Thank you all for being here today, to honor the amazing life of Dr. George Tiller and mourn the loss of a man who was my friend and hero.
There is so much to be said about a life that touched so many. Dr. Tiller was a man of wisdom, humility, and deep spirituality. Much has been said this week about the opposition and assaults that he faced throughout his life, as well as the grace, optimism, and even humor that Dr. Tiller never lost even in the darkest of times, and the passion with which he continued his work in the service of women and families. It is this piece – the kindness, courtesy, justice, love and respect that was his mantra – that I hope will live on as Dr. Tiller’s legacy, and continue to inspire us as we work through the grief and righteous anger that has followed this devastating and immense tragedy.
Dr. Tiller did not set out to be an abortion provider. He was raised in Wichita, and his father was a well-respected physician. Dr. Tiller served as a physician in the army, and when his father was tragically killed in a 1970 plane crash, Dr. Tiller returned to Wichita to run his family practice. He started being asked by his patients if he would provide the abortion services that his father had. It was pre Roe v. Wade, and Dr. Tiller had never known this part of his father’s service. He later learned that his father had once turned away a patient who then sought out unsafe abortion services and died. And so Dr. Tiller, like his father before him, resolved to help women in the most vulnerable times of their lives, not only by providing much-needed medical services but by ministering to their hearts as well, treating them with the dignity, compassion, and respect that they deserved when making the ultimate decisions about their lives, their families, and their pregnancies.
I tell this story because some of us, like young Dr. Tiller, still believe that abortion does not happen to us or to those we know. Some of us have remained ignorant of the desperation and conviction that women feel when faced with a pregnancy that they cannot carry to term. Some of us have believed that this is someone else’s issue, that it is okay to remain silent, or that there is nothing we can do in the face of such heated debate about this basic medical procedure. Dr. Tiller did not come to his work because of political righteousness or abstract opinions – Dr. Tiller listened to the hearts of women, bore witness to their stories and their lives, and acted from his deepest convictions about humanity, love, faith and patriotism to offer abortion services to those most in need. He was a lightning rod for the anti-abortion movement but considered a saint by many of his colleagues because he refused to back down, refused to hide, and spoke with courage and honesty about the complexities of pregnancy, parenting, abortion, the lives of his patients and the circumstances under which they came to him.
Dr. Tiller was a man fond of witticisms, of pearls of wisdom that he offered us all as quick but important reminders about the way life is and the way he believed in living it. Several years ago he made tshirts that read “Ice Cream, Apple Pie, Motherhood and Abortion – 43% of American Women Can’t Be Wrong.” It is a fact that at least 45 million women have had abortions in this country since Roe v. Wade made abortion legal in 1973. At this continued rate, one in three American women will have an abortion in her lifetime. These women have partners, children, parents, friends and other loved ones, meaning that there is no one in this nation not touched by a woman who has made the choice to end a pregnancy. There are as many reasons that women choose abortion as there are women, and I have had the honor of speaking to thousands of these women during their decision-making process, during the procedure itself, and anywhere from moments afterward to decades later. The women I have spoken to come to their decision from a place of love, courage, sadness, faith, and gratitude. They come with a broad range of emotions and a broad range of experiences. In the best circumstances, these women have someone to talk to, people they love who offer unconditional support. But more often, women say that they have no one – that no one would understand, that people would think less of them, that they have never known anyone else to have an abortion or think that the choice is only made by those who are somehow different than they are. This stigma that surrounds abortion and women’s lives inevitably carries over to the clinicians who serve them, fueling the notion that we should all remain silent, hidden, and keep abortion out of the public discourse and polite society.
Dr. Tiller’s life mission was not only to provide safe medical services but to create a world in which abortion was honored as a courageous act of motherhood. It will be our greatest tribute to him to move forward from this tragedy with a commitment to speaking truth to power, a commitment to celebrating and protecting our heroic providers of abortion care, a commitment to acknowledging the universal experience of pregnancy and abortion and supporting the women in our lives who have made these heartfelt choices. I would like us all to leave here today reminded of Dr. Tiller’s famous words:
“Abortion is not a cerebral or a reproductive issue. Abortion is a matter of the heart. For until one understands the heart of a woman, nothing else about abortion makes any sense at all.”
We will miss you Dr. Tiller. May your message of compassion live in our hearts and carry us forward in our work. Rest in peace.
Grayson Dempsey
President, Backline
June 7th, 2009
