Abortion doctor George Tiller is killed; suspect in custody

Tiller's slaying comes as President Obama, who supports abortion rights, has called for the opposing sides to find common ground. "I am shocked and outraged by the murder of Dr. George Tiller as he attended church services this morning," Obama said in a statement. "However profound our differences as Americans over difficult issues such as abortion, they cannot be resolved by heinous acts of violence."

Last month, in a commencement speech at the University of Notre Dame, the president issued a plea for respectful discourse, but acknowledged, "The fact is that at some level, the views of the two camps are irreconcilable."

Kelli Conlin, president of NARAL Pro-Choice New York, echoed that sentiment Sunday: "It is cold-blooded, vicious actions like today's assassination that make it hard for those of us in the pro-choice community to find common ground with those on the other side."

Some people on antiabortion websites hailed the slaying, the first killing of an abortion provider in the U.S. since Dr. Barnett Slepian was killed by a sniper at his home in Amherst, N.Y., in 1998. But the movement's leaders condemned it.

"It's tragic," said the Rev. Patrick Mahoney of the Christian Defense Coalition, who attended Tiller's trial in March. "The probability is that someone who opposed abortion did this. The reason we are pro-life is because we hate violence on any level. I don't know of one legitimate pro-life leader who would not unequivocally condemn this."

Mahoney said he had scheduled a news conference with antiabortion groups this morning on the steps of the Supreme Court to condemn the killing.

"One of my main concerns here is that the Obama administration and Democratic leaders don't make the same mistake that the Clinton administration made, and don't use this isolated episode to demonize an entire movement and try to take this tragedy for political gain," Mahoney said.

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Revival of sorts

Troy Newman, the head of the antiabortion group Operation Rescue -- who moved to Kansas from California to try to put Tiller out of business -- said he was "shocked, horrified and numb."

"It's a horrible day," Newman said. "Nobody wants anything to end like this. We want to bring abortionists to justice through the proper channels, through legal means. We know that Mr. Tiller was violating the law and we could prove it, and I am confident that we were a couple months away from getting his license revoked."