Murder cannot be justified by beliefs
Mandee Kuglin
Issue date: 2/3/10 Section: Opinion
Last year, Dr. George R. Tiller, a man known for being one of the few doctors in the country to perform late-term abortions, was murdered as he stood inside his church. According to the New York Times article "In his own defense, man admits killing abortion provider," the murderer, Scott Roeder, claimed he was doing the world a favor. What positive thing could possibly come from murder, you ask? Well, he said, "If I didn't do it, the babies were going to die the next day."
Abortion is something that people often argue over, and late-term abortion is even more controversial and heavily debated. Because of this, abortion clinic violence is fairly prevalent. In fact, Tiller had been shot before in 1993 by a fellow abortion opposer of Roeder.
In Roeder's trial, his defense team is attempting to use his opposition to abortion as a justification for murder. The crux of this problem is that there is no justification for murder. No one has any right to take a human life, certainly not for doing their job. Tiller's job may have been controversial and may have caused much distress in Roeder's belief system, but that still doesn't justify murdering an innocent man. Not only was Tiller just doing his job, but the women who received late-term abortions from him came to him willingly.
Though I can certainly understand Roeder's viewpoint of not approving of abortion, his tactics of "solving" the problem were completely immoral, something that he claimed Tiller was. In Roeder's mind, Tiller deserved death, and only death, as a punishment. But murder should never be condoned, not even if the person you murder is also a murderer. Justice is not the responsibility of average citizens or religious zealots, but rather the responsibility of the legal system, however flawed it may be.
However many sick and disturbed people there are in this world, life isn't like the show Dexter, where one man takes justice into his own hands. But, I also don't believe that Tiller deserved to have justice served against him. What crime did Tiller truly commit? In this instance, the only true criminal is the man so consumed with his beliefs that he was driven to stalk a man, premeditate a murder plot and shoot him down inside a church.
For whatever reason, Tiller decided to become a doctor who performed late-term abortions. Yes, you can say he killed children and others can say he was saving women's lives, but the fact of the matter is Tiller was fulfilling a role in society that had some need to be filled, though the Boston Globe reports that less than 1 percent of abortions are considered "late-term" or "partial birth." These women come to him willingly to receive late-term abortions and no one can judge their reasons for doing so because you can never truly understand where a person is coming from unless you have psychic abilities.
Abortion is something that people often argue over, and late-term abortion is even more controversial and heavily debated. Because of this, abortion clinic violence is fairly prevalent. In fact, Tiller had been shot before in 1993 by a fellow abortion opposer of Roeder.
In Roeder's trial, his defense team is attempting to use his opposition to abortion as a justification for murder. The crux of this problem is that there is no justification for murder. No one has any right to take a human life, certainly not for doing their job. Tiller's job may have been controversial and may have caused much distress in Roeder's belief system, but that still doesn't justify murdering an innocent man. Not only was Tiller just doing his job, but the women who received late-term abortions from him came to him willingly.
Though I can certainly understand Roeder's viewpoint of not approving of abortion, his tactics of "solving" the problem were completely immoral, something that he claimed Tiller was. In Roeder's mind, Tiller deserved death, and only death, as a punishment. But murder should never be condoned, not even if the person you murder is also a murderer. Justice is not the responsibility of average citizens or religious zealots, but rather the responsibility of the legal system, however flawed it may be.
However many sick and disturbed people there are in this world, life isn't like the show Dexter, where one man takes justice into his own hands. But, I also don't believe that Tiller deserved to have justice served against him. What crime did Tiller truly commit? In this instance, the only true criminal is the man so consumed with his beliefs that he was driven to stalk a man, premeditate a murder plot and shoot him down inside a church.
For whatever reason, Tiller decided to become a doctor who performed late-term abortions. Yes, you can say he killed children and others can say he was saving women's lives, but the fact of the matter is Tiller was fulfilling a role in society that had some need to be filled, though the Boston Globe reports that less than 1 percent of abortions are considered "late-term" or "partial birth." These women come to him willingly to receive late-term abortions and no one can judge their reasons for doing so because you can never truly understand where a person is coming from unless you have psychic abilities.
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