(snippets, read the entire article
here)
I shouldn't have been shocked to see the news that Dr. George Tiller, an outspoken advocate for abortion rights and one of the nation's few late-term abortion providers, was gunned down yesterday morning as he attended church. Despite the fact that it's been more than a decade since an abortion provider has been murdered in America, I pay enough attention to hard-line anti-choice groups to know that a violent incident like Tiller's murder was all too predictable.
The last time an abortion provider was murdered, when Dr. Barnett Slepian was killed in 1998, it was a wake-up call to the fact that passing the FACE Act wasn't enough. Attorney General Janet Reno established the National Task Force on Violence against Health Care Providers, which committed the Department of Justice to enforcing FACE, coordinating information on national anti-abortion extremist groups, funding clinic safety efforts, and training local law enforcement. The following year, the White House budget requested $4.5 million to beef up security at abortion clinics. But other than finally bringing James Kopp, Slepian's killer, to justice in 2003, the task force was largely dormant for eight years under the Bush administration.
Attorney General Eric Holder released a statement responding to Tiller's murder, promising that "Federal law enforcement is coordinating with local law enforcement officials in Kansas on the investigation of this crime, and I have directed the United States Marshals Service to offer protection to other appropriate people and facilities around the nation." He also pledged to take steps to prevent related acts of violence. Obama expressed that he was "shocked and outraged" by the killing. Neither mentioned the FACE Act or reviving the task force.
Tiller's death is a wake-up call to the fact that our existing laws and regulatory bodies to protect against clinic violence aren't working as well as they should. As written, FACE provides a lot of protection for reproductive health providers. But we need an active task force -- or some other means of accountability -- to make sure the law is fully enforced. This is something Obama's Justice Department could commit to doing tomorrow, sending a strong signal that this type of domestic terrorism is not acceptable.