I rarely write diaries, but I hadn't seen any commentary on the Washington Post article about Doctor Tiller's death (or about "abortion provider George Tiller's death", as the Post would put it.)...
I was very disappointed today when I read the Washington Post's print-edition article about Dr. Tiller's murder this morning.
What upset me was the Post's decision not to refer to slain doctor George Tiller as a doctor – or to even inform their readers that Dr. Tiller was, in fact, a doctor.
It’s an extraordinarily salient point to omit from writing an article about the killing of a doctor for providing legal medical services to his patients.
Instead, the Post chose only to repeatedly refer to him as an "abortion provider" with the only reference to him as a doctor coming mid-way through the article in a quote by Nancy Keenan which referred to him as "Dr. Tiller."
This is extremely important to me because I believe that for the most part, whoever controls the language, controls the debate -- and in this case, the Post is helping the right-wing steer the debate such that people don't think of what Dr. Tiller did as a medical procedure related to women's health.
I'm also annoyed that the Post article referenced Dr. Tiller's clinic as "one of three in the nation to perform abortions after the point when a fetus is considered able to survive outside the womb" without bothering to mention that this is done in cases where the woman's health is in danger without the medical procedure. Seems like another huge point to omit if you want to skew the debate to favor the folks who perpetrated this crime.
At any rate, I wrote this quick diary just to alert people to watch out for examples of the media skewing the language of this crime in favor of those who want to pretend that there is no medical/health issue.
If anyone wants to write to the Post's obmbudsman, he can be reached here: ombudsman@washpost.com
(Note: There is no ling because the on-line edition now refers to Doctor Tiller as "Abortion Doctor", which is an upgrade, albeit I don't believe this is the proper term either, since abortion was one procedure performed by this OB/GYN, not the sum total of the type of doctor he was.)
P.S. Have you donated to Planned Parenthood or similar organization yet?
I can't think of a better response to the murder than to bolster the coffer's of those concerned with protecting women's health. Plus, the violent right may be given pause if they believe their tactics are backfiring by spurring support for women's health.