I've seen a lot on right wing blogs this past week of derivatives of the Bill O'Reilly rant that Dr Tiller murdered close to 60,000 people before he was assassinated by a gunman at his church.
Having researched the whole matter, I present my findings: Dr Tiller did not murder anyone - because the legal definition of murder involves a person who has been born and therefore if you haven't got a birth certificate, and thus become a citizen (or person) - you aren't alive yet, and thus, can't be murdered.
More in depth discussion below the fold.
Before I get into the body of my argument, let's take two definitions.
Firstly, Murder:
Murder
Intentional homicide (the taking of another person’s life), without legal justification or provocation.
Now in answer to that, some right wingers have gone on to redefine person in such a way that it includes fetuses. So let's have a look at the definition of Person:
Person
An entity recognized by the law as separate and independent, with legal rights and existence including the ability to sue and be sued, to sign contracts, to receive gifts, to appear in court either by themselves or by lawyer and, generally, other powers incidental to the full expression of the entity in law.
(Emphasis mine)
The key to this paragraph is the section I have emphasized. Separate and independent. In other words, the umbilical cord to the mother has been cut, the baby is functioning separately and independently from any other entity. As such the law regards it as being alive and thus entitled to such documentation as its country of birth may issue to legally prove this.
The anti-abortion lobby ignores this, totally. They redefine life entirely in their own context, to back up their semi-religious philosophy. But just because they, and Bill O'Reilly, do it, doesn't actually change the law. By law, Doctor Tiller didn't murder anyone, because the fetuses he terminated were not yet legally recognized people and as such could not be illegally murdered.
Although I realize that feelings and emotions run high when matters like this are discussed - and that's fine - there is a reason why church and state are separated. America believes it should be led by a democracy, not a theocracy. When any kind of religion starts influencing government the line between theocracy and whatever governmental system was previously in effect starts to blur.
If the anti-abortion lobby had held to the legal definition, their argument would not have been so compelling. It is the use of the term "murder" which gives the terminations of fetuses such a strong sense of being both morally and legally wrong, when in fact no murder ever takes place and in many cases the woman who has the abortion has had a gut-wrenching and heart-wrenching decision to make beforehand about whether to go ahead with the procedure. In a land of freedom, where a woman does make the often heartbreaking decision to go ahead, we owe it to her personal freedom to respect that decision. This is especially true in cases of rape, where from the start the circumstances that a child might be born into would not be loving and nurturing, but filled with resentment and potentially hatred.
Inevitably when I make this argument to our right wing colleagues I am attacked with personal insults, accused of trolling, even banned from commenting in some places. But in defense of Dr Tiller, who was murdered by the legal definition, there IS a fight to be fought here, if only one to educate and correct from the obfuscations of the anti-abortion faction. It's about time we started refusing to accept the insinuation that when there is an abortion "a child is murdered" and called it for what it is - the termination of a fetus.