Today I have a guest post about Dr. Tiller’s death at the hands of anti-abortion activists. The writer has asked to remain anonymous, so let’s just call her Friend:

Over the past month I have been doing some soul searching about what it means to be pro-choice in America today. The death of Dr. Tiller has shaken our community to its core and has really made me think about our movement. I am so proud to call myself pro-choice for so many reasons. I believe it is every woman’s fundamental right to make her own decisions about her body and when and whether to have children. But more than that I do not feel that it is my right or responsibility to judge or question another person on their morals or beliefs because everyone’s are different. I have a hard time grasping the fact that the radical Christian right can scream that government is not to intrude into their lives when it comes to guns, taxes, or other things that they deem as “big government,” but it is ok for these same people to demand that the government gets involved in making sure that a woman can’t get her birth control pills, or that we cannot teach comprehensive sex education in our schools, or that GLBTQ couples do not have the same rights as I do,  or that women cannot take care of their bodies in the way that works best for them.

Over the past month I have become outraged that I live in America, the greatest country in the world, and as a woman somehow my health care is not as important as a man’s. I am outraged because the freedom that I as a woman of this great country am supposed to have is contingent upon what politicians and the far Christian right deem morally appropriate for me to have. I am tired of reproductive rights being swept under the table as an issue that is too hot to handle. I am tired of letting the anti-choice extremists dictate to me what is acceptable. I am tired of sitting by while amazing people like Dr. George Tiller are killed for making the tough choices and doing what is right for our movement and for women.

So that brings me to the reason I write all of this. Dr. Tiller was shot and killed on May 31, 2009 coming out of his church in Wichita , Kansas . He was shot by an anti-choice extremist. Dr. Tiller performed the hardest and most rare type of abortion which is known as late term abortion, and now women who are the most in need of his services will have no place to go. Many times he would generously donate his services to those who could not afford them. If you have read any of the coverage from the past month on his death you may have come across the pages and pages of stories that I read telling how women who were so desperate and had no place to go turned to Dr. Tiller and his amazing staff for help. Many of these women and men spoke of heartbreaking attempts to conceive a planned child and then something went terribly wrong with the pregnancy and they had no other choice but to terminate. There were stories of Dr. Tiller’s compassion for all of his patients and how he treated every woman and family he saw with incredible respect and decency. This was not a case of “abortion on demand” as the anti-choice groups like to say, this was a case of compassionate care when it was most needed. Because of Dr. Tiller’s absence, women who would have sought out his care from all over our country will have no place to turn and once again will have their choices taken away from them. Where do the women who had appointments with Dr. Tiller the week after he was brutally murdered turn now? Where do the rural women who have no access to services turn? Where do the woman whose pregnancy goes wrong and desperately need help turn? These are all questions that women in this country will be faced with. And they will be faced with these questions because a man who was anti-choice wanted to force his morals and beliefs on others.

So now I ask you the same question I asked myself while thinking about all of this, how am I going to take Dr. Tiller’s death and do something positive about it? How am I going to make a difference in a movement I care so deeply about? Here is what I came up with…I am going to get involved. I am going to join women’s rights groups like NOW and Planned Parenthood and make sure that my voice is heard and that I do not just think about these feelings – that I take action about these feelings because sitting by and letting things happen is just not acceptable anymore.