Meeting Persephone

I'm sure by now that everyone's heard about the senseless murder of Dr. Tiller. This is a true loss to his family and community but even more so to women in the United States. Whatever your personal feelings about abortion, the fact that this man was willing to stand up and care for women's needs despite the risks to himself is something that cannot be understated nor ignored.

Abortions are going to happen whether they are legal or not. The difference lies only in the safety measures with which they are carried out and the impact that it has on the lives of those women who need to have them performed. With legalized abortion the practitioners are monitored for their ability to perform safe and clean abortions for their patients - removing the legal status removes also the ability to monitor the manner in which these procedures are performed leading to a much greater risk for infections, permanent damage, and death of women who could have otherwise been spared. Removing the legal status also eliminates the need for someone to be a licensed physician to perform an abortion. Is this a risk that anyone wants to take with their lives, their daughters' lives, their neighbors' lives?

When it comes to the morality of the abortion issue there are plenty of arguments on each side. Far be it for me to tell anyone which is the right and wrong way to look at it. The only thing that I can say is to request that those opposed to legalized abortion consider how they'd feel if a woman dearer to them than anything were injured or, worse, killed because of a back alley abortion if legal abortion were no longer available.

Of course the legal status of abortion was not the only contentious issue surrouding Dr. Tiller. He also performed late-term abortions. It seems that these are even more bothersome to people than the early abortions performed at most women's clinics. There is a reason for the late term abortion though. They are normally performed as the result of health risks for the mother or fetus that become apparent later in the pregnancy and are used as a life-saving measure. The decision to go this route at the later stage of pregnacy would have to be incredibly difficult for the woman who undergoes this procedure. At this point in a pregnancy, she has likely felt the fetus moving and has developed a bond to it as well as the idea of being a mother. To sit outside of the situation and pretend that one has even the smallest inkling of what the woman is going through is an arrogance that nobody, especially no man, has a right to.

I could go on and on with the issue of abortion because that was Dr. Tiller's life work. It is what he did in his daily life to assist women in need. It is what he risked his safety for in the past several years of his life. It is what he was shot in each arm for in the early 1990s. And it is finally what led to his murder this past Sunday. Actually, that isn't entirely true. Abortion is not what killed Dr. Tiller - a cold-hearted cold-blooded murderer with fanatical ideas is what killed Dr. Tiller. Abortion is not to blame - extremism is. And you cannot claim to be pro-life if you're willing to see to it that a life is taken because that life represents something you disagree with.

May Dr. Tiller's family have peace in this difficult time and the future that he will not be a part of. I can only extend my deepest sympathies to them and my hopes that this tragedy will not deter those who can from doing what they do to continue helping as Dr. Tiller did in his life.

The Trash Heap has spoken.