George Tiller

For years, abortion foes tried to put Dr. George Tiller out of business. One of the few American physicians who performed late-term abortions, he was targeted by violent extremists as well as principled opponents. In 1986, his clinic was bombed. In 1991, it was blockaded for six weeks. In 1993, he was shot in both arms. In March, Kansas prosecutors tried him on charges of breaking an abortion law; he was acquitted.

Shortly after the family of slain physician George Tiller announced Tuesday that his abortion clinic would be shuttered forever, the police cruiser that had been a fixture in the clinic's driveway was gone. The gate was open, the parking lot empty and someone had hung a large red-and-white banner inside the clinic's perimeter fence: "Wichita Stands with Dr. Tiller. 35 Years of Saving Women's Lives."

For activists on both sides of the debate over legalized abortion, the criminal trial of Dr. George Tiller, which begins Monday in a Wichita courtroom, is an oddly unfulfilling culmination of a struggle that has wrenched Kansas for years. Tiller, 67, is one of a handful of doctors in the country who terminate late-term pregnancies and has virtually become public enemy No. 1 to those who oppose abortion.

Dr. George Tiller, the Kansas doctor who has become a national symbol of the struggle over legalized abortion, unexpectedly testified in his defense Wednesday during the criminal trial that abortion opponents are following with passionate interest. Tiller, one of the few doctors in the country who perform abortions in the last trimester of pregnancy, has been targeted for years by abortion foes who would like to see him in prison and his clinic shut down.

In a trial watched closely by activists on both sides of the abortion debate, Dr. George Tiller, the Kansas physician accused of performing illegal late-term abortions, was found not guilty Friday. The jury of three men and three women deliberated for less than an hour. Tiller has been targeted by antiabortion politicians, legal officials and activists for years, but this was the first time he faced a jury.

The assassination of Dr. George Tiller, long targeted by extremists because he performed late-term abortions, is a reminder that fringe adherents of the "pro-life" movement are willing to desecrate the very value they claim to champion. But it distorts reality to insinuate that millions of Americans who oppose abortion condone such tactics. Tiller's killing shouldn't be exploited by activists on either side to score political points.

The 51-year-old man held on suspicion of killing prominent abortion provider Dr. George Tiller belonged to anti-government militia groups, had been convicted of carrying explosives in his car and was outraged by the doctor's speedy acquittal on abortion-related charges, authorities and antiabortion activists said Monday. Scott Roeder had attended a demonstration outside a Kansas City, Kan.

The man accused of killing Kansas abortion doctor George Tiller said Thursday from the county jail that he's "being treated as a criminal" even though he hasn't been convicted. In a brief telephone conversation with the Associated Press, Scott Roeder also disputed what he called "broad-brush" characterizations of him as anti-government. "I want people to stop and think.

For the last 20 years, Dr. George Tiller and I were close colleagues and friends, members of a too-small community of physicians who say aloud that we perform abortions. Now he is gone, and I am furious. But I refuse to let my anger become despair: We must turn George's terrifying end into the beginning of a new era when doctors can save lives without risking their own.

Re "Abortion doctor's trial to start," March 15 The Times' article on the upcoming trial of Kansas abortion provider George Tiller certainly conveyed the animosity that abortion opponents feel toward his work, but I am not sure it captured fully the degree to which abortion-rights supporters, such as myself, hold him in esteem. To many progressive Americans, George Tiller is a genuine hero who ranks alongside Susan B. Anthony and Martin Luther King Jr. in the pantheon of defenders of human liberty.