, or anyone else, saying it all the time? (He asked for the bajillionth time, with no answer yet.) "Because it's true" is not why anyone says something.

It goes beyond the bounds of a civil and non-extremist dialog about abortion. It goes into the bounds of calling for action against people. And if there is no legal reason to act against someone, that's vigilantism.

[Zarathustra]

I admit that "baby killer" is emotionally evocative. But the only way we can remove what the liberals object to in this phrase is by conceding the liberal argument that it's not a baby (it is unarguably being killed, so there's nothing we can change about that). So removing the "emotionally charged rhetoric" from the debate amounts to not stating our position. Requests to remove "emotionally charged rhetoric" is an attempt to have us concede the liberal interpretation before the debate has even begun. Control over the language is control over the debate.

"Holocaust" is an emotionally charged term. "Slavery" is an emotionally charged term. Should we remove these emotionally charged terms in order to talk about those subjects? Or is it only the emotionally charged words which liberals disagree with? Disagreeing with the accuracy of a term is not the same as demonstrating that it shouldn't be spoken.

But this is perfectly in line with liberal tendency to "rebrand" everything from mentions of African American skin color ("black") to the War on Terror (now the "Overseas Contingency Plan"). I personally object vehemently to this liberal obsession with insisting that the Right use different words than they choose to use.

It's even stranger that liberals don't insist upon this same standard for themselves, for instance when Obama calls his white grandmother a "typical white person," he suffers no criticism from liberals, even though that's certainly an emotionally charged phrase. And Sotomayor can claim superiority over white men--unarguably an emotionally charged statement--and yet the liberals defend her.

I don't thing you guys actually get offended by emotionally charged rhetoric. You are offended by conservatives saying what they think.

[Zarathustra]

Wayfriend, your question is like asking, "How does liberals stating that a fetus isn't a baby argue for the pro-choice position"? That IS the reason liberals think abortion is okay: because they don't think a fetus has the same right to life as the rest of us. And that is based upon the belief that a fetus isn't a baby.

But my question is, how does stating that "fact" in any way convince people that abortion is wrong? It doesn't. In fact, it can't. Because abortion being wrong is the premise you need to accept in order to say it.

No, you've got it backwards. That "fact" (i.e. that a fetus--at least in the final weeks of pregnancy--is a baby) is the premise needed to argue that (late term) abortion is wrong. We're arguing that abortion is wrong BECAUSE it's a baby . . . not that it's a baby because abortion is wrong. "Abortion is wrong" can't be the premise. It's the conclusion. Our premise (which you don't accept) is that it's a baby.

[lucimay]

how bout just using the word abortion. i mean...ain't that what it is? or... D&C or D&E (dilation & curettage or dilation & evacuation).

there's all sorts of less emotionally charged words to use other than baby killin.

edit: ooooooo i just saw this! yeesh!

I don't thing you guys actually get offended by emotionally charged rhetoric. You are offended by conservatives saying what they think.

thats just so not true and i can't believe you really think that! that's just silly. if you didn't say what you think, who would liberals argue with?

really now...that's an "aanta baanta waanta schmaanta" statement. nobody is trying to SILENCE anybody. and what you think holds no offense for me unless you out loud say something offensive, (i.e. "all liberals are effin p's). THAT would be offensive.

[Cail]

There's nothing untrue about it. You have rationalized to yourself that a 20-plus week fetus isn't a baby.

You once complimented me for my post wherein I explained why a fetus is a human being. So if you recall that, you know this statement here isn't true. Many people, and the supreme court and Roe v Wade, don't rationalize abortion as being okay because fetuses aren't a baby.

I know you don't. You've got another rationalization for abortion; that the mother's desire to do what she wants trumps any rights of the child. I was using more of a general "you" than a Wayfriend "you".

Nevertheless, there is a significant contingent out there that believes that a baby isn't a baby until it's born. That is, as far as modern medicine is concerned, absolute fantasy, and usually a rationalization in order to allow or excuse abortion.

There's Calling Tiller a baby killer isn't demonizing him. It's stating fact.

It's demonizing him AND stating a fact (in a misprepresentational way).

demonize: to represent as evil or diabolic

It can't be demonizing if it's the truth. If a baby is defined as a 20+ week fetus, and Tiller's job is aborting 20+ week fetuses, then he is a baby killer. It's no different from the guy at the prison who throws the switch on the electric chair. We can come up with all sorts of euphemisms for what he does, but it's not unfair, nor is it inaccurate to call him an executioner, or a man killer.

Remember, Tiller chose to do what he did. He was aware of the social stigma behind what he did, and he did it anyway. In a way I have to respect that a bit, because he was clearly a true believer. Ironically, a polar opposite true believer did him in.

But my question is, how does stating that "fact" in any way convince people that abortion is wrong? It doesn't. In fact, it can't. Because abortion being wrong is the premise you need to accept in order to say it.

So why are you, or anyone else, saying it all the time? (He asked for the bajillionth time, with no answer yet.) "Because it's true" is not why anyone says something.

It goes beyond the bounds of a civil and non-extremist dialog about abortion. It goes into the bounds of calling for action against people. And if there is no legal reason to act against someone, that's vigilantism.

See, I'm not sure where this all comes from (and I've read every post in this thread). I don't call Tiller a baby killer in order to convince anyone of anything. In fact, I've shied away from calling him that for the explicit reason that it will tend to turn off people who believe he was justified in what he was doing.

But I think you're way off base by saying that it goes beyond the bounds of civil dialog, and it's certainly not calling for any sort of action, and more than chanting, "Bush lied, people died" was a call for someone to shoot W.

It's a fact. It's jarring. But you know, sometimes that's necessary. By minimizing the horror of hundreds of thousands of dead babies, it's become a sanitary medical procedure that's celebrated as "choice". It's like calling the mutilation of young girls around the world, "female circumcision". Oh, that doesn't sound so bad that way, does it? "Ethnic cleansing"? Fuck no, it's genocide.

I understand that you think it's awful to put it in such stark terms, but you have to understand that for millions of Americans, all but a very few who are normal, educated, intelligent people, this is a holocaust going on in front of us. This is wholesale, government-sponsored, infanticide.

The fact that the discourse is as civil as it is is rather commendable.

[wayfriend]

Wayfriend, your question is like asking, "How does liberals stating that a fetus isn't a baby argue for the pro-choice position"? That IS the reason liberals think abortion is okay

It ain't the reason I think it's okay. It ain't the reason it's okay in Roe v Wade.

However, if that were my argument, at least it's on the track of explaining why people should have the right to choose abortion - at least its in the category of rational analysis.

But my question is, how does stating that "fact" in any way convince people that abortion is wrong? It doesn't. In fact, it can't. Because abortion being wrong is the premise you need to accept in order to say it.

No, you've got it backwards. That "fact" (i.e. that a fetus--at least in the final weeks of pregnancy--is a baby) is the premise needed to argue that (late term) abortion is wrong.

Yes, I agree. If you argue that a fetus is a baby, at least that's in the realm of rationalizing why abortion is wrong.

But (cleverly?) this isn't the answer to the question I asked.

I asked how talking about who is performaning abortions, and calling them "baby killers", argues for pro-life, or anything at all?

(BTW, this is a rat hole, but you insist on misrepresenting the issue by overgeneralizing, despite repeated attempts to point it out to you: I said that it's the calling of an abortionist a baby killer that requires an assumption that your pro-life argument is correct.

If someone kills a human in self-defense, we don't call them "murderers", because we know that killing is permissible in certain cases, and so they don't earn that epithet. (We don't overgeneralize.) Similarly, when you call an abortionist a "baby killer", you deny that it's not a permissible case. Which means you are pre-supposing an assumption that abortion should be wrong.)

And you STILL haven't said why you, or anyone, needs to call abortionists baby killers as part of civil discourse. I am left to conclude that I am correct due to lack of any counter-evidence.

[Cail]

Uh uh. Wayfriend, you're correct that the term "murderer" doesn't apply to an abortionist for the exact reasons you've stated......Abortion is legal. Murder is a legal term denoting unlawful killing. Abortion is not murder.


But.....


Abortion is killing, just like self-defense is killing, just like capital punishment is killing.

[The Dreaming]

Yeah, I pretty much agree. I'd even go so far as to call a viable foetus a baby. But as you point out, it is inflammatory to people who think he should be allowed to do it, whether morally supporting the idea, or merely legally supporting it. Because according to the law, it's legal.

Personally, I'm against late-term abortions for various reasons. But morals aside, what he did was permissable by law.

(Oh, and for those arguing the motives of the killer, that has to be speculation...but I can see how calling the victim a baby-killer might be seen to imply that what the killer did was somehow justified. I doubt even right-leaning media are using the term. (And I mean media, not pundits or whatever.)

--A

It certainly was legal, but you can't deny it was inflammatory as hell. He ran one of only three clinics in the country that performed such abortions. He couldn't have been terribly surprised that the pro-life movement zeroed their sights on him. It sounds like he actually relished the controversy.

Of course that doesn't mean he should be murdered, but comparing him to a deer in headlights is a little naive. The wonderful thing about a free society is that we can see something we don't like and publicly and vividly denounce it without fear of reprisal. (Well, except as public and vivid denouncement, which O'Reilly gets plenty of.) There is a pretty clear cut line separating what we are allowed to do to express our discontent and what we arent allowed to do, these are rules deeply imbedded in the social contract. Speech is protected always. (Except in the most wildly irresponsible and slanderous ways.) Was it slander? Well, not exactly. It was defamation of Tiller's character based on truth, which is by definition not slander. Let's make it perfectly clear. The constitution protects speech and media, it does not protect your feelings or sensibilities. Let's say it again.

The constitution protects speech and media, it does not protect your feelings or sensibilities

We all know were the line is, you have to be unbalanced to cross it. No one highly placed in this debate advocates murder, but we do feel extremely strongly about this topic.

[wayfriend]

Abortion is killing, just like self-defense is killing, just like capital punishment is killing.

If someone kills a human in self-defense, we don't call them "killers", because we know that killing is permissible in certain cases, and so they don't earn that epithet.

It was defamation of Tiller's character based on truth, which is by definition not slander

It's as much "truth" as calling someone who kills in self defense "a killer", or a doctor who saves someone with an emergence tracheotomy "a slasher", etc. Errors of omission are still lies, over-generalization is still miscategorization.

And there is STILL no good explanation posted for how it promotes any kind of civil, non-extremist discourse.

I was using more of a general "you" than a Wayfriend "you".

I accept that. "Yourself" seemed to imply Wayfriend-you.

[Cail]

Abortion is killing, just like self-defense is killing, just like capital punishment is killing.

If someone kills a human in self-defense, we don't call them "killers", because we know that killing is permissible in certain cases, and so they don't earn that epithet.

Maybe you don't, but I would, and so would many others. The law calls them killers too....Justifiable homicide would be how it's written up. Whether "we" call them killers or not is immaterial, because that's what they are.

It was defamation of Tiller's character based on truth, which is by definition not slander

It's as much "truth" as calling someone who kills in self defense "a killer", or a doctor who saves someone with an emergence tracheotomy "a slasher", etc. Errors of omission are still lies, over-generalization is still miscategorization.

You've obviously never heard a surgeon referred to as a "cutter". There is nothing even remotely close to a lie or a mischaracterization in calling Tiller a killer of babies.

And there is STILL no good explanation posted for how it promotes any kind of civil, non-extremist discourse.

No one's asserting that it does. I made the point that it's meant to provoke a visceral reaction in order to get people to understand that this isn't just a medical procedure that celebrates a woman's choice.

[Plissken]

So, what is the appropriate term for walking up to a man in his church and putting a couple of bullets in him? You know, while his wife watches from the choir.

[Cail]

Cold-blooded murder, and no one has said any differently.