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Defence will not turn pro-lifers into killers
CALGARY HERALD ^ | JANUARY 13, 2010 | NAOMI LAKRITZ

Posted on 01/14/2010 10:27:08 AM PST by rhema

The killing of Wichita, Kan., abortion doctor George Tiller was wrong. It was terrible. There just isn't any question about it; in fact, it doesn't need to be stated because it's so obviously the truth. Yet, pro-choice proponents seem to believe that pro-life people -- those who believe in the sanctity of all human life -- have just been given a licence to kill by the judge presiding over the trial of the man accused of fatally shooting Tiller.

There is no dispute about Scott Roeder's admitted guilt. On May 31, 2009, he shot Tiller as the doctor was talking to an usher in the foyer of Wichita's Reformation Lutheran Church. Tiller was one of just a handful of American doctors who provided late-term abortions. Roeder is facing first-degree murder charges, but his defence is arguing that the shooting was justified because it saved unborn babies from being aborted, and therefore the charge against him should be reduced to voluntary manslaughter.

The defence's argument is ludicrous, but it's not the first ludicrous defence any lawyer has offered up in court on his client's behalf, and it won't be the last. Clearly, walking up to someone and shooting him in the head with a .22-calibre handgun is first-degree murder. There are no mitigating arguments. Yet, the judge ruled that Roeder's defence arguments would be allowed -- a ruling that was challenged by the prosecution team on Tuesday in court, delaying jury selection in the trial.

If the defence ultimately succeeds, Roeder might face five years in prison instead of life.

Legal wrangling aside, the most troubling aspect about this case is the assumption that lowering the charges against Roeder will turn otherwise peaceful, law-abiding people into gun-brandishing fanatics ready to rush out and kill other abortion doctors.

(Excerpt) Read more at canada.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial
KEYWORDS: abortion; prolife; roeder; tiller
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To: sickoflibs

We know that a homicide took place because we have the dead guy and it seems that this fellow admits that he was indeed the one who committed the act of killing the other guy. Whether it’s a “murder” or not is a matter for the court to decide. I see no problem with allowing the man to put on whatever defense he and his attorney choose to. I would see a much larger problem if the courts refused to allow his chosen defense. As to whether it’s an effective or valid defense, that’s up to the jury, isn’t it?


21 posted on 01/14/2010 11:17:51 AM PST by Emmett McCarthy
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To: rhema
The article writer was mostly correct, but he didn't speak for me. If I could have gone back in time would I be able to kill Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Che, etc. Yes, I could.

How does Tiller compare? His numbers were smaller, but if Roe didn't happen, 50,000,000 babies could have grown up to have productive lives. Ok some abortions would have taken place anyway, so let's be crazy and cut that in half, if it makes pro-aborts feel better. Say, 25,000,000. That is STILL a holocaust.

There is NO DOUBT killing “Tiller the baby killer”, as he was known, saved lives. If it discouraged doctors from becoming abortionists, even more babies are saved. If abortion clinics become as hard to find as a “Sambo’s” restaurant, the genocide will finally stop.

While I do not advocate violence, I will shed no tears for abortionists or their families who live off the blood and body part sales of innocent life.

You don't need a GUN to take a stand.

Abortion is an ABOMINATION. If you deliver the mail to an abortion clinic, you are part of the problem. If you plow the parking lot of an abortion clinic, you are part of the problem. If you deliver fuel oil, shovel their sidewalk, cut their grass, deliver them packages, fix their toilets, replace their garbage (baby) disposer, rent or lease them property, or deliver ANY type of service to these butchers, you are part of the problem.

These “businesses” could not operate without your help. You can “CHOOSE” your customers. You can REFUSE to work for them. You can REFUSE to rent to them. You can refuse on the basis of your religious beliefs. If they start to loose money they will close, because it is all about the money.

Are you friends with an abortionists wife or kids? Does an abortionist or his family belong to any social groups that you do? Ostracize these people until they get the message.

HOW DID THOSE PEOPLE ATTEND A CHURCH WITH THIS MONSTER?

Guilt by association you say? ABSOLUTELY YES. SHUN these people and anyone who works for them. Do not associate with EVIL.

22 posted on 01/14/2010 11:25:39 AM PST by faucetman (Just the facts ma'am, just the facts)
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To: Neoliberalnot

Uh, serfs were never slaughtered by the millions. The whole point of serfdom was to ensure a stable supply of labor to work the land in order to finance a governing and military elite. If you slaughtered your serfs you and your noble family would starve. So you didn’t slaughter your serfs.

What made them serfs was lack of the personal freedom to pick up and move elsewhere, ensuring you as the lord that your lands would be productive. In return for giving up personal fredom, the serfs had a right to enough productive land to live off of—the lord could not arbitrarily remove them, much less slaughter them.

Mass genocide, slaughter by the millions is a modern phenomenon, made possibly by new and improved slaughtering technology as well as changes in personal status.

When you need eeeeeeeeevvvvvvvvviiiiiiiiillllllll examples, you’ll usually find them much closer in time to today than you will find them back in the Big, Bad, MiddleEvil days.

Serfs in the Middle Ages were a lot more free than American taxpayers are today. Bureaucratic control today and the tax bite are far more oppressive than serfdom was in the Middle Ages.

But, like the frog in the gradually brought-to-a-boil water, we believe the lie that serfs were slaughtered by the millions, a lie foisted upon us by our Elitist Betters.

Wise up. Knowledge is power.


23 posted on 01/14/2010 11:26:21 AM PST by Houghton M.
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To: sickoflibs
It is obviously a valid defense. Read the statute!

All Roeder should have to prove is that Tiller intended to continue performing late term/partial birth abortions. The fact that Tiller was acquitted of an earlier abortion related crime is not relevant to this case.

Roeder has a statutory defense, especially since no one can honestly argue a partial birth abortion is necessary to protect the life or health of the mother.

Because he has a statutory defense, the principle of lenity applies. This means that any ambiguity in the law must be construe in his favor.

This judge is simply applying the law that the legislature enacted regardless of his personal feelings.

24 posted on 01/14/2010 11:28:13 AM PST by SeaHawkFan
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To: Houghton M.
http://cache.daylife.com/imageserve/03S1d6yb9s3rc/610x.jpg

Peasants launched tax revolts back in the Middle Ages and Renaissance. They were taxed for the same reasons we are today: to support a parasitic, non-working, profligate elite class. Hayek didn't choose the title The Road to Serfdom without reason.

25 posted on 01/14/2010 11:41:07 AM PST by hellbender
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To: Lurker

At the end of Schindler’s list, Schindler breaks down as he lists the items he could have sold & thus redeemed even more human lives from the concentration camps. Sometimes I wonder if at the end (judgement day), will we not finally realize we should have physically attacked and pulled down every single abortion facility in this country.

But no, we are “civilized”, & wait for non-existent laws to come into effect to protect our weakest members of society.


26 posted on 01/14/2010 12:07:05 PM PST by jasmine47 (All you have to decide, is what to do with the time that is given to you. (Gandalf))
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To: jasmine47
At the end of Schindler’s list, Schindler breaks down as he lists the items he could have sold & thus redeemed even more human lives from the concentration camps.

Do you remember Ben Kingsley's response?

"He who saves one life saves the world entire."

Food for thought, that.

27 posted on 01/14/2010 12:15:02 PM PST by Lurker (The avalanche has begun. The pebbles no longer have a vote.)
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To: Houghton M.

My failure to communicate—I was referring to Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, and the like.


28 posted on 01/14/2010 12:17:01 PM PST by Neoliberalnot ((Freedom's Precious Metals: Gold, Silver and Lead))
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To: sickoflibs
Those that think this is a valid defense will scream bloody murder when, if the precedent were established, it would be used by the liberal cause de jour to justify killing.

“I had to kill that SUV salesman, he was going to kill thousands through global warming!”

“I had to kill that Republican candidate, he was a warmonger who would have killed thousands!”

To some it only matters whose ox is getting gored, not the insane precedent of allowing some cold blooded murders as being justified due to political considerations.

29 posted on 01/14/2010 12:21:10 PM PST by allmendream (Income is EARNED not distributed. So how could it be re-distributed?)
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To: rhema

Pro life is a misstatement. Pro INNOCENT life is correct. There are lots of folks out there who NEED killing!


30 posted on 01/14/2010 12:28:16 PM PST by JimRed ("Hey, hey, Teddy K., hot enough down there today?" TERM LIMITS, NOW AND FOREVER!)
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To: allmendream

RE :”Those that think this is a valid defense will scream bloody murder when, if the precedent were established, it would be used by the liberal cause de jour to justify killing”

Thanks. I am ketting pings with replies saying things like “Kill them. We decide the law” And this is the pro-life group LOL . They are candy for MSNBC and Air America.


31 posted on 01/14/2010 1:51:12 PM PST by sickoflibs ( "It's not the taxes, the redistribution is spending you demand stupid")
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To: sickoflibs
As I said, it is situational. The exact same principle would be opposed with the equal fervor if it were applied to someone of a different political ideology.

Something isn't a valid defense for one side, but a lousy precedent for the other side. Just as an expansion of Presidential power should not be judged on if you like the current occupant of the White House or not; but if you would like to see your worst case scenario President of the other party exercising that power.

32 posted on 01/14/2010 1:59:56 PM PST by allmendream (Income is EARNED not distributed. So how could it be re-distributed?)
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To: hellbender

THey weren’t tax revolts.

They had rights and appealed to them and their cases were heard. They were not slaughtered by the millions. If you would actually read some history, you would discover that the late medieval peasant revolts were largely the result of a rising standard of living for peasants due to the labor shortages caused by the great Plague, combined with the lords, who were being squeezed by inflation (obligations of peasants had to some degree been converted into money but at fixed rates because no one understood or expected inflation), so the lords were losing ground and tried oppressive means to squeeze the peasaznts IN NEW WAYS. The peasant revolts did not challenge the notion of serfdom itself (most peasants had actually been granted personal freedom by the later Middle Ages) but claimed that the Lords were violating ancient rights and customary laws. They were simply asking for their due under the law, largely because they were better off than their ancestors a few centuries earlier and they knew it.

Sure, being personally free they could run off to the cities, but most of them did not want to. In the cities they were on their own and had fewer rights. Having a piece of land that was yours by long tradition that you could farm to earn a living was not a bad thing for everyone. Entrepreneurial types wanted the city with its risk and freedoms, but not everyone did. And not all peasants reolted. And the ones who revolted were, for the most part, not serfs but free men—their expectations had been raised. But they thought, rightly or wrongly, that the lords were not upholding their end of the bargain.

But if it makes you feel better to use the Middle Ages as your bogeyman so you don’t have to confront the truly horrific conditions of the early modern and modern era,

be my guest.

It’s just bad history. That’s all.


33 posted on 01/14/2010 3:50:19 PM PST by Houghton M.
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To: sickoflibs
Do you mean "morally" or "legally"? Remember, the USSC outlawed the legislative practice of regulating such processes. So there's kind of an absence of law.

I can imagine getting a 5 vote majority to bring back the Code Duello in fact, and that'd just muddy the waters further.

Still, I don't believe Tiller is dead, or if he's dead he wasn't killed at that location. You'd have to first believe one of these partial birth abortionists actually ever went to a church of any kind.

I don't believe in fairy tales, so whatever really happened is probably far different than the prosecutor's presentation or the shooter's admission. Doesn't mean the abortionists won't get their shot at executing another adult.

34 posted on 01/25/2010 3:34:03 PM PST by muawiyah ("Git Out The Way")
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