Rae v/s Wade

George Tiller, who was murdered in his church Sunday, had aborted tens of thousands of fetuses since the 1970s and believed in what he was doing.

"There was something unique about Dr. Tiller," said Nancy Northup, president of the Center for Reproductive Rights in New York.

"He was willing to be a very public, forthright and brave defender of women's right to abortion," Northrup said. "He put himself out front as a defender of women's reproductive health care."

Tiller began performing abortions in 1973, the year the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that women had a constitutional right to an abortion.

His Women's Health Care Services in Wichita is one of three clinics in the nation that perform abortions after the point when a fetus is generally considered able to survive outside the womb.

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Such late-term abortions are very controversial among opponents of abortion.

Operation Rescue, a group that led many protests against Tiller's clinic, referred to Tiller as a "monster" on its website. The group also released a statement condemning the murder as a "cowardly act."

"Operation Rescue has worked for years through peaceful, legal means and through the proper channels to see him brought to justice," said Troy Newman, president of the Kansas-based group.

Tiller is the eighth person killed in anti-abortion violence since 1993, when David Gunn was shot to death in Pensacola, Fla.

His practice made him a focal point in the political struggle over abortion, and his hometown became ground zero for anti-abortion activists. In 1993, Tiller was shot in both arms by an anti-abortion activist. His clinic was bombed in 1985, and last month, he asked the FBI to look into vandalism at his clinic.

In March, he was acquitted of charges he had performed late abortions in violation of Kansas law.

The Kansas Attorney General's office said that in some cases, he failed to get the opinion of an independent doctor that a woman would suffer "substantial and irreversible" harm to a "major bodily function" if she didn't get a late-term abortion. That's the standard required for the procedure in Kansas.

His clinic was guarded, and he often traveled with a bodyguard.

Northrup said his death underscores the difficulty and danger providers of abortion services live with.

"There is so little support in the public for abortion providers — they are targeted, picketed, they live under unbelievable stress," she said.

Campaign-finance records show Tiller was prolific in political donations. He has given more than $166,000 in contributions over the years, mostly to Democratic state and national committees, candidates and liberal groups. TheTopeka Capital-Journal said Tiller's ProKanDo was the most generous PAC in Kansas races in 2002, giving more than $271,000 to candidates, party committees and other PACs. In 2003 and 2004, ProKanDo doled out $90,000.

The PAC raised $650,000 in the 2005-2006 election cycle, including $120,000 from Tiller, according to campaign-finance records.

Former governor Kathleen Sebelius, President Obama's secretary for Health and Human Services, received more than $35,000 from Tiller and his clinic for herself or her political action committee. Sebelius is a supporter of abortion rights.

The Rev. Flip Benham, director of Operation Save America, which calls itself the national successor to Operation Rescue, said he had been confronting Tiller over abortion since meeting him in 1991 during their "Summer of Mercy" protests outside Tiller's clinic.

"He has shed the blood of countless thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of little baby boys and girls and burned them up in his on-premises incinerator," Benham, a Concord, N.C., preacher, said. "Now this thing has come home to him."