Followup re: murder of Dr. Tiller

June 7, 2009 11:03 AM

Followup to this post, from The New York Times.

quoting werkzeuger's story.

posted by theora55 to MetaFilter gatherings at 11:03 AM (7 comments total)

“We always sent the really tragic cases to Tiller,” said Hill, who knew the doctor for 20 years. This included women who were newly diagnosed with cancer and who could not start chemotherapy unless they terminated their pregnancies; women whose babies would be born only to suffer from genetic illness and die; women – no girls – who were victims of rape or incest and who were so young that they didn’t know enough to know they were pregnant until they were many months along.

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posted by UbuRoivas at 11:27 AM on June 7

One of the doubled links should go here, for anyone who missed that sidebarred post.
posted by roombythelake at 12:25 PM on June 7

I fixed the link in the post. How nice that the NYT actually gave decent attribution.

I'm always a little concerned when I sidebar something thinking "oh the community would like to read this..." that this sort of thing would happen. werkzeuger has been very understanding about his comment deep in a long thread being pulled out and splashed all over a dozen popular websites. While politically I think this situation is Good News since I think it humanizes a difficult situation that people are all too ready to put into a black or white box to suit their viewpoint, I'm also wary of taking something that's fairly private and personal and putting it someplace where people will take it and run with it.

I'm glad this worked out the way it did. I thank werkzeuger for sharing his story and Dr. Tiller for being who he was, where he was, when he was.
posted by jessamyn at 12:33 PM on June 7 [5 favorites]

Thanks, Jessamyn.
posted by theora55 at 7:31 PM on June 7

Andrew Sullivan linked to that comment as well.
posted by delmoi at 8:46 PM on June 7

The thing that has stuck with me over the last week has been the countless stories of women and men whose lives were personally touched by Dr. Tiller, and I think this has gone a long, long way to making people understand that late-term abortions are not some cavalier decision made out of convenience.

Which also makes me wonder -- is this a new phenomenon, due in no small part to the ubiquity of the web and blogs like the NYT and Salon? In other words, when the last abortion doctor was murdered, did we see the same outpouring of personal memories? It feels new, somehow, but I can't decide if it is actually new (in terms of women finally having a variety of outlets through which they can express their experiences) or if I just wasn't paying attention last time.
posted by shiu mai baby at 5:20 AM on June 8

My guess: it's new, and you weren't paying attention in the right places. I've no doubt a great many communities, online and offline, shared stories last time; you were not part of those communities. What's new is that it's much easier for those stories to escape their community; the ubiquitous web, the public-facing forums, etc., weren't so easily available back in the days of BBSes and Usenet.
posted by five fresh fish at 10:14 AM on June 8