Death of Dr. George Tiller

After decades of protests against his practices, many in law enforcement labeled Dr. Tiller as  the biggest target of anti-abortion violence in America. Following the murder of another abortion-performing doctor, Tiller was placed under the protection of federal marshals for several years. However, his protection and the protection of his clinic did not stop there. He installed bulletproof glass, floodlights, and metal detectors at Women’s Health Care to protect himself, his staff, and his patients. He even drove an armored SUV, hired security guards, and, under the guidance of FBI officials, wore a bulletproof vest everywhere he went starting in the early 1990s.

Tiller was an active member of his church in Wichita, the Reformation Lutheran Church of Kansas. His church was part of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, whose view is that abortion can be “morally responsible” [1]. In 2001, protestors began to protest at his church, shouting at church members as they entered to “not to take their children into the church because there was a murderer there" and interrupting services with protests within the Church [2]. Having been asked to leave from a previous church several years earlier due to the unwanted attention, Tiller would not have been surprised if the same happened again. However, his church stood by him and even considered installing more security for his protection, but Tiller felt no need for it. Tiller never brought his security guards to church and, according to an employee of his, “The church was the one place he felt safe” [2].

On May 31, 2009, Dr. Tiller was serving as an usher at the Reformation Lutheran Church handing out flyers in the foyer, with his wife only a short distance away singing in the choir. Just after 10 a.m., as the service was about to start, a lone gunman walked up to Tiller and shot him at point-blank range in the head. The shooter escaped, only to be later arrested, and Dr. George Tiller was announced dead at the scene at the age of 67.

 Following his death, the Tiller family expressed their grief in a statement, saying that his murder was “particularly heart-wrenching because George was shot down in his house of worship, a place of peace" [3]. Also, President Obama expressed his condolences to the family and condemned the killing in his statement reading: “"I am shocked and outraged by the murder of Dr. George Tiller as he attended church services this morning. However profound our differences as Americans over difficult issues such as abortion, they cannot be resolved by heinous acts of violence” [4].  This direct statement from the president of the United States on the murder of Dr. George Teller shows how important of a figure he was in the abortion debate in America.