Dr George Tiller was gunned down Sunday in the Reformation Lutheran Church, Wichita Kansas, where he was serving as an usher.
Dr Tiller performed abortions and was a champion of women's reproductive freedom despite the risk to his own life. He had long been vilified by anti-abortion activists who made him a target of ongoing threats.
No detractor's voice was louder than that of Fox News' inquisitor-in-chief, Bill O'Reilly.
O'Reilly first got Tiller in his sights back in 2005. According to Salon, the doctor's name surfaced on O'Reilly's show, The Factor, on 28 subsequent episodes - most recently on April 27 of this year.
The on-air attacks on Dr Tiller included O'Reilly's usual brand of hardline rhetoric - the type of inflammatory stuff guaranteed to rile up most anti-abortion activists.
Dr Tiller was crudely caricatured as "Tiller the Baby Killer." Other characterizations were a variation on that theme. The doctor was likened to the Nazis... his work was described as the moral equivalent of NAMBLA and Al Qaeda... comparisons were also made with Mao's China, Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Soviet Union in the course of the broad brush smear job that is part of O'Reilly's on-air attack style.
O'Reilly deliberately associated Dr Tiller with child molestation and rape and without evidence accused his clinic of covering up for 'child rapists.' He claimed the doctor was being enabled by amoral cultural elites and scofflaw journalists. Tiller's clinic was described as a "death mill."
O'Reilly's attacks on George Tiller weren't just on-air targeting. He dispatched producers Jesse Watters and Porter Barry to ambush the doctor. The ambush 'interviews' also extended to Tiller's attorney, Pedro Irigonegaray and Kansas governor, Kathleen Sebelius.
O'Reilly presented the doctor as a murderer-on-the-loose running a "business of destruction". He described him as having "blood on his hands" and used terms such as "Judgment Day."
While O'Reilly never went so far as advocating violence, the act of targeting George Tiller in this highly sensationalist fashion offered the doctor up as a hate-target - intentional or not. This was playing with fire since elements in the anti-abortion movement have a history of violence - including shootings and bombings directed against abortion providers.
Authorities have detained a suspect, 51-year-old Scott Roeder in connection with the killing of Dr Tiller. Roeder was reportedly a one-time member of a Shawnee County-based Freemen group called One Supreme Court.
Suzanne James, a former director of victim's services for Shawnee County remembers Roeder and described him as "dangerous."
A person using the name Scott Roeder was responsible for posting anti-Tiller comments on various internet sites. A posting from September 3, 2007, on a site sponsored by Operation Rescue, said that Tiller needed to be "stopped."
Was O'Reilly's campaign against George Tiller a factor in the final tragic outcome? At this stage that is very difficult to assess. No doubt O'Reilly will condemn the murder and express sympathy for Tiller's family - but the fact remains, he contributed to the climate of hate that resulted in Tiller being made into enemy number-one in the minds of some people. In that type of climate a shooter might not only feel empowered, but justified.
Dr Tiller was crudely caricatured as "Tiller the Baby Killer." Other characterizations were a variation on that theme. The doctor was likened to the Nazis... his work was described as the moral equivalent of NAMBLA and Al Qaeda... comparisons were also made with Mao's China, Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Soviet Union in the course of the broad brush smear job that is part of O'Reilly's on-air attack style.
O'Reilly deliberately associated Dr Tiller with child molestation and rape and without evidence accused his clinic of covering up for 'child rapists.' He claimed the doctor was being enabled by amoral cultural elites and scofflaw journalists. Tiller's clinic was described as a "death mill."
O'Reilly's attacks on George Tiller weren't just on-air targeting. He dispatched producers Jesse Watters and Porter Barry to ambush the doctor. The ambush 'interviews' also extended to Tiller's attorney, Pedro Irigonegaray and Kansas governor, Kathleen Sebelius.
O'Reilly presented the doctor as a murderer-on-the-loose running a "business of destruction". He described him as having "blood on his hands" and used terms such as "Judgment Day."
While O'Reilly never went so far as advocating violence, the act of targeting George Tiller in this highly sensationalist fashion offered the doctor up as a hate-target - intentional or not. This was playing with fire since elements in the anti-abortion movement have a history of violence - including shootings and bombings directed against abortion providers.
Authorities have detained a suspect, 51-year-old Scott Roeder in connection with the killing of Dr Tiller. Roeder was reportedly a one-time member of a Shawnee County-based Freemen group called One Supreme Court.
Suzanne James, a former director of victim's services for Shawnee County remembers Roeder and described him as "dangerous."
A person using the name Scott Roeder was responsible for posting anti-Tiller comments on various internet sites. A posting from September 3, 2007, on a site sponsored by Operation Rescue, said that Tiller needed to be "stopped."
Was O'Reilly's campaign against George Tiller a factor in the final tragic outcome? At this stage that is very difficult to assess. No doubt O'Reilly will condemn the murder and express sympathy for Tiller's family - but the fact remains, he contributed to the climate of hate that resulted in Tiller being made into enemy number-one in the minds of some people. In that type of climate a shooter might not only feel empowered, but justified.
For details on the suspect Scott Roeder here.
Salon article on O'Reilly's attacks on Tiller here.
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