Associated Press:The family of slain abortion provider George Tiller said Tuesday that his Wichita clinic will be "permanently closed," effective immediately.
In a statement released by Tiller's attorneys, his family said it is ceasing operation of Women's Health Care Services Inc. and any involvement by family members in any other similar clinic.
"We are proud of the service and courage shown by our husband and father and know that women's health care needs have been met because of his dedication and service," the family said.
"This was Dr. Tiller's clinic," Dr. Warren Hern of Boulder, CO told AP. "How much can you resist this kind of violence? What doctor, what reasonable doctor would work there? Where does it stop?... I will never be safe the rest of my life. No matter what I do. Even if I close my office. They've told me, don't bother wearing a bulletproof vest, we're going to go for a head shot."
Meanwhile, the wingnuts are dancing a jig.
Randall Terry, the founder of the original Operation Rescue group, responded to news that Tiller's clinic would remain closed with, "Good riddance." He said history would remember Tiller's clinic as it remembers Auschwitz and other Nazi concentration camps.
"What set him apart is that he killed late-term babies," Terry said. "If his replacement was going to continue to kill late-term children, the protests would continue, the investigations would continue, the indictments would continue."
Current Operation Rescue president Troy Newman, who had condemned Tiller's killing as vigilantism, called the announcement "a bittersweet moment."
"Operation Rescue was just two months away from getting Tiller's medical license revoked, and that would have accomplished the same goal," Newman said in an e-mail.
For the record, they probably weren't. Radical anti-abortion groups harassed Tiller with nuisance lawsuits and complaints for years, without any success. It's hard to believe that this one was any different from any of the other failed attempts to shut him down.
In the end, there was only one way to shut down that clinic -- a bullet from a "pro-life" assassin's gun. Sometimes I wish I believed in Hell, because the irony of these "God warriors" finding themselves burning there is just so perfect.
