Scott Roeder Murdered George Tiller. Is It His Right to Threaten Another Abortion Provider?
In 2010, Scott Roeder was sentenced to 50 years in prison for the 2009 murder of Kansas abortion provider George Tiller. But that doesn’t mean he’s given up his hobby of threatening abortion providers. Roeder is now in a court battle with the Kansas Department of Corrections, arguing that they violated his freedom of speech rights when they disciplined him for making threats against Julie Burkhart, the woman who reopened an abortion clinic in the Wichita location where Tiller’s clinic used to be. Roeder got “45 days in disciplinary segregation with no outside communication,” reports the Topeka Capital-Journal, for comments he made during a phone call with David Leach of the radical anti-choice group Army of God.
Leach posted a recording of the phone interview on YouTube in 2013, which RH Reality Check reported on at the time. Here’s Roeder:
It is a little bit death-defying for someone to walk back in there… and reopen a murder mill where a man was stopped. It’s almost like putting a target on your back, saying, “Well, let’s see if you can shoot ME!” I have to go back to what Pastor Mike Bray said: If 100 abortionists were shot, they would probably go out of business. I think eight have been shot, so we’ve got 92 to go. Maybe she’ll be number nine. I don’t know, but she’s kind of painting a target on her.
More: Scott Roeder Murdered George Tiller. Is It His Right to Threaten Another Abortion Provider?