And I lost a friend.
For many years, I have refered girls and women too far along for me to comfortably provide abortion to George's clinic in Wichita.
A few weeks ago, on a night of major rainstorms in the Wichita area, George's clinic was vandalized, security cameras had their wires cut, alarm wires disabled and a hole cut in the roof. There was extensive damage to the building, and the terrorists who committed these crimes were never found.
Last Sunday morning George was murdered in the church he had attended for most or maybe all his life, while he was ushering in his fellow congregates.
As a general rule, my diaries, like most of my writings, flow like a stream of water. I decide what I want to write about, write the first sentence and my fingers seem to go on autopilot. Not this time. I started trying to right this on Sunday, about an hour after I got a phone call from Ann Rose, telling me that George had been murdered.
George has been the target of vicious "protests" and terrorist attacks since at least 1985 when his clinic was first firebombed. The same year my clinic was firebombed and began to experience hundreds of protesters marching up and down in front of my office, screaming at me, my staff and our patients. We took a different approach to these would be terrorists. I took what I considered the right approach and went totally public with what I do and why I do it. George chose to build a fortress and do his best to protect his patients, staff and family members. But we both felt the same way about would-be-terrorists who stood screaming in front of our reproductive health services clinics.
I will print something I wrote about a book review about terrorism sometime in the 1990s:
There is an extremely important concept in this letter.
Robert Neralich
Fayetteville, AR
Dear Dr. Neralich,
I have read your book reviews in Arkansas Democrat-Gazette) for sometime, and usually enjoy them even though I have no interest in reading most of the "literary" material that you review. However, some of the books really strike a chord which resonates, like the recently reviewed Terror in the Mind of God. I tried to buy it at Barnes and Noble and when they didn't have it, thought I would try one of the Christian bookstores. Of course, I struck out there as well. So I tried Amazon.com and got the book two days later.
I'm a little surprised that the religion editor at the Arkansas Democrate-Gazette (whoever that might be) let you review a book that had anything negative to say about Christian fundamentalist's, no matter how peripheral to "mainstream" Christianity.
As you may know, I've had some experience with our homegrown Christian terrorist wannabes. Juergensmeyer is right when he states that terrorism lies in the eyes of those whom the would-be-terrorist would terrorize. And while I am absolutely certain that the aim of our locals like Jay Cole, et al, was to terrorize me, my family and my employees, we simply refused to be terrorized. It is certainly possible that my clinic may someday again be firebombed and someone like Rev. "Mike" Bray might someday murder me, but I will NOT be terrorized. It is not always possible for one to determine how he will die, but it is always ours to choose how we will LIVE. I choose to live unafraid. Therefore, terrorists can never make me their "victim."
Whether they call themselves "protectors of the unborn", "defenders of the faith", "freedom fighters" or "religious terrorists" matters not a whit. They are murderers and and those who incite them are just as guilty. They are criminals. To call them otherwise, cloaks them in a glamour they absolutely do not deserve.
For a long, long time - indeed, since I was about 12 or 13 years old - I have tried to understand the seemingly desperate need that we humans have to believe things that, to the non-believer or to one who subscribes to a different faith, are absolutely incredible. I find the religious dogmas of the Christian Identity folks and the Sikhs and the Muslims and Hindus, or even the Aum Shinrikyo, Jonestown and Branch Dividian cults no less believable than those of the Methodists and Baptists and Presbyterians, not to even speak of the Roman Catholic heirarchy.
However, most Methodists and Presbyterians have no wish to be "
terrorists." I’m afraid I can’t speak so kindly of the Baptists and
Catholics.
While every physician providing abortion care along with their family and staff know that they might be attacked and even killed on any given day, and some are very fearful, we all have refused to be terrorized. That is not to say that there are not terrorists out there, for there are. And they are doing their best to incite the more immature and aggressive to bomb, murder and arson.
This has been a painful diary to write. But this is nothing compared to that pain that will be experienced by th thousands of girls and women and their families from around the world for whom Dr. George Tiller will no longer be here to take care of them.
I think if I were almost 44 instead of 74, I would take George's place. However, I just gave up major surgery 18 months ago, and I am far too old a dog to learn that new trick.