[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 156 (2010), Part 7]
[Senate]
[Pages 9721-9722]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              VALUING LIFE

  Mr. REID. Madam President, a community in Kansas still shakes 1 year 
after the brazen murder of one of its own. This weekend will mark the 
first anniversary of Dr. George Tiller's death. He was gunned down in 
front of his Wichita church the day before the last Memorial Day.
  Dr. Tiller was killed at point-blank range at his place of worship in 
the middle of a Sunday morning, while his wife sang in the church choir 
just a few yards away.
  He was murdered by an unrepentant assassin who took his life in the 
name

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of protecting life. It was an indefensible crime and an 
incomprehensible excuse.
  Just as despicable as Dr. Tiller's death was the fact that his murder 
wasn't an isolated incident. It wasn't even the first time someone 
tried to kill him. His clinic was bombed in 1985. He was shot twice in 
1993. Over the next 16 years, 7 clinic workers would be killed before 
Dr. Tiller would become the eighth murder victim. More than 6,000 other 
acts of violence have been launched at clinics and their workers--
bombings, arsons, assaults, and other attacks. One of the things they 
do is go into one of these clinics and throw acid all over and make the 
building not habitable.
  The last doctor killed before Dr. Tiller was a husband and father 
from Buffalo named Barnett Slepian. He was an OB/GYN, who also helped 
poor women access safe, legal abortions. Because of that, he was 
murdered in his home, in his kitchen--standing in his kitchen, he was 
shot through the window with a high-powered rifle and murdered. I 
didn't personally know Dr. Slepian, but I knew his niece. She came from 
Reno, NV, and she once worked in my office. She worked as a legislative 
assistant and a speechwriter. Her name is Amanda Robb. She is now an 
accomplished writer living in the Presiding Officer's State of New 
York. As life is so unpredictable and so unusual, I worked on the 
speech last night, and to the person helping me, Stephen Krupin, I 
said, ``We are going to talk about Dr. Slepian, whose niece worked for 
me. And she is here in Washington today--just out of nowhere. I have a 
gathering every Thursday morning, and I will be darned, Amanda Robb 
showed up, which is so unusual. I was so glad to see her. She was a 
great personality and someone I will always remember having worked for 
me.
  The tragedy of Dr. Tiller's death and of Dr. Slepian's death--and of 
every atrocity like it--is independent of the issue of abortion. It is 
not about the legality of abortion or the funding of it. These are 
emotional debates, and ones on which people of good faith can disagree.
  What so shook that Kansas town was rather an act of terrorism. What 
reverberated out to our borders and coasts from the center of our 
country was the violation of our founding principle--that we are a 
nation of laws, not of men.
  Everyone in America has the right to disagree with its laws. Everyone 
has the right to dispute and protest its laws. But no American has a 
right to disobey the laws.
  Not all of us would choose Dr. Tiller's profession or seek his 
services or agree with his philosophy or that of Dr. Slepian, but it is 
the responsibility of every American to respect another's right to 
practice his profession legally.
  Those who believe in the sanctity of life cannot be selective. We 
must value every life--not just those with which we agree.

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