Scott Roeder, the 52-year-old convicted of killing Kansas abortion-provider Dr. George Tiller, was given a sentence yesterday that means he will spend the rest of his life in prison. The judge could have decided to make Roeder eligible for parole after 25 years but agreed with the prosecutors that there were aggravating factors, such as the fact that Roeder had stalked Tiller, that mandated the maximum 50-year period before Roeder could be eligible for parole.
The sentence, while appropriate, of course does nothing to bring back Dr. Tiller. Unfortunately, it also does little to relieve the uncertainty and violence surrounding abortion. Julie Burkhart, who worked with Tiller as his spokesperson, said Kansas lawmakers are now considering changes to statutes that would make it even harder for women to get late-term abortions, the kind Tiller was one of the few in the country to provide. "This legislative session in Kansas, anti-choice legislators feel emboldened," she says.
And it also does nothing to challenge the rhetoric that egged Roeder on in the first place. "When you look at the anti-choice activists who use this kind of language -- this language works to incite to violence, and so I don't think they can just blame Scott Roeder for being the trigger man," she said. She said she knew this anyway, but said it became even clearer as she sat through the trial.
Not only is Wichita left without an abortion provider at all, but many of the women around the world who would have seen Tiller in the most desperate of circumstances now likely have nowhere to turn. That's why Burkhart founded a group called Trust Women, borrowing Tiller's motto. Pro-choice activism is key, she says. "You have to have more boots on the ground in critical states."
-- Monica Potts
