Now that the horror has passed. Now that the assassination of Dr. George Tiller by an antiabortion zealot while Tiller served as an usher in church has drifted out of the news, some are considering exactly what his loss means to women.
The unjustly vilified Dr. Tiller was not just another abortion provider, and the shorthand description of his being a provider of late term abortions is inadequate.
Fortunately, the indispensable Women's eNews has a report that addresses this.
Here is an excerpt:
Nearly 90 percent of U.S. counties have no abortion services, reports the New York-based Guttmacher Institute. "Providers are daunted by the dramatic increase in state restrictions passed since 1992," says Louise Melling, director of the reproductive freedom project for the New York-based American Civil Liberties Union.
Range of Restrictions
Such restrictions include gestational time limits (enforced in 37 states); parental permission in for minors (34 states); waiting periods (24 states) and counseling mandates (17 states). Many restrictions, Melling says, wind up requiring patients to make multiple trips to he doctor.
After Bush-supported legislation banned intact dilation and extraction--the procedure used in 85 percent of second-trimester abortions--in 2003, later-term providers such as Tiller became a vanishing breed.
"Fewer than 50 providers in the U.S. now offer abortion at up to 24 weeks of pregnancy, or fetal viability," says Alison Edelman, a spokeswoman for the New York-based Physicians for Reproductive Choice and Health. "And Dr. Tiller was one of only three providers who offered abortion during the last trimester."
Tiller offered abortions to women who learned only in the third trimester that their deformed fetuses had genetic abnormalities and would not survive outside the womb. He also served adolescent girls who were victims of rape or incest and who were not physically developed enough to carry pregnancies to term.
"Dr. Tiller was a physician of last resort," says Susan Yanow, a spokesperson for the Cambridge-based Second Trimester Access Initiative. "Now, the women he served have few resorts left."
Denouncing violent right wing rhetoric is the easy part.
But appreciating the value of the skilled and dedicated abortion services provided by Dr. Tiller, and appreciating the circumstances women find themselves in that led them to his clinic, is harder. Much harder for most of us. But doing so is part of our obligation if we say that we are prochoice, we need to know why that is and to be able to articulate why it is that late term abortions are necessary -- even when it is politically uncomfortable to do so.
We need to get good at it and put forward the best of those who know what they are talking about in this regard. We also need to help to ensure that barriers to abortion access are removed and that doctors are encouraged to step up to fill Dr. Tiller's shoes.
No excuses.