By Dave Andrusko
To say that the late abortionist George Tiller is the icon for a particular pro-abortion mentality would be to state the obvious. Tiller, who was killed in 2009, would abort babies so late in pregnancy that it went beyond what all but a handful of abortionists could stomach. For that he will always be a “hero.”
A guest post on the website abortiongang.org celebrated Tiller in an essay titled, “Dr. Tiller was my abortion provider and he changed my life.” Her story, written anonymously, is very much worth pondering.
She wound up at Tiller, in the final analysis, because she could not find an abortionist who would abort her baby at 24 weeks. In this context, remember what Prof. Colleen Malloy testified about concerning a June 2009, Journal of the American Medical Association report on over 300,000 infants born in Sweden. She explained, “Survival to one year of life of live born infants at 20, 21, 22, 23, and 24 weeks post-fertilization age was 10%, 53%, 67%, 82%, and 85%, respectively.” (Emphasis added.)
Why was this woman looking for an abortion in her seventh month? “Although I had been raised in a solidly pro-choice family, I was incredibly ashamed of myself for getting pregnant and found that denial was the easy out.” Excuse number one: shame.
Excuse number two: We are told she tried medications and getting drunk and so forth “in hopes something would work” to force a miscarriage. “Nothing did.” Darned kid was stubbornly holding onto life.
The reminder of her post is tribute to her boyfriend who—noble fellow that he was–gave up his internship in another state to come back to help her find an willing abortionist; to her parents who helped pay for the abortion of their grandchild; and to Tiller and his Wichita staff who provided a “safe space,” a non-judgmental setting for the destruction of a viable child who by this time was close to the point where all he or she would be doing from then on was adding weight.
Luckily for her—but not the unborn children in the room—“From the moment we checked in it was clear this was the place I was supposed to be.” How’s that? “Looking across the room at the faces of the people who were there with us: husbands and wives, boyfriends and girlfriends, mother and fathers with their daughters, I felt less alone; I wasn’t the only one.”
But even then the moment wasn’t perfect until Tiller walked in the room. “He smiled. ‘Welcome,’ he said. His first word was exactly how I felt.”
And so forth.
What to say? To the website’s credit, this is a story of a purely elective late, late abortion. None of the usual pretense that “late” abortions are in almost all cases a response to a fetal anomaly, or worse.
But, then again, I suppose that’s the whole point, isn’t it? Doesn’t matter the reason—or lack thereof—or that the child was already viable. My strong suspicion is she could have been much further along and not only would there be no sense of gentle condemnation on the site, she would have been hailed for her even greater “courage.”
Just one other truly sobering thought. In the last paragraph, she adds, “I knew I had support in Wichita whenever I needed it.”
That what the “lesson” she drew. Tiller, or someone like him, would be there “whenever I needed it.”
