In the wake of the murder of women’s healthcare provider Dr. George Tiller, many Americans remain concerned about the effect of acts of domestic terrorism on health care availability. Women whose lives are at risk may not be able to find a doctor willing to jeopardize his or her own life by performing medically necessary abortions. That is the far reaching terroristic effect of attacks on abortion clinics and their staff – fewer doctors and health care providers are willing to undertake the dangers associated with providing this legal medical procedure.
Shortly after the murder of the Holocaust Museum security guard, Stephen Tyrone Johns, federal law enforcement immediately started investigating the suspected killer’s associates and right wing organizations he belonged to. The feds recognized the obvious link between the suspect’s attack and his association with extremist groups.
So why hasn’t the federal government approached the murder of Dr. Tiller the same way?
Clearly Tiller’s murder is a terrorist act that can affect the health care of half our country’s population, with ramifications that likely will reduce the number of doctors willing to risk their lives to save pregnant women’s lives with abortions they medically need. Yet Obama and the FBI are not calling Tiller’s murder domestic terrorism, or going after groups like the so-called Operation Rescue that may be inciting this kind of violence.
Why not? Because President Obama and Congress are beholden to right wing and religious anti-choice groups and their leaders, as is evidenced by Obama’s recent appointment of Alexia Kelley, the founder of the anti-choice organization Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good, as director of the Department of Health and Human Services' Center for Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. Kelley and her group actually believe the Catholic Church is right to prohibit birth control, including contraception like rubbers! Her appointment by Obama means she will be in a position to direct millions of tax dollars to organizations that are anti-choice, anti-family planning and anti-women’s healthcare, further empowering those organizations and religious groups that already have a death grip on our government.
Similarly, the medical industry is strangling society by blocking health care reform. While Obama and liberals are pushing for universal health care, the powerful insurance, medical and pharmaceutical industries are busy directing Congress to ensure federal plans don’t stand in the way of their obscene profiteering. During the 2008 election season, these powerful lobbying groups switched their support from mostly right wing BushCo politicians to a more balanced Democrat and Republican spread. These industry lobbies appear to have bought and sold many elected government officials, and now stand to block the ability of Congress to help the American families struggling with overwhelming health care costs.
While we might not be able to mitigate the negative effect of our elected representatives being in the pocket of the medical industry, we do have an opportunity to use this to our advantage. How?
Co-opt the political influence the medical industry has over Congress.
What would happen if we passed laws requiring insurance companies to pay for the security of abortion doctors and staff, as well as protective services for women needing these life saving procedures? We could actually enact laws ourselves in states with the initiative process to force insurance companies to pay for security. When big powerful Congress-manipulating insurance companies stand to risk big bucks protecting women who need abortion services and the medical personnel who provide them, they’ll be pressuring government to go after those who promote violence against abortion providers. With their false claim of "saving lives," anti-choice organizations, religious leaders and right wing talking heads clearly stir up extremists and incite domestic terrorism. While Obama and others might feel the need to be bipartisan and accepting of both sides of the abortion issue, the insurance companies will remind our government of the clear link between extremist groups and their financial bottom line.
Let’s see how long extremist organizations and right wing talking heads continue to provoke their followers to commit acts of violence when the full force of the federal government (backed by the giant insurance companies financial needs) holds them accountable for their lies, distortions and misdeeds.