Speaking out on abortion doctor's murder

Probably the most extreme comment I’ve read thus far is the one reportedly made by the Rev. Wiley Drake, a Southern Baptist pastor in Buena Park, Calif.

“I’m glad George Tiller is dead,” Drake was quoted in an Associated Baptist Press story today.

According to the story, Drake, a former Southern Baptist Convention second vice president,  made the comments Monday on his Crusade Radio broadcast.

“There may be a lot who would say,  ‘Oh that is mean. You shouldn’t be that way,” Drake said. “Well, no, it’s an answer to prayer.”

Tiller, who attended Reformation Lutheran Church in Wichita, Kan., was well-known as an abortion provider, particularly of partial-birth abortions.  

Among the leaders of faith groups and anti-abortion  organizations around the country sharing their comments is an Oklahoma Roman Catholic leader, the Most Rev. Edward Slattery, bishop of the Tulsa Diocese. Slattery, like many of the leaders, condemned Tiller’s slaying.

“Dr. Tiller was one of three doctors in America who was willing to perform late-term abortions. The news of his murder saddens all the members of the pro-life movement in America since it is just such violence that we deplore,” Slattery said.

“For this reason, I want to be among the many in the pro-life movement to publicly condemn this violent action against life,” he wrote in a prepared statement.

“Such violence does nothing to further the cause of life. Rather, it sullies our effort and allows others to dismiss us as terrorists.”

Here are a few other comments from leaders across the country:

Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberties Commission: “Murdering someone is a grotesque and bizarre way to emphasize one’s commitment to the sanctity of human life. People who truly believe in the sanctity of human life believe in the sanctity of the lives of abortion providers as well as the unborn babies who are aborted. … Clearly the killing of abortion profiders is unbiblical, unchristian and un-American. Such callous disregard for human beings brutalizes everyone.”